Dysfunction Junkies
Two high school besties reconnect and commiserate their stories as they navigate the dysfunctions of life from marriage, families, illness, death of childhood families, and creating healthy boundaries. Join them each week as Chrisy and Kerry share their stories and life lessons all with a zest of wit, humor, and love. They may not have seen it all, but they have seen enough!
Dysfunction Junkies
Thankful Sunday: From Grief to Gratitude
Loss and celebration dance together in this heartfelt episode as Kerry shares the peaceful passing of her mother. "Mom not only taught us how to live, but she taught us how to die," she reflects, finding beauty in farewell while honoring her mother's memory. The conversation shifts to birthday celebrations and childhood treasures—from vintage Fisher Price trains to nostalgic Wheel of Fortune watches—revealing how we cling to physical reminders of our past.
The true magic happens when our listener community takes center stage. Jason solves the longstanding mystery of "Felagone," confirming the traditional Pittsburgh dish that validates Chrisy's childhood memories. Meanwhile, our global audience continues to surprise us, with Pakistan emerging as our second-highest country for downloads. This unexpected cross-cultural connection leaves us wondering how our stories of American family dysfunction resonate so strongly halfway around the world.
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Dysfunction Junkies has all rights to the songs "Hit the Ground Running" created by Ryan Prewett and "Happy Hour" created by Evert Z.
Welcome to a special, thankful Sunday edition of the Dysfunction Junkies podcast. We may not have seen it all, but we've seen enough. And now here are your hosts, keri and Chrissy. Hi everybody. Well, that was a great introduction, dj Nick, you switched it up on us, caught us off guard, thank you. Well, I'm Carrie, I caught myself off guard, you did catch yourself off guard.
Speaker 1:I'm Chrissy, yes, and this is a Thankful Sunday episode and we do have so much to be thankful for. But first, in a little bit of sad news, we'll talk about little sad things and then we'll talk about some great things. So my mama passed away last month. So she passed away very peacefully, surrounded by all of us, and had a beautiful funeral for her. I want to reach out to all of those who knew that was going on and sent condolences and cards and messages and everything. After some time, we can get into more dysfunction about funerals again. Right now, I just wanted to send a thank you out to everybody on the passing of my mom. So love you, mama. I hope you're looking down from heaven and laughing at our podcast.
Speaker 2:So just from talking with you through the whole thing, I have to say there's a lot of admiration for your mother, because I really do think that she really did this the way she wanted she did.
Speaker 1:She did.
Speaker 2:You have to admire somebody who does that.
Speaker 1:We said at her funeral that mom not only taught us how to live, but she taught us how to die, and I completely believe in that. So, yeah, so that was a little sad part last month, but we've also had some good things. I'm also very thankful for all the birthday wishes from DJ Nick and Chrissy. I got some wonderful cupcakes that were just gourmet. So thank you for that and thank you for the upcoming gift that's being shipped. Chrissy had got me a Wheel of Fortune watch back in high school, and DJ Nick found one on eBay, so we're just waiting for it to arrive.
Speaker 1:I can't wait. I'm so thankful.
Speaker 2:Amazing. I'm trying to think of something. He never buys me anything from my iPad, probably because I already still have it. He can't find it. Got my Big Will still. Got my $6 million man doll still. Got your prom dresses? Got my prom dresses still. I got to really think about something that real. My mom, when I was real little I used to love my one of my favorite things was the Fisher Price train.
Speaker 2:Oh and we're talking 1970s. Yeah Well, my mom, probably 20 plus years ago, probably close to 30 years ago, she found another one of these and she so I have that too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's pathetic, everybody. I am so sorry, so you need to throw something out so that DJ Nick can find it on eBay for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, he'll love that. Bring back Hill's department store.
Speaker 1:Wow, we've had a lot of listeners that have been following us and we've got some things that they found for us. Chrissy, tell us about the big follow, follow on a woman. What are we not this?
Speaker 2:is so, Jason. Thank you. Wonderful that he was able to shoot me a message. He miraculously found Felagone, which is actually pronounced, I guess, Felagone.
Speaker 1:Felagone.
Speaker 2:And it's spelled pretty much like F-A-L-I-G-O-N-E Felagone. Yeah, I guess I don't know, and it's actually Pittsburgh thing which does make some sense but they do say it's now.
Speaker 2:See, I thought it was from the area that my grandmother was from in italy uh-huh but they referenced because it's actually a youtube video and you can watch them make this item. That and it was in wasn't even something. That was sort of like it. Yeah, it was, was it? Except that they use, like, red bell peppers in theirs and we always use green. But other than that, the dough, everything and the way they describe it is perfect. I couldn't have found anything more perfect to explain what this was.
Speaker 2:So I guess I feel really validated that this wasn't just some imaginary thing that, like my family had made up. And it does make sense with the Pittsburgh thing because even though we grew up in Youngstown, a lot of my family roots are from the Pennsylvania-Pittsburgh area. My grandfather's family lived over in Zillionople which is outside of Pittsburgh. So I highly recommend going on YouTube and looking for this video, because I just thought it was just so great, and so thank you for finding that I finally have a good explanation as to what it is.
Speaker 1:it was always hard to explain maybe we can see with our social media people if they can uh post that yeah, I, I would like to, but I want to be sure that we can. We can do yes absolutely so, but who else have you heard from?
Speaker 2:well, hey, out there natalie fingers, she always lovely she comes through with uh, after listening, she has some information or remarks or memory and I mean she is so part of this whole thing. She gets like it's almost like she was here with us during this whole thing, I mean she so understands dysfunction. It's making her, unfortunately, I think, have a little bit of PTSD, but she was horrified about the birthday episode. Oh, because you had mentioned that you had a birthday, or maybe more than one birthday that was forgotten. Uh-huh, her birthday was christmas eve.
Speaker 2:She's a christmas baby but she didn't seem bitter about it.
Speaker 1:Sounds like they seem to be able to keep yeah, her, well, I guess, if you're going to have a birthday on a holiday, christmas eve would be a good one, because, I mean, everyone in the world celebrates Christmas Eve. Whether you're celebrating Santa Claus or Jesus or whatever you know, people are celebrating. So yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm wondering, because we have our birthdays when they are and that's just the way it is. So you having your May birthday, me having a June birthday, we can't understand what that would look like. Right, we say jokingly that we think we would be cheated, yes, but the people who actually have birthdays during that time period, they seem, at least from what I hear from, like Natalie, yeah, is that they didn't feel?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But then, on the other hand, they also don't have it to compare to where they had a birthday. That was enough distance from a major holiday like that. So thank you for that, natalie, and her really sadness for you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, she really did feel bad.
Speaker 2:And then we have some new cities. Yes, we do, which we love to hear Terre Haute, indiana, wexford, pa and Indiana PA. I know.
Speaker 1:That city number's growing Click, click, click. Yeah, okay, but this is what I got to talk about. Okay, our newest country, pakistan. They're like our number two country now. Their downloads keep click, click, clicking. They're, they're loving us in Pakistan. I want to know these people. I want to know the story. I want to know how they found us. I want to know who's listening. Is it a guy? Is it a girl? Is it young women? Is it older women? Are they? I just want to know the whole thing. Pakistan, please reach out, please, please, please.
Speaker 2:I would really love to know what they're connecting Like. What is really meaning?
Speaker 1:to them. Yes.
Speaker 2:Resonating.
Speaker 1:What's resonating? Yeah, what's resonating.
Speaker 2:I hope they're listening because they're enjoying this, or are they just really offended by us? Either way, we like the listening, all right.
Speaker 1:So dysfunctionjunkies at gmailcom, reach out to us. Yes, and what's funny is when the Pakistan numbers started coming in, I looked up the cities and the one city was like way at the north and then, like an hour later, a city way down south, not close to each other. So it's not like one person was maybe listening to an episode and then traveled to work in a little different town. You know like it's two different. Are they related? Are these two people related?
Speaker 1:You know like when this first started and now we're starting to see these other ones. So did they start a trend? Are they sharing it with their? I want to know. This is mind boggling to me, but then it's such an honor and I'm just so curious, so thankful. Thank you, and please, all the other countries, ireland and Ireland's number three downloading on it. So Ireland, all of this, all of the countries. I am absolutely amazed. Sometimes you can kind of figure that we had the Ireland you know talked about St Patrick's Day, and then we started seeing the Ireland downloads. So you kind of figure, okay, something resonated, something you know popped up Pakistan. I'm just so amazed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, come on other countries get on the stick.
Speaker 1:Right, right, and we're still waiting for more states to show up. So you know, we're still needing a little bit of the New England states, we still need some of those northern middle of the countries. Yeah, but we're growing, I mean state by state, city by city country by country.
Speaker 2:That list of cities that we have is overwhelming and in a good way, Like yeah, I probably never thought about that many different places picking up on us.
Speaker 1:So I know it's been great, it's been such an honor that people get us, they're getting it, they're coming back for more. But I do have to say it was kind of funny talking about some of the you know people that are listening and stuff my sister, my one sister specifically, when she listened to the birthday episode she actually tested, texted me and said oh my gosh, I now have anxiety over your birthday Because she didn't realize how my crazy, very dysfunctional brain was working. And she's like Okay, now I'm like chrissy and I'm having dysfunction over, or anxiety over, your birthday it spreads.
Speaker 2:I'm really good at like causing panic and anxiety yeah, I have a gift for that.
Speaker 1:So dj next shaking his head very aggressively over there.
Speaker 2:Well, the way I work is if I'm feeling that which I do a lot my whole goal is to get somebody else to feel that, because then it sort of absorbs it from me and then I can watch you Transfer it to them, I transfer. I like to transfer uncomfortable, unhappy feelings, so it helps me.
Speaker 1:So we are so thankful we got some episodes coming up. Chrissy, you want to talk about anything that we've got coming up in our future episodes here? Yeah, we've got weddings. Weddings. We've got Father's Day coming up Father's Day, which is Chrissy's birthday time too.
Speaker 2:I don't have any anxiety about like. I know because it doesn't matter either way to me guess, hey, you go into these things with no expectations. There ain't nothing to be disappointed about true true, so and when you plan?
Speaker 1:it all yourself. So yeah and we will have another flashback friday coming up. Um, we're going to be flashing back to one of our original episodes, the elephant or the zoo. So for those of you that are maybe a little bit new and maybe haven't gone back and listened to some of the original episodes, this will give you a little insight into our foundation, of our dysfunction, how we grew up in our different family lifestyles and how it has affected us growing up. We've got some exciting things ahead.
Speaker 2:Definitely All righty.
Speaker 1:Well, again, here's another thankful Sunday, so we'll be looking forward to talking to you again this week. See you Wednesday. See ya.
