It’s a Yiddish word commonly used during the Catskills-era for the person whose actual job was turning a hotel of strangers into a temporary community.

Not the performer on stage. The one actually out working the room — at breakfast, the pool, the lobby — making sure nobody’s left standing alone.

This week I’m making the case that a huge number of the women in our lives are doing this work constantly, for free, and calling it “being nice” instead of what it is: a real, underrated skill.

We get into what it looks like, whether it’s dying out or just migrating into group chats, and why you should text the tummler in your life and tell her you appreciate her.

Also this week: a quick check-in on my July whimsy movie project. Darby O’Gill and the Little People is a glorious practical-effects mess (Sean Connery’s Irish accent, less glorious). And A Fish Called Wanda — my first time watching, four decades late — reminded me that Jamie Lee Curtis is stunning, and her wardrobe, whew, I’m still envious of those dresses today. Well, maybe not the bright florals.

And because the universe has a sense of humor, the memorial service landed on the exact same day as her class reunion. She called her sister looking for permission to skip both. Her sister gave her a whole thing about examining old narratives instead. Rude, but not wrong.

She went to both. One was a 10 out of 10 — genuinely really lovely. The other, not so much. This week: which was which, and what she actually learned about the stories we carry that were never fully ours to begin with.

In this episode:

• The 31-movies-in-July project: a fast no on Fitzwilly, a charming surprise in The Reluctant Debutante, and a full roller-skating Xanadu spiral (plus a Kenny Ortega fact that connects way more dots than expected)

• Two documentary recs: Martin Short and Billy Idol

• What “boundaried” digital detox actually looks like — camera on for whimsical walk photos, podcasts off

• Curating a weekly soundtrack with zero logic required

• A soft, nostalgic detour into sprinkler summers, pajama dinners, and slipping into bed with nothing left to optimize

What’s she’s found so far is that plan was never really about the movies. It was about letting rest be simple again.

A saliva test for endometriosis is finally in development — now that scientists know men can get it too. Same morning, a retired guy turned “cleaning up the highway” into a personal discovery project, unaware of how the state’s existing program has been running this the whole time, I guess.

Different headlines. Same mechanism. Legitimacy doesn’t show up with the problem — it shows up with whoever walks into the room last and gets noticed first.

This week I’m mad, I’m bitter about healthcare I didn’t get, and I’m not smoothing any of it out for you. Come sit in it with me.

This week: the full machinery of the 1976 Bicentennial — Little House on the Prairie priming me for pioneer life, a Martha Washington biography that rerouted me straight into colonial gowns, the Miss America pageant’s bicentennial opening number, and every variety show in America doing a patriotic sketch — and how thoroughly it worked on a kid whose brain wasn’t even fully cooked yet.

Then: the adult reckoning.

Turns out all that flag-waving was engineered a few years after Watergate and the fall of Saigon, which tracks less like organic pride and more like parents plowing ahead with the family reunion while the marriage quietly falls apart.

I talk about what it’s like to hold the nostalgia and the disillusionment at the same time, why this year’s 250th anniversary is coasting on fumes by comparison — no commemorative Grimace cups in sight, no theme packaging, no Oreos, nothing — and why I’m still doing the bar-b-que and the red-white-and-blue this year anyway.

This episode, Elizabeth follows the thread from a Leap Frog product placement rabbit hole to something that’s been sitting with her: for the first time in history, there will be kids who grow up barely playing with toys — not because they don’t have them, but because something more addictive got there first.

This isn’t a “kids today” rant. It’s an honest look at what screen saturation actually costs — in empathy, in development, in the small moments that sneak up on you in a carpool line. Elizabeth reflects on what she would have done differently had tablets existed when she was raising her own kids (spoiler: she would have handed them over constantly and never forgiven herself), and why the fact that she couldn’t is one of the things she’s most grateful for.

Also: Edith Wharton predicted the Kardashians. The Custom of the Country is this episode’s Radiant Recommends, and the case is airtight.

The alarm has been sounded. It hasn’t taken hold. So we sound it again.

Turns out smooshing down grief doesn’t make it disappear. It just relocates.

This week: what happened when the relief finally hit, a decluttering project that turned into a reread of Gretchen Rubin’s Better Than Before, and what I’m learning about which of my habits actually serve me — including my habit of expecting bad outcomes, and my slow project of shifting that.

Plus: two college graduations, two totally different vibes, and why the contrast moved me more than I expected.

I talk about getting off the treadmill of aspiration, why parenting is a verb and not a status, and the one thing my aesthetician said to me when my kids were teenagers that completely changed my approach.

That line? It applies to every relationship in your life. Not just the ones with your kids.

My youngest graduates from college on Friday. I am a mess. This episode is, in part, a love letter to that.

New episode is live.

Getting Work To Work podcast

Also, playlist - feed your ears while feeding your soul.

Riot Crone Playlist #1

She’s also talking about glimmers and joy, so it’s kind of a ride.

If you’ve listened to the show for a while, you know Elizabeth is a strong supporter of the soaps and appreciates their impact on society. She’s chatting about it again today. And let’s all agree that no soap writer would dare to float the storylines we’re all reading in the daily news - too unbelievable.

episode 169, dude - spotify

episode 169, dude - apple music