Latest / Silver FM 100.6 / Summer fun that doesn't break the budget

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Summer fun that doesn't break the budget · Silver FM 100.6

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Speaker 2: Org, you're listening to Life Kid from NPR. Hey, everybody,
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Speaker 2: it's Maryel. We're going to start today's episode at the
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Speaker 2: top of a Hill with Emma Tempest. Back when she
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Speaker 2: was a teacher, she would take her class of four
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Speaker 2: and five year olds to the park for an end
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Speaker 2: of year celebration, and.
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Speaker 3: It was at the top of this enormous hill, and
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Speaker 3: every year we'd have a rolling down the Hill competition,
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Speaker 3: and all the adults would join in because you just
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Speaker 3: have you had that commission to have fun.
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Speaker 2: The other part of that celebration was a trip to
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Speaker 2: a mini zoo.
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Speaker 3: You'd hear the children saying things like, Oh, I wonder
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Speaker 3: what that fish is thinking, and you'd be like, what,
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Speaker 3: I've never thought about that before.
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Speaker 2: That spirit of imagination and wonder. You can take that
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Speaker 2: with you anywhere, and it costs nothing. Emma is now
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Speaker 2: a positive psychology coach who helps people get unstuck through play.
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Speaker 2: We did an episode on play, what it is, why
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Speaker 2: it's good for you, and how to do more of it,
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Speaker 2: and in the process of reporting that episode, we came
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Speaker 2: up with a whole bunch of ideas for how to
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Speaker 2: play for cheap. Because you don't have to spend a
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Speaker 2: lot of money to have fun.
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Speaker 3: Don't let money or time be the thing that decides
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Speaker 3: whether or not you will have fun. You can have
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Speaker 3: fun almost in spite of those things, if you really
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Speaker 3: put your mind to it.
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Speaker 2: On this episode of Life Kit, we're gonna share those
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Speaker 2: ideas for how to have fun on a budget. Think
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Speaker 2: of these as offerings, try them out, see what you like,
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Speaker 2: and see if they spark any ideas of your own.
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Speaker 2: All right, we're breaking this episode up into categories, and
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Speaker 2: since this story started at a park, we'll begin with
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Speaker 2: the outdoors. If you want to have cheap fun outside,
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Speaker 2: public parks and beaches are your best front. You can
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Speaker 2: go there and fly a kite or ride a bike,
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Speaker 2: have a picnic. Life kit producer Margaret Serino does that
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Speaker 2: a lot in New York.
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Speaker 9: We'll get all my friends and pack up my little
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Speaker 9: hamm and pack up some snacks like strawberries and fresh
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Speaker 9: fruits and crackers, and we'll all like lay out our
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Speaker 9: blankets together and make like one giant seating area and
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Speaker 9: then just be there for literally hours and just like
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Speaker 9: we'll snack and we'll be hammocking, and we'll be talking,
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Speaker 9: and some of us will be crafting, and we'll have
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Speaker 9: our little books and it's all just like very cute
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Speaker 9: and wholesome.
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Speaker 2: Or you could get a bunch of friends together for
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Speaker 2: a field day. I'm talking about a three legged race,
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Speaker 2: egg on a spoon, water balloon toss. Use your imagination,
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Speaker 2: which also comes in handy if you want to do
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Speaker 2: some kind of park cleanup picking up trash or fallen
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Speaker 2: tree branches. It's easy to make that a game. Coat
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Speaker 2: hangers can double as pirate swords, and plastic bags can
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Speaker 2: be bandanas. Or you could get to know the creatures
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Speaker 2: and plants that live in the park.
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Speaker 9: So there's like a lot of free apps out there
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Speaker 9: that like that allow you to like unlock these sciencey
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Speaker 9: hobbies where you're just going on a walk, but you're
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Speaker 9: like looking for this specific kind of bug or this,
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Speaker 9: and then you can log it into these apps. It's
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Speaker 9: almost like a game, but it's helping them collect like
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Speaker 9: citizen science like data while you're doing it.
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Speaker 2: By the way, Life Kid has an episode on birding
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Speaker 2: and another on how to be a community scientist. Another tip,
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Speaker 2: a lot of parks will have outdoor workout equipment that
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Speaker 2: you can use for bodyweight exercises. Also, a lot of
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Speaker 2: parks offer free programming jazz music, slso lescens bingo. If
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Speaker 2: you go to the website of your local park or
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Speaker 2: parks department, they may have an events calendar. Okay, moving
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Speaker 2: beyond parks. Another outdoors idea, which is perfect for exploring
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Speaker 2: a neighborhood or a city is something called a penny date.
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Speaker 10: A penny date really kind of gets you out to
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Speaker 10: explore things without an objective.
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Speaker 2: This idea comes from Nicole Dow. She's a freelance writer
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Speaker 2: who wrote a piece about how to have cheap fun
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Speaker 2: for a personal finance website called The Penny Hoarder. Here's
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Speaker 2: how penny date works. You take a penny or any
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Speaker 2: other coin really, and pick a direction for heads and tails.
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Speaker 10: Will be left, tails will be right, or vice versa,
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Speaker 10: and then you flip the coin see what direction it
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Speaker 10: takes you, and that's where you go.
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Speaker 2: And you stop when you see something interesting. Maybe you
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Speaker 2: land in front of a building that has really cool
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Speaker 2: architecture and you do an online search about its history.
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Speaker 2: Another idea for Nicole go to the farmer's market. Make
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Speaker 2: a morning of it. You don't have to buy anything.
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Speaker 10: A lot of times farmers markets will offer not just
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Speaker 10: vendors selling things, but they'll have local people singing or
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Speaker 10: playing an instrument. And that's a great form of free entertainment.
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Speaker 10: And there's always free samples that from vendors.
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Speaker 2: Oh and how about a parade. Any of those going
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Speaker 2: on in your city or town could be fun, lots
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Speaker 2: of merriment. Okay, our next category is arts and crafts.
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Speaker 2: If your idea of play is being creative and making things,
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Speaker 2: the classic move is to get a coloring book and crayons,
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Speaker 2: or a paint by number set, or you could get
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Speaker 2: a little more alive. Our producer Margaret likes to host
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Speaker 2: art nights with friends at her apartment. She'll get some
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Speaker 2: cheap colorful clay at the craft store and they'll make
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Speaker 2: mini sculptures or jewelry while watching a movie.
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Speaker 9: Or like a lot of the times will like just
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Speaker 9: get paper and each like have a little canvas and
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Speaker 9: just paint for five minutes and then swap. And that's
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Speaker 9: always really fun because like the art is really wacky
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Speaker 9: and weird.
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Speaker 2: Sometimes look at each other prompts they have to stick to,
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Speaker 2: like a recent one with secrets.
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Speaker 9: And we all had to like make our art secret
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Speaker 9: themes or like something you're not supposed to know.
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Speaker 2: Like if you'd rather go see or hear some art,
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Speaker 2: look at the events calendars for your local coffee shops
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Speaker 2: and bars and restaurants. They could be hosting open mic
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Speaker 2: nights or poetry slams. Janet Ujung Lee is a producer
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Speaker 2: on NPR's Education Desk, and sometimes she goes to mystery
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Speaker 2: movie screenings at this local feeder on Wednesday nights.
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Speaker 9: How it works is that you don't know what movie
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Speaker 9: you're gonna be watching until you get there.
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Speaker 11: But it's entirely free. So if I wanted to grab
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Speaker 11: a buy it, or afterwards, like I felt less skuilty
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Speaker 11: about it.
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Speaker 2: They turned out to be filmed she wouldn't have seen otherwise.
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Speaker 2: And if you don't have this option in your city,
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Speaker 2: you can do it with friends at your house. One
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Speaker 2: of you picks the movie and then surprises the rest
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Speaker 2: of the group. Another tip from Janet. A lot of
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Speaker 2: museums are free one day a week, and your local
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Speaker 2: library might also offer free museum passes too, you just
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Speaker 2: have to reserve them ahead of time. Okay. Our next
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Speaker 2: category is food. One idea is to recreate a family recipe.
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Speaker 2: Ask your mom for her mom's famous meatloaf recipe, or
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Speaker 2: look online for a meal that your ancestors might have eaten.
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Speaker 2: This is a beautiful practice on your own or with
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Speaker 2: a group, and when you're doing this, don't focus on
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Speaker 2: perfection or an exact recreation. Here's what chef Judy Kala
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Speaker 2: had to say about that in Another Life Kid episode.
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Speaker 12: Comparison is like a killer. When you compare things to
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Speaker 12: other people, you lose your confidence. Whatever it might be.
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Speaker 12: It's not your mom's or your grandmother's. It's your own
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Speaker 12: cook a lot, and I cannot cook my mom's quality
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Speaker 12: food ever, never, because everybody has their own touch.
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Speaker 2: Now, if you don't feel like making your food, how
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Speaker 2: about a food challenge or a taste test. Life Kit
9:15
Speaker 2: producer Sylvie Douglas likes to do those with her partner.
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Speaker 11: And last time we were in Canada, someone told us
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Speaker 11: that Canadian chocolate is much chocolate you're tasting, So we
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Speaker 11: got some kit kats to do a taste test with.
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Speaker 2: They like the Canadian ones better. You can do this
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Speaker 2: with different brands of vanilla ice cream, or.
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Speaker 11: You could go to your local bodega and like try
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Speaker 11: a bunch of different brands of like the same flavor chip.
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Speaker 2: Sky's the limit here, all right. Our last category is
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Speaker 2: all the random stuff that didn't fit in before. First
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Speaker 2: off themed hangouts. Margaret likes to do these. You pick
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Speaker 2: a theme, invite people over.
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Speaker 9: Okay, tonight is the French night, so we'll watch Ameilei
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Speaker 9: and make French on you and that's our night.
10:01
Speaker 2: Or Supervising editor Megan Kane held a rom com movie
10:04
Speaker 2: marathon at her house. It was a full day event
10:07
Speaker 2: with a rundown and a photoshopped invitation and lots of pizza.
10:11
Speaker 2: On the list my best Friend's Wedding, Ten Things I
10:14
Speaker 2: Hate About You, and Moonstruck, among others. You can also
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Speaker 2: make up games with your friends. One of my favorite
10:20
Speaker 2: examples of this is on the show New Girl. They
10:22
Speaker 2: play this game called True American. It seems like the
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Speaker 2: rules are always changing.
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Speaker 4: So it's fifty percent drinking games, fifty life sized candy lank.
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Speaker 8: Well, it's more like seventy five drinking twenty candy Land.
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Speaker 13: And by the way, the floor is molting lamb. But
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Speaker 13: it's actually ninety percent drinking.
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Speaker 8: And then it's got a loose Candyland like structure to it.
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Speaker 10: Well it stakes.
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Speaker 2: Or you can play those kind of road trip games,
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Speaker 2: you know, the ones you get into on a long
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Speaker 2: car ride or while you're on a hike. Darien Woods
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Speaker 2: is a host at The Indicator from Planet Money, and
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Speaker 2: he shared a game his friend's like. I'm going to
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Speaker 2: simplify it slightly. Basically, the group picks a category like,
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Speaker 2: let's say animals and then you pick an animal in
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Speaker 2: this case and decide how you would rate that particular
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Speaker 2: animal one to ten.
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Speaker 14: Tell me what the animal is, but don't tell me
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Speaker 14: the number, and I'll try to guess.
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Speaker 2: Crocodile.
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Speaker 14: Hmmm, you're either scared of crocodiles or find them incredibly
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Speaker 14: cute and impressive.
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Speaker 2: I'm going to guess eight out of ten.
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Speaker 14: Four, Okay, you're slightly aversed.
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Speaker 2: Them slightly first of them. They scare me for sure,
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Speaker 2: because obviously, but I do think they're really fierce, you know,
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Speaker 2: so I have to give them some credit. But I
11:30
Speaker 2: would not want to be a round one.
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Speaker 8: So it's going to be.
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Speaker 2: It's gonna be yeah, respect but actually respect.
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Speaker 14: Yeah, exactly makes a lot of sense.
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Speaker 2: Very good. That's the game. The game here really is
11:41
Speaker 2: do your friends know how you think? You can also
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Speaker 2: do this with cities or movies or songs or whatever
11:48
Speaker 2: some other cheap fun ideas from Nicole Dale, the freelance writer.
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Speaker 2: Do a house or apartment swap with a friend, maybe
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Speaker 2: one who lives in your city but a different neighborhood.
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Speaker 10: You can get a feel of what they have, like
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Speaker 10: if they have a pool, you can take a dip
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Speaker 10: in their pool or check out their DVD collection just
12:05
Speaker 10: kind of enjoy new surroundings. That's a low cost alternative
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Speaker 10: to taking a full fledged vacation.
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Speaker 2: Okay, I really need to get some friends with pools. Also,
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Speaker 2: if they happen to have a gorgeous sibling who stops
12:19
Speaker 2: buy the house on a whim and ends up being
12:21
Speaker 2: the love of your life, that is a bonus. You
12:24
Speaker 2: could also go to an open house, even if you're
12:27
Speaker 2: not in the market.
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Speaker 10: It's a good chance to kind of see what's going
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Speaker 10: on with like the latest home decor. You know, sometimes
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Speaker 10: they have fresh bake cookies. You can say, Okay, we're
12:36
Speaker 10: going to like make up a backstory about you know,
12:39
Speaker 10: who you are and why you're out here looking for
12:42
Speaker 10: a home.
12:44
Speaker 2: More ideas from our grab bag. You could go to
12:47
Speaker 2: the mall or a vintage store with a friend, try
12:50
Speaker 2: on silly or super formal outfits. Do a science experiment
12:54
Speaker 2: at home, like, for example, make a baking soda and
12:57
Speaker 2: vinegar volcano, build a time capsule, write your future self
13:01
Speaker 2: a letter and give it to a friend for safekeeping.
13:04
Speaker 2: And here's one from our colleague Lauren Gonzalez. If you
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Speaker 2: have a coffee shop or a bookstore nearby, especially one
13:10
Speaker 2: that's just starting out. Ask them if they'll let you
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Speaker 2: host a book club or a writer's group once a week,
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Speaker 2: because you know, sometimes you have to make your own fun.
13:21
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Speaker 2: app right now. This episode of Life Kit was produced
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Speaker 2: by Thomas lu Our digital editor is Malica garib and
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Speaker 2: our visuals editor is c. J. Riklon. Megan Kin is
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Speaker 2: our senior supervising editor, and Lauren Gonzalez is our executive producer.
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Speaker 2: Our production team also includes Andy Tagle, Claire, Marie Schneider,
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Speaker 2: Margaret Serino, and Sylvie Douglas. Engineering support comes from Jimmy
14:07
Speaker 2: Keeley and Sina Lefredo. I'm Mariel Sagata. Thanks for listening.
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