Quarantine & Answer

Are you bored with your loved ones already? “Maybe” (wink, wink) it’s you. “Maybe” it’s about time you hire a new board of trust-ies and get playing, sourcing fun, and having curated conversations. Or better yet, curated conv-oh’s. 

Read on!

Marnie: Ready, Lauren, for our Q (quarantine) & A? First question:

My family and I are so bored. We feel like we have nothing new to talk about or do. Any tips for having fun and staying connected?

Lauren: First of all, duh. It’s the same people, same day, same truth, everyday. But, it’s okay that this is really the way it is. So, once you get over that hurdle…that it’s okay…there is no better time than NOW to figure out fun. 

It’s board games, it’s art, it’s cooking. Get creative! No one ever gets this much free time. No more commuting. You can’t see your friends. Your life is in a timeout and you’re with your people! It’s a miracle. The odds it will ever happen again in this lifetime, in my lifetime, is low. I’m like, “Oh, this will never happen again? I’ll be dead.” This ain’t happening again. So face that and I was up this morning at 6:15am…painting.

You have a list of what you could do with free time, and then everyone in your family should sit down and talk about what they think is fun. And then, I don’t mean to make Amazon any richer, but you can order it on Amazon. It still gets here. So we’ve got a whole bunch of new canvases. I got stuff for baking. Just go deeper into fun shit and sit around the table and figure out what everybody actually wishes everybody was doing and take turns letting other people lead.

Marnie: Yeah. And it’s also a great time for curated conversations, right? 

Lauren: Marnie, tell them how we roll at dinner time.

Marnie: Ok. Well, it all came about because the men in our family barely get air time. I know it’s hard to imagine… 

Lauren: So David Zander, my cute husband, swears that if he was going to describe the Handel ladies, like all the women, he would describe them as machine gun talkers. And then the men are more like snipers; they’re waiting for a pause to get a word in and it never comes.

Marnie: Never! We act like we haven’t just seen each other. It’s like new every time. It’s a fascinating and fun way to be…it just sucks for snipers. They are really going to sit and wait for that deer for a really long time. And poor David used to raise his hand to get a word in. So, I believe it was David that came up with the new rule: we had to have one conversation around the table.  We could shoot the shit in the beginning of the gathering and “catch up”. And then, as we sit down, it’s now time for ONE curated conversation. It could be anything from intimate to goofy. From the last meal on earth to if you were going to get a tattoo or another tattoo, what would it be and why.

Lauren: Worst sex night of your life. The award you don’t want to get that you deserve. It could be anything at all, what would you be. And we have created lists of these: 

Shallow end:

• Knowing what you know now, if you could swap what you studied, what would you have studied?
• Best high school moment?
• Worst high school moment?
• Have any siblings? Favorite thing about each sibling?
• Favorite teacher/mentor story?
• Freshman roommate story, godsend or god awful? 
• What’s on your bucket list? Why?

Knee deep:

• Groundhog Day moment: What moment in time would you go back and do differently, if you could?
• Greatest character trait you got from your dad/mom? 
• Worst character trait you got from your dad/mom? 
• Everyone has their own brand of magic (ie: thinking of someone and them calling or emailing shortly thereafter).  What’s your magic? Give an example.
• What’s a superpower you want? Why?
• What’s something you’re most proud of?  Why?
• Biggest regret?
• Advice you’d go back and give your tween self? Your teenage self? Your twenty-something self? Your thirty-something self? Yesterday?
• Describe a spiritual moment (however you define it) you had in your life? 
• [Borrowed from Inside the Actor’s Studio] If heaven exists, what would you like to hear god (or whomever/whatever you believe in) say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
• If you could pick any career in the world, regardless of ability or age or salary, what would it be? Why?

Deep end:

• What’s a fight you had with someone that you’re still reliving, stewing over, and/or waiting for an apology?
• Describe your most embarrassing moment. Any long lasting decisions (good or bad) you made from it?
• What’s a sex story you were, UNTIL NOW, going to the grave with?
• What’s your favorite thing about you?
• What’s one of the biggest lies you ever told that you got away with? 
• What’s one of the biggest lies you ever told that you didn’t get away with?
• If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? Why?
• What’s something you saw, heard, or experienced this week that moved you?
• Share one CUTE thing about you that no one knows.
• What three things are guaranteed to make you smile?
• Name something you’re scared of but would love to find the guts to do.
• If someone gave you one million dollars and you had one month to spend it, how would you spend it?

Marnie: We even had a whole blog about it. They are even great if you’re online dating, people, it’s really good to have this list too because it’ll make those vetting dates so much more fun.

Lauren: Didn’t Mark Hyman put our whole list in one of his books?

Marnie: In a cookbook, I think.

Lauren: Yeah. And we’ve been doing this now for over 10 years, right? Like it’s legit. And you’re like over 10 years, “Do you use the same conversations every time?” Ready, everybody? No. Someone has to pose the question and if the people at the table don’t dig it, they can veto it…but, the person who posed it, still has to answer it. Last night at our virtual Passover, Parker, my son, vetoed mine!

So Marnie’s dead on, on telling you don’t think it’s boring to be with your family. Instead, assume you don’t have the right book of questions.

Until now, that is.

Love, 

Lauren & Marnie