Tiny Victories

What do you do if Annabelle invites you to a show last minute and, oh yeah, it starts at 11pm? If you’re Swish (Other Laura), Annabelle’s producer, you think, “Ugh. A late show?” And then you immediately text back, “Count me in!” This week, Swish joins Annabelle and Laura to recount what it was like to attend her first in-person live show since the Before Time, and how they wound up in an Old World salon taking pics like these:

House is in the House! For the first time in the show’s history, Annabelle and Laura recorded face to face. In this week’s episode, we hear from two listeners who called into the Tiny Victory Hotline. Cindy tells us about her favorite errand hang, and Joanne shares a poignant story about a secret visit to the dentist her mother shared with her. The inspiration for Joanne’s call was our episode on family secrets.

It’s estimated that Jeff Bezos earns $13 million an hour, whereas the the average Amazon warehouse worker earns $15 an hour…and sometimes has to pee in a cup. Is it any wonder workers are quitting? This week, Annabelle pays tribute to everyone taking part in what’s being described as ‘The Big Quit’ as people take stock of what’s important in their lives. Plus, why paying your server with cocaine is wrong.

Kristen inspired this week’s topic, which she learned about in an ice-breaking exercise. It’s called “Oys & Joys”. Plus, Annabelle is inspired to share an oy and joy-inspiring time in her life when she was the belle of the Miami Jewish Home for the Aged, where her dad ran a very unkosher “bacon hustle”.

Description: This week’s topic was inspired by tweets posted by Cindy Wang Brandt and Annika Hansteen-Izora. They are fans of “The Errand Hang”, and so is Laura House, who has been doing it for years. She and Annabelle get into the psychology of why errand hangs are so fun, and we hear from House’s bff Lovelys.

A little over a year ago, a herd of 15 Wild Asian elephants left their home in China’s Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve and began heading north. They’ve since walked through, villages, small towns, farms and are now approaching a city of 8.5 million people. Annabelle and Laura marvel at how nature is adapting to climate change, including the song Zebra Finches sing to their unhatched eggs.

This week, we return again to stories of our post-quarantine stumbles. Just one week after Annabelle spoke about missing two flights in two days, Tiny Victories producer Swish almost followed in Annabelle’s footsteps. The upshot is that we’re all emerging from this pandemic haze together, so why not laugh at our missteps and general unease interacting with the world beyond our homes.

This week, we hear from Liz Brown, the grand niece of William Andrew Clark Jr. Clark was one of the richest men in 1920s Hollywood and the founder of the LA Philharmonic. Uncle Will also had a secret male lover. It’s this man, Harrison Post, who is the the subject of Liz’s book Twilight Man. Liz inspires Laura and Annabelle to talk about the secrets they unearthed about their mothers.

In this week’s episode, Mike from Four Seasons Total Landscaping (yes, that FSTL), made listener Tara’s day, and his Philly accent takes Annabelle back to when she lived in Delaware as a kid. Plus, the benefits of being in a text chain with longtime friends...and famous strangers.