Jennifer Weiner, THE BIGFOOT QUEEN
[0:04]Welcome to Moms Don't Have Time to Be Books with Zippy.
[0:07]I'm the host, Zippy Owens.
[0:09]I am an author, my latest is blank, pub date March 1st, a novel.
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[0:15]A publisher, a bookstore owner, and so much more.
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[0:27]Go to Zippy Owens.com to learn more and follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens.
[0:33]Jennifer Weiner is the author of The Big Fit Green, The Little List Big Fit, Book Three.
[0:38]Jennifer is the number one New York Times bestselling author of 21 books,
[0:42]including The Summer Place, That Summer, Big Summer, Mrs. Everything, in her shoes,
[0:47]Good and Bad, The Breakaway, and the More in Essays, Hungry Heart, and The Series for Children,
[0:52]The Little List Big Fit. She has appeared on many national television programs,
[0:56]including today and Good Morning America, and her work has been published in the Wall Street Journal
[1:00]and The New York Times, among other newspapers and magazines.
[1:03]Jennifer lives with her family in Philadelphia.
[1:05]Visit her online at JenniferWeiner.com.
[1:08]Welcome, Jennifer. Thanks for coming back on mom's time to read books.
[1:11]This time to discuss The Big Fit Queen. Congrats.
[1:15]Thank you. I'm so glad to be here.
[1:17]I have to say I started reading this to my little guy one night before bed,
[1:22]and then I was like, maybe I should stop.
[1:25]It's like this person dies, and this person, this person's scary, and this person,
[1:30]and I loved it. It was so cool. And I was like, what are all of the hidden messages?
[1:34]What are we taking away from this? But at the end, I was like, okay, just you go to bed now,
[1:38]that you talk about, like, you know, people with extra eyes and hands, and he's like sitting there on track.
[1:45]I remember, so way, way back many, many years ago, when I was in college, the spring semester
[1:51]of my senior year, I took children's literature. Because of course I did. I was graduating in 10
[1:57]minutes. I had an internship at the Village Voice. I was in New York three days to week.
[2:01]I'm like, this will be the easiest class in the world. It was so dark. I mean,
[2:07]we had tons of reading, and the reading was fascinating, but I will never forget
[2:11]my professor's name was Yulee Knoplmacher, which with a name like that, what are you going to do?
[2:17]But teach children's literature. But, you know, we read Bruno Betelheim's The Uses of
[2:23]Enchantment. And we talked a lot about how stories are where kids go to process the darkness,
[2:31]and to sort of deal with the fact that they're so little in their lives, they can control.
[2:35]I mean, what is scarier than being a kid, you know, when your parents can, like, come home and be
[2:41]like, we're moving across the country, new school, new friends, or, you know, all of the things
[2:46]that can happen to kids. Your best friend moves away, your grandmother dies, you know, your pet dies.
[2:53]Death happens, although very few people with extra eyes and extra hands that I've seen.
[2:59]Good. I'll let you never know. My daughter has gotten in the habit now of being able to like
[3:06]put myself in her shoes, you know, so she'll say things like, you know, when I'll be like,
[3:10]it's time to go to school or like, you have to stop this right now. And she'll be like,
[3:13]but mom, how would you like it if you were reading one of your really good books? And then
[3:16]all of a sudden I said, I'm like, no, no, no, time for empathy. But that's what you're just to get
[3:20]like, it's like, she does what exactly what you're saying is like, let me change the snare
[3:25]about the little bit. And like, how would you like to be as out of control as you make me feel
[3:29]as a parent? So yeah, getting a dose of that. Yeah, no, I think telling stories is how kids kind of,
[3:36]you know, it's how they learn to deal with all the things in their lives that can't control.
[3:41]And I think it's like, you know, storytelling is an important adult skill. Yes, 100%.
[3:47]So tell listeners about the Bigfoot queen. Okay, so the Bigfoot queen is the third book in my
[3:53]little as big foot trilogy. I finally finally finished and it's the story of these two girls named
[4:01]Alice and Millie. And Alice lives in New York City. She's very wealthy and every year her parents
[4:09]move her to her different school. And she has no friends and she's bigger and she's got this crazy
[4:16]main of curly hair. And she's got this kind of, you know, she's never really had friends. Nobody
[4:21]really gets her. She's very lonely. And then she goes to this boarding school in upstate New York,
[4:28]the experimental center for love and learning, which I took sort of all of the collade from
[4:35]my kids' progressive schools that I haven't drunk yet. And I put it all there. So she goes to
[4:41]school and she meets this girl named Millie, who like, you know, she thinks Millie lives in town
[4:46]nearby and Millie sort of shows up at night kind of popping out of nowhere mysteriously. And it turns
[4:53]out that Millie is not entirely human. And she is a Bigfoot, although they don't call themselves
[5:00]Bigfoot's and they think that's a slur and that's really a problematic term for them. But Millie
[5:07]is fascinated with humans. And she's fascinated with Alice. And she just wants to know kind of
[5:13]everything. I mean, she's got this sort of aerial vibe. She wants to be part of her world. And the two
[5:18]of them become friends. And then there's this other kid named Jeremy who is like this Bigfoot hunter
[5:25]who believes that they're, you know, Bigfoot's are real and they live in the forest and he's
[5:29]going to find them. And he's going to finally show his family and his brothers that he's worth
[5:34]something. So that is book one. And then book two. So book one is called the little
[5:41]Bigfoot. Book two is called Little Bigfoot Big City, where Alice and Millie go to New York and they
[5:46]have this big adventure. And Jeremy is still hot on their trail and we start learning more about
[5:51]the mystery of Bigfoot's and why they are hiding. And then in the Bigfoot Queen, we get our
[5:58]resolution. We get our happy ending where the piece is all come together and the mysteries are
[6:05]all revealed and everybody sort of gets to be where they're supposed to be. And it was always
[6:10]intended to be a trilogy. Always intended to be a trilogy. Yeah. Where did this whole thing
[6:16]come from? And in a trilogy, how do you even figure out what to put in which book? Like, how does
[6:20]that work? Yeah. I mean, okay. So where it came from was my daughter Phoebe who is now 16.
[6:28]Oh, God. When she was like seven or eight, she was fascinated by this TV show on the learning
[6:34]channel called Finding Bigfoot. And we would watch episodes and I would sort of come in at the
[6:39]end of the day like did they find Bigfoot yet. And she's like, they have not found it. But I'm like,
[6:42]I know they didn't find Bigfoot. And you know how I know they didn't find Bigfoot. There are six more
[6:47]shows this season. And they can't have found him yet. So Phoebe was fascinated by Bigfoot. And we
[6:54]started talking about them Phoebe and my older daughter and sort of how they would interact
[7:02]with the human world. Like, if they existed, how would it be? And we came up with this idea that
[7:09]there'd be sort of like a convention every year, like the annual Bigfoot convention where they
[7:14]would all get together. And there'd be like line dancing and Zumba and book clubs and, you know,
[7:21]lunches and all this stuff. And we just had this whole conversation, many conversations really
[7:26]about like what they would do, how they would be. Would they be online? Would they have like Etsy shops
[7:32]and sell their stuff? And that's where it came from. And I pitched it. I talked to my agent about it.
[7:41]We had some meetings with different publishers. And I guess in terms of the trilogy. So grown-up
[7:48]books are in the neighborhood of 100,000 words. When you're writing for middle grade,
[7:54]that's more like 60,000 words. And I'm like, oh man, I got too much story. Like, it's just,
[7:59]it's not gonna fit. And so I sort of outlined everything I wanted to do and just figured out like,
[8:06]okay, so book one is where it's, we established the mystery, we established the characters.
[8:12]Book two is kind of a caper. We send them on this like mad cow at the adventure to New York.
[8:18]And then book three is, everyone's grown up a little bit. It can be a little, a little darker,
[8:25]a little more serious. And then we just sort of have our resolution. And I don't know. I mean,
[8:31]maybe I just read so much middle grade stuff that the dividing it into chunks and the plotting
[8:39]kind of felt not easy, but kind of intuitive, I guess. It sort of, it broke naturally,
[8:45]the beats of the story sort of fell into place pretty naturally.
[8:48]So in this book, you have a corporation, a mysterious corporation moved to a dying town
[8:56]and where there's this inkeeper and her daughter who has such a sad backstory also. And
[9:01]she's, you know, working for no allowance and has an old phone, which is like, you know,
[9:05]the most horrible thing that happened to her despite the rest. And, you know, you start off with
[9:11]this concept of dirty money. And what does it mean if someone comes to town and everybody,
[9:16]you know, the town is effectively helped, but by what? And is that okay?
[9:21]Is this some sort of, does this have to do with capitalism and some sort of corporation? Or
[9:27]where did this come from for you? Are you making a statement about Google or like what is going on
[9:32]here? I think, yes, this book is, is a still parable about late state, the dangers of late
[9:39]state capitalism. I guess I, you know, people are always like, you know, what is the message
[9:45]of this book? What message are you trying to send? And really like, I'm not like a message
[9:49]writer. Like I do not ever want to feel like my books are a polemic and it's reading them
[9:56]is basically listening to me stand on a soapbox for a couple of hours.
[10:00]like yell at you about what I believe.
[10:01]But in a world where kids are trained
[10:06]to always want the newest, the latest, the fastest,
[10:11]the best, that does come at a cost.
[10:15]And I guess I wanted,
[10:18]I wanted readers to think about like, okay,
[10:22]so this big corporation comes to town,
[10:24]they've got tons of money,
[10:25]and suddenly this dying town has been revitalized.
[10:29]And there's an Indian restaurant,
[10:31]and a French bistro, and the downtown is pristine
[10:35]and beautiful, but there's this giant set of buildings
[10:40]with razor wire and armed guards all around them,
[10:44]and people are hearing strange noises in the night.
[10:47]So yeah, I mean, I guess I did maybe want kids
[10:50]to think a little bit about like, okay,
[10:52]what does it mean when I chuck my iPhone 11
[10:56]because I gotta have the iPhone 14?
[10:59]You know, someone always pays, I guess, is the lesson
[11:03]and the message if there is one.
[11:05]And I guess I want, you know,
[11:07]that this was all like, it was a three-book plot
[11:10]to get it out of buying my kids' new phones.
[11:16]Not really.
[11:19]Oh my gosh.
[11:20]I mean, well, I love that you're like,
[11:21]I don't want to be somebody who stands in my soapbox,
[11:23]and yet you have an opinion column in the New York Times.
[11:25]So, you know, every once in a while,
[11:28]you've got my kids are so freaking mortified.
[11:31]Every time I have a piece of time.
[11:33]Oh, stop.
[11:34]Come on.
[11:35]They must be proud of you.
[11:36]I think maybe they are a little bit,
[11:39]but it's funny when the second book in the trilogy came out,
[11:43]I did a reading at my older daughter's school
[11:46]and she came home and she was so mad at me.
[11:48]She's like, mom, there are posters in my school
[11:51]with your face on it and your name,
[11:52]and I'm like, dude, what is the problem?
[11:54]Like, I'm raising money for scholarships.
[11:58]And she's like, I don't want it.
[12:00]I won't have it.
[12:01]Don't do it.
[12:02]Ever again.
[12:04]Okay.
[12:04]Sorry.
[12:06]You just can't win.
[12:07]You can't win with kids.
[12:08]Can't win.
[12:09]Can't win.
[12:10]Should not try.
[12:12]Well, there's also with the Jeremy plot line,
[12:14]this whole notion of will anyone ever believe me?
[12:18]And like, can I ever redeem myself
[12:22]when I, if I pursue what I believe enough,
[12:25]even if there's no external validation
[12:28]or even if it gets me into serious trouble,
[12:30]like all of a sudden I'm at the bottom of a pit
[12:32]and the dark and this is not looking good.
[12:34]Right.
[12:35]How far are we willing to go to stand up
[12:38]for what we know is true?
[12:40]Mm hmm.
[12:41]So Jeremy's an interesting case
[12:43]because he's got these two older brothers.
[12:46]And one of them is like the best athlete in town
[12:50]and the other one is a genius.
[12:52]And Jeremy feels like he just cannot win.
[12:56]Like he is invisible as far as his parents are concerned.
[13:00]And in the first book,
[13:02]there's this scene where he goes to audition for Juilliard,
[13:06]even though he knows he's not that good.
[13:08]Like he works really hard,
[13:10]but he has very little innate talent and he goes
[13:13]and he auditions and of course he doesn't get in,
[13:16]but there's this sort of afternoon's worth of hope
[13:21]that his parents are going to see him as somebody special
[13:24]and worthwhile.
[13:25]And I think any kid who's in a family with siblings
[13:31]or in a family at all, I think, you struggle
[13:37]because you're not feeling like the main character
[13:39]or at least you're not feeling like the main character
[13:41]all the time.
[13:42]And Jeremy just so desperately,
[13:47]he wants people to believe him.
[13:49]And he wants to be the hero.
[13:51]He wants to be the guy who's sort of exposing this
[13:54]and saving the world.
[13:55]And you know, he doesn't want to really understand
[14:00]at first that his actions have consequences
[14:03]and that if big foots are real
[14:05]and if he sort of blows up their spot
[14:08]and lets the world know,
[14:10]they are going to be in terrible danger,
[14:13]they're going to be hunted,
[14:14]they're going to be trapped,
[14:14]they're going to be studied,
[14:15]they're going to be exploited.
[14:17]And Jeremy just doesn't want to know about any of that.
[14:19]He just wants his brothers to take him a little more seriously.
[14:23]There's a lot we'll do for familial approval.
[14:26]Oh yes, oh yes.
[14:28]And then the other through line also,
[14:31]well, there are many others, but Alice and how her driver
[14:35]at the end was like, I didn't want to keep dropping her
[14:37]all these schools and there's some sort of like vindication.
[14:40]There's like a, you know, as you said,
[14:42]happy ending for all the things that she's been through
[14:45]and her mother and that whole plot line
[14:48]tell me about what we're taking away from Alice
[14:51]and the change in her life.
[14:53]So when I started thinking about big foots,
[14:58]I started thinking about being back in middle school
[15:03]and just feeling like such a freak.
[15:06]And I think every girl, every, probably every boy,
[15:10]every non-binary kid, like your body is changing
[15:14]and, you know, things are different.
[15:18]And I think everyone feels like the only one,
[15:21]like you were the only one who is experiencing this,
[15:23]you were the only one who has felt this way.
[15:25]Everybody else has it figured out,
[15:27]they all got the manual and you didn't
[15:30]and you are just like blindly groping your way toward adulthood.
[15:35]And I remember the first book got reviewed in the times
[15:39]and the reviewers sort of made the point of like, you know,
[15:43]the reason this book resonates is that every kid
[15:46]has been a big foot at one point or another.
[15:50]And so Alice is especially like Alice is,
[15:53]she's living in a larger body as we say now
[15:56]and she's got this like hair that she can't do a thing with.
[15:59]And her mom is this like society beauty, you know,
[16:04]this woman who just like does Pilates all day long
[16:06]and wears designer clothes and is perfect
[16:09]and is gorgeous and Alice just thinks like,
[16:12]that will never be me, that can never be me.
[16:15]And what we learn is that her mom's kind of gone undercover,
[16:22]she's in disguise.
[16:24]And the disguise that she's wearing
[16:26]is this sort of society lady face and body
[16:30]and clothing and shoes.
[16:32]And once she's kind of out of this disguise,
[16:36]she looks much more like Alice,
[16:38]like her hair is kind of bushy and she's like running around
[16:41]and like fur boots and a down puffer coat.
[16:44]And Alice is like, who are you?
[16:46]So I wanted to talk about the idea of like
[16:50]adulthood as a series of poses and costumes and disguises,
[16:55]right?
[16:56]And like different faces that we wear at different times
[16:59]and having Alice understand that like,
[17:04]the world has kind of hurt her mom.
[17:06]And that's why her mom has sort of put herself into this box,
[17:10]why she's conforming.
[17:12]And that it's come with this really high price.
[17:14]And, you know, by the end of the book,
[17:17]like Alice is much more at home in her own skin.
[17:22]She is, she's her body that she sort of despised
[17:27]and wished were smaller and different.
[17:30]You know, she's big and she's strong and she saves the day
[17:34]and it's amazing.
[17:35]And you know, I wanted, I mean, I always,
[17:39]I'm always like writing about women and their bodies
[17:42]and the tension and the anxiety and mothers and daughters
[17:45]and the messages that were sending.
[17:47]And you know, I think that every mother wants her daughter
[17:51]to live in a better world than she grew up in.
[17:55]And I know that like moms now like we're so aware
[18:00]of diet culture and the damage that it did to us
[18:02]and like trying so hard to have our daughters grow up
[18:07]without all that noise in their head
[18:10]about how they're supposed to look
[18:11]and how they're supposed to be.
[18:13]But understanding that like as hard as we try,
[18:17]our daughters live in the world
[18:19]and those messages aren't everywhere.
[18:22]And we can't as much as we'd like to,
[18:26]you know, our homes can be a safe place,
[18:30]but like we can't sort of make all of that noise go away.
[18:35]And you know, I think that was one of the things
[18:37]I wanted to talk about.
[18:39]And you know, I hope that like girls that are like eight
[18:42]or nine or 10 are gonna read this book
[18:45]and maybe feel a little comforted
[18:48]about their own physical selves, their own bodies
[18:51]and the worth those bodies have.
[18:54]It's so true.
[18:55]I mean, and it's not just girls.
[18:56]I mean, I know you have two girls.
[18:57]I have two girls and two boys and it comes to everybody.
[19:00]I mean, it's not.
[19:01]It doesn't.
[19:02]And I'm like, how are you getting this?
[19:03]Sometimes they say things.
[19:05]And I'm like, well, is that on YouTube?
[19:06]Like, where did you hear that?
[19:07]Why are you saying this?
[19:09]Where do you get it?
[19:09]Like I try so hard.
[19:11]And yes, you know, we all try so hard.
[19:14]And I just, I think that it's just like,
[19:16]it is in the air and it's in the air.
[19:19]They breathe, it's in the water, they drink.
[19:20]It's on the school bus, you know, it's like,
[19:23]I'm sure you went through something like this
[19:25]with like the net nanny stuff.
[19:26]Like I had the internet locked down in my house
[19:30]and then, you know, my kid gets on the school bus
[19:32]and some kid with a phone that doesn't have all
[19:35]the parental controls on it,
[19:37]you think you can see anything.
[19:39]And I'm like, what is even the point?
[19:40]Why am I even trying to, you know?
[19:42]I know, it's so hard.
[19:44]It's ridiculous.
[19:45]Well, so much to digest in your book
[19:48]and also the fact that it was just so fun,
[19:50]but now, of course, I'm even more scared
[19:52]to go into the woods, but you never know what you'll find.
[19:55]Hahaha.
[19:57]Redemption, redemption, redemption.
[20:00]redemption. Yes. I actually, what I really love about the book is that it is literally in your DNA
[20:07]who you are. Right? You cannot change who you are. You can't pretend to be someone you're not like
[20:12]this is just who we are. And even if your DNA is different from someone else's like own it
[20:17]and that's it. Like that's what I took away also. Yeah. No, I mean, I think sort of living your best
[20:24]life is your authentic self and not trying to change because really there's only so much you
[20:30]can do. I mean, you know, you can try very hard to like fit yourself into the box, but like
[20:37]at what cost, you know, I mean, like, I don't know which version of Cinderella you grew up reading
[20:44]or telling your kids, but you know, in the grooms fairy tale, the stepsisters cut off pieces
[20:51]of their feet so that their feet will fit in the glass slipper. You know, one of them cuts off her toes,
[20:56]the other one cuts off her heel. And, you know, we, we read that in my children's literature course,
[21:03]you know, way back in the day. And it's like, we're all just sitting there like, who would tell
[21:08]their kids a story like this? Who would tell their daughters a story like this? You know, and then
[21:15]I grew up and then I had daughters. And then I'm like, oh, I, I, you know, it's, it's a metaphor,
[21:22]you know, and like cutting off a piece of yourself is like every woman who went on a first date in
[21:28]order to salad, even though she really wanted a burger or kept her mouth shut because she didn't
[21:33]think that, you know, men liked women with opinions or made herself smaller in some way. And we
[21:40]all do it. We've all done it. But, you know, I, I think the idea that like, you can't make
[21:48]yourself smaller without paying a really high price. You can't make yourself different. You can't
[21:54]change who you fundamentally are without paying a really high price. And I, you know, again, like,
[22:02]I don't intend for my books to be message books, but I think like if girls come away like
[22:07]understanding that, like, it's so much better just to figure out how to be happy with the,
[22:12]in the skin you're in, in the body you're in, then just sort of spend your whole life, you know,
[22:18]limping through the world because you've mutilated yourself or done something, you know, painful
[22:24]or damaging just to fit. Totally. I was at this party in 10th grade. And this girl we were friends with
[22:32]was acting so ditzy, right? And she was really smart and all the stuff. She was just like,
[22:36]for the guys acting a certain way. And all of a sudden, one of the guys says to her, you know,
[22:41]we like smart girls too. And I have like, that's amazing. I hope, I hope that guy like is married to
[22:49]a wonderful woman. I hope like he's always on the cool side of the pillow. And like, it's always funny
[22:55]when you do something. As girls need to hear that, you know, like they need to hear from their dads,
[23:02]I think, like, first and foremost. But like, I think it's the boys in their lives are saying
[23:06]things like that because like, I remember growing up, you know, in, in my 20s, like, the rules
[23:12]was going around. Like, I'm older than you are. I don't know if you remember that book. Of course,
[23:16]you're like, barely. Maybe like, anyway, yes, I remember yes. Yes. And the thing, like, you know,
[23:23]don't be too funny. Like, if he wanted to laugh, he'd stay home and watch David Letterman.
[23:28]And I remember reading that and being like, well, funny is all I got. Like, I don't know what I'm going
[23:35]to do here. You know, but the fact is like, there are, there are guys who will love you and will see
[23:43]you and we'll see every part of you and love you anyhow. And I want my girls to know that. I want
[23:50]them to like go out in the world, believing that deeply and believing in themselves.
[23:56]Yeah. Okay. So your trilogy is done. You have the paperback coming out of the break away,
[24:01]which is very exciting. What else is coming out on the adult side of things?
[24:05]Okay. So I just finished a new book that's going to come out in 2025. I am not publishing anything
[24:11]in 2024. I'm so happy. I haven't had a year without a book since like 2018. So that would be nice.
[24:18]My daughter's going to be a junior in high school. And like, that's a big year. And you know,
[24:24]I have to teach her how to drive. God help me thoughts and prayers. So, but I just finished this adult
[24:30]book, which is about two sisters who are in a band in the early aughts at the sort of
[24:37]geek, Britney and Justin time if you can remember back then. So, you know, when Jessica Simpson
[24:45]wore those unfortunate high-waisted jeans and people ripped her apart and said she looked fat
[24:51]because she like wasn't in her little daisy-duke shorts and like Diane Sawyer interviewing Britney
[24:56]after the Justin breakup and being like, you broke that poor boy's heart. What did you do to him?
[25:02]And of course, now we all know, you know, from the distance of 22 years later, like that was
[25:06]not what happened at all. So they're in this band in the early aughts. There's a love triangle.
[25:12]Band breaks up. The sisters are estranged. They're not seeing each other. One of them actually
[25:18]moves to Alaska. And I would just like to say that I started writing this book before
[25:23]True Detectives Night Country came out and Alaska got hot. So one sisters in Alaska, one's in suburban
[25:31]Philadelphia with a teenage daughter who wants to be in musician and is intent on finding
[25:38]this estranged aunt. So it's the story of three women, one band. It's about women in rock and
[25:48]roll and misogyny and the way the way that women got treated, the way that with female stars
[25:56]got treated back then and you know, sort of the way they get treated now and what's changed and
[26:01]what hasn't. And you know, it's it's about sister stuff and mother daughter stuff and music stuff
[26:08]and love stuff. And we have a working title. I had so much trouble. Sometimes my title just
[26:15]and it's perfect. And I nailed it. And that's it. And sometimes I'm just like, I got nothing. And it
[26:20]takes me like the length of the book and like six or seven drafts to get there. But I think
[26:26]I think that it is going to be called the Griffin sisters greatest hits. That's good. I think so.
[26:31]Yeah. The sisters, yes, it's Zoey and Cassie Grossberg. And of course, Grossberg is not going
[26:36]to work in music. And so they meet with this record label. It's like, you know, I think we should
[26:43]change it. And one of the sisters is like, why? And you know, he's like, oh, you know, for people
[26:48]and she's like, people who don't like Jews. And he's like, um, maybe, oh my gosh, we might as well
[26:57]just put it out there. Oh my god. It's like, I was not intending to write about antisemitism. And then
[27:04]the world happened and now suddenly it's like, you know, I frequently will have Jewish characters
[27:12]in my books. But now I'm really finding myself. It feels much more like a mission to sort of have
[27:18]those characters and have them be like fully completely human in these books. Because surprisingly,
[27:25]there are still people who don't see Jews that way, which I cannot believe in, you know, in the
[27:33]year of our Lord and Beyonce 2024 that that's still going on. But here we are. Yeah. Didn't see
[27:40]this year coming. But yeah. Last. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. We could we could do it. I know. I was like,
[27:48]we're like, why'd you down here? I can't even start. So we continued some other platform. Anyway,
[27:55]well, Jen, thank you so much for coming back on. Thank you for the big foot queen and all the messages
[28:01]that you subtly put in, even though you didn't mean to perhaps, I don't know, whatever.
[28:05]And I'll look forward to the Grossberg Griffin sisters when they're ready to hit the town.
[28:12]Fantastic. Thank you so, so much for having me. Okay. Thank you. All right. Have a great day.
[28:18]Great. Have a great day. Bye.
[28:20]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to
[28:25]follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign
[28:30]up for my newsletter at zibi Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots
[28:34]of authors on zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan. In fact, texture sound for
[28:39]the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and
[28:44]now trim music.