Episode 9: Dads Part 2

In this episode, we continue the conversation on "Dads" that we started in Part 1. In the first part, Doug talked a bit about his biological dad and then shifted toward sharing his experience with "Dad Roland," the man who married his mom, raised him as his own, and eventually became the biological father of Vanessa--as well as Vanessa and Doug's younger brother rich.

This time, we pass the mic to Vanessa and let her share her unique experiences with our Dad. During the conversation, we discover how--in addition to some of the "toxic mom" issues we discussed in Episode 3--one very formative event in their shared childhood directly resulted the most significant traumas they each carry today. 

We make no apologies if our Dad comes out of this episode sounding like a hero, because he 100% is. 

[TRIGGER WARNINGS: Mass Incarceration, Sexual abuse, Rape, Depression, Suicide, Negative experiences in Mental Health facilities, Repressed memories, False memories, Child abuse, Toxic moms, Police-related trauma, and dealing with guilt]

Show Notes

Leading into the conversation, Doug mentions that he'd just watched a documentary Vanessa had also recently seen: 13th, a film from Ava DuVernay. Doug also mentions a book, The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander--who is one of the commentators in the documentary.

This week, Doug is once again drinking La Guadalupe, Honduras - Single Origin (Direct Trade), Light Roast, from Blk & Bold.

Vanessa and Doug briefly discuss the movie/TV rating project Doug began in April, tabulating his rankings and creating visuals with R Programming. Just for fun, here's his rating (Scale 0 - 10) for each episode of Parks and Recreation--which he just finished watching. The bars represent Doug's ratings and the black line represents the average iMDb rating...

And here are the ratings of all the movies he's watched so far...

We'll stop there, but there'll probably be more updates on this in the future. LOL.

Instead of a quiz this week, Vanessa and Doug decided to do an online "Mad Libs." For the theme, we chose Princess Bride. Here's what we came up with:

Return to a time when men were Paperclips and swamps were Litterboxes. Brauny Swamps, that is. Full of lightning-Boobs and Radishes of Unusual Sacramento. Lagoons were inhabited by Farting eels. And the most Soft woman in the world was named... Hans Bronson? Well, it`s a bent Bunny tale. Complete with all the fencing, Juxtoposing, escapes, and Pillowy accents you`d expect. Including such unique folk as Miguel De La Torre, who has dreamt his whole Pizza Box of finding the 5-fingered man who Punched his father, and his Contemplative sidekick, Fezzig. And don`t forget the Crunchy miracle man, Max. Blonde Hans Bronson loves Westley, a poor Massage Therapist. But when he`s captured by Jesus Christs, she`s chosen by evil Comptroller Humperdinck to be his princess bride. Along the way, she gets Jumped by the Dread Jesus Christ Roberts, the spaniard gets his wish, and Humperdinck turns out to be a Triceratops.

This episode was recorded on July 1, 2020.