TIP 001: Bernardette Arellano

The Initiative Podcast #1: Bernardette Arellano

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Our first guest on The Initiative Podcast is one of my oldest friends, Bernardette Arellano, with whom I've been pals with since our first semester of college. Bernardette is the host of the Casa Acozamalotl podcast (Subscribe now!) and is here to discuss her time working for Congressman Mike Honda of California during a very exciting period - the drafting and passing of the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare.

We also chat about her podcast and how she's working to highlight Western Hemisphere religious traditions and indigenous faiths that fall outside the usual Judeo-Christian framework in her Casa Acozamalotl podcast, which she's been hosting for some time.

We close out the episode discussing her trip earlier this year to Mount Kilimanjaro, one of the highest freestanding mountain peaks in the world. She recounts how that became something she spent a good amount of training for, the hike itself, and some interesting observations along the way.

If you have any feedback or interesting things you'd like to brag about, feel free to e-mail that to chris@theinitiative.us.

Episode Transcript

00:01.49
Chris
Hello, this is Chris Karr I'm the host of the Initiative Podcast. This is our first episode. What we're trying to do here is talk to regular people doing interesting things. And so the whole idea behind this podcast is to talk to people who are doing, again, interesting things in their lives so that, you know, people that are out there, you know, if you ever wanted to learn how you might want to climb a mountain in Africa. you don't have to start from zero and we can actually hear from somebody today that did that. We're going to try every week or two to talk to somebody new and we'll see how it goes. I apologize in advance for any audio issues. We're still learning how to get all our podcast equipment in place here, but we're working on that. and

00:39.30
Chris
Finally, one of the things I'll do at the end of the show is I'll give you an email address. If there's something interesting that you're doing, I'd like to kind of shout out and have us recognize that and maybe bring you on as a guest one of these days. We'll give you an email address. We're just not looking to talk to people who I know. We're also looking to talk to people out there who might be listening to this, whoever you are out there, the dark internet ether. and first guest today is my long time, lifelong friend, Bernadette Arellano I've known her for 28 years and she is I know he's from the garlic capital of the country, which is Gilroy, California. She now lives with a family in Chicago. and We're going to talk about a few of the interesting things that she did. So I guess my first question, Bernadette. Gilroy, California, is the garlic capital of the country or the world as well?

01:23.96
Bernardette
Well, if you talk to the people in Gilroy, it's the garlic capital of the world. But I think that that that crown now resides in China, unfortunately.

01:37.47
Bernardette
So the the peak of the agricultural days are past Gilroy, but they still produce quite a lot of garlic.

01:36.54
Chris
Okay.

01:43.20
Bernardette
And I think that they still like to style themselves the garlic capital of the world.

01:48.65
Chris
I was visiting a friend a couple weeks ago in Silicon Valley and I saw, oh, I saw it like the, there's like a train that goes to Gilroy and I'm like, hey, that's the garlic cap. Let's tell this, this Russian fella I know. And anyway, I was proud of that trivia that I knew. So, okay. So you're, you're from California. And one of the first things I want to talk to you about is, you know, we went to school together, but after school, you served for some time on the legislative staff of California Congressman Mike Honda.

02:13.54
Chris
Can you tell us a little bit about how somebody ends up in a place where you're in the halls of Washington helping create policy for our legislators?

02:23.81
Bernardette
Sure. So I think in my case, I think my case was a little bit of a fluke, if I'm going to be totally honest. After I got to DC and I figured out more about how things work, I realized that the way I got onto my Conda staff was really kind of a product of how unique he was as a member, how unique his leadership staff was within the office, and just sort of being in the right place at the right time. So I think that the way I ended up on staff is maybe a little different than how people normally end up on staff.

02:59.46
Bernardette
So I'll just do a quick timeline. Basically, my father was in local politics. He was on city council in Gilroy. And I had been out of school for almost a year and I was very depressed. I had majored in religion and I had done that because I didn't really know what I wanted to study.

03:18.53
Bernardette
I didn't really know what I wanted to quote unquote do. And so I was interested in religion. I'm still glad that I majored in it. I think it's been very useful over the years to me philosophically and personally. But it didn't really feel like you can walk out and be you preacher or go to law school immediately. I had no idea how to follow up college.

03:38.79
Bernardette
So my dad met Mike at an event and Congressman Honda and my dad started talking and my dad mentioned that I had gone to Princeton and maybe there would be ah an internship or a spot in his staff. And so his staff actually called me. They reached out to me.

03:57.82
Bernardette
And they said that they had an internship position. And now this is before they changed the law and made it so that internships had to be paid. So I worked for a brief time just answering phones and doing some stuff in the front office for him. You know, obviously i I did submit my resume and things like that. And so they brought me on, even though I was like, I think a little bit outside of the age range of what you would normally get from an intern. And then after a couple months, they had a position open up as a as as a staffer there in the district office. So then I moved over, they offered me the position, and I moved on to the official staff at that point.

04:44.41
Bernardette
And I started out as a legislative aide. Well, it wasn't a legislative aide, but I was there in the district office. And so I was helping out with constituent work. So helping people with their social security applications, immigration paperwork,

04:59.75
Bernardette
Anything having to do with the federal government if they were stuck or they didn't have a way forward or they had questions about the process. We would we had contacts within the federal agencies and we could get responses for them and to move things along so that was.

05:15.36
Bernardette
what I did for a good couple of years and then eventually a position opened up in his DC staff. His transportation legislative assistant was going to be moving on and moving out of the office and so they asked me if I would be interested in working on Capitol Hill as his transportation and health care legislative assistant and so I was very interested and I felt very fortunate and I flew out there and I ended up taking a position in DC from the district office. In hindsight, so then I stayed on for four years. In hindsight, honestly, that trajectory was a little unusual.

05:57.49
Bernardette
His office was very interested in promoting internally and from the district. And I had not worked on his campaign. I had not worked previously in politics. I did not have a policy background. And so all of that was a little unusual. I think when you come when a legislative When a legislator comes to DC, frequently they will have some of their campaign staff or people that they met through the campaign come on board or they'll hire people within DC who are familiar with the rhythms of the hill and who have the policy experience already.

06:35.00
Bernardette
So it was a really big opportunity that I think that I appreciated at the time, but that certainly isn't kind of the normal trajectory. Normally you don't always come with the member to Capitol Hill from the district. That's a bit unusual. Usually those are separate hirings, but it just depends on the office. Lots of offices have different procedures and And Mike's office had a very tight, very positive, really wonderful environment for developing staff.

07:07.82
Bernardette
to this day, I still consider those people some of the best people I've ever worked with, and we're still in touch. And he has a huge network of ex-staffers who are very close and really care about each other.

07:19.87
Bernardette
So I was very lucky.

07:22.14
Chris
Excellent, so it sounds like you you put in a you put in a few years kind of in the trenches doing constituent services Is that what they call it kind of the congressional level in terms of like?

07:29.67
Bernardette
Yeah, constituent services.

07:30.64
Chris
Okay great Gotcha

07:31.77
Bernardette
Yeah, it was really, it was really, really amazing work. And it's a resource that I wish that more people were aware of in their, for their, you know, congressional office, because I think it would, I think it would change people's opinion of what their legislator can accomplish for them.

07:50.07
Chris
And so when you were in, when you make the transition from, so the district, it sounds like Gilroy was part of the district. You know, what area of California did Mike Honda represent?

08:00.92
Bernardette
So, Mike Honda represented the south part of San Jose, Morgan Hill, Gilroy. We were located in the Prune yard in Campbell, California. So, that was part of the district. And we were neighboring, our neighboring district was Zoe Lofgren and Anna issue up in Palo Alto.

08:24.95
Chris
Cool. And so when you, when you make the transition to Washington, you're working as a, as a legislative aid still at this point. Is that right?

08:32.04
Bernardette
Yeah, legislative assistant.

08:32.76
Chris
Okay. Let's say assistant and, um, what years was that? Like what period? So we've kind of let listeners know, you know, from this time to this time.

08:39.48
Bernardette
Sure. So I joined his staff in 2003.

08:46.05
Chris
Okay.

08:46.28
Bernardette
And I went to DC in 2006. So 2000, yeah, this is a long time ago.

08:54.43
Chris
Yep, yep.

08:54.81
Bernardette
2005, I think, fall of 2005 into 2006. And so it was, I mean, it was a big time. He actually, right when I got when i got on board, he had just gotten appointed to the Appropriations Committee, which was a very important, it's less important now because they've changed some of the ways that

09:08.74
Chris
Okay.

09:15.40
Bernardette
Congress works, but at the time, appropriations was still a pretty powerful committee because it had the ability to what had the authority to partition out like a

09:29.08
Bernardette
funding, discretionary funding within different programs and also among members. So there was funding that was made available for people for district projects. And so you could, legislators had a certain amount, a certain number of projects that they could earmark. So this is where the earmarking came in of private projects that people could put in place in their in districts.

09:52.38
Bernardette
And that was a very tangible way that legislators used to show people the direct impact of Congress in the district. Because a lot of times the funding that is dispersed by the federal government, you know, obviously can be abused, that kind of direct benefit to a district. But also, it, you know, very tangibly, you know, your, you got a bridge built, or you got a negative pressure room built for a hospital, or, you know, it's a very tangible accomplishment and specific thing that you can point to within your district. So it was very powerful at the time because the Appropriations Committee decided how much each person got in which appropriations project was approved. So it was it was quite an important committee position.

10:40.89
Chris
So were you on the Hill then, and maybe you were even part of this whenever the, um, the, the affordable care act was being drafted and passed.

10:49.87
Bernardette
Yes, so um I did health care policy. So that was in 2009, 2010, right? And so I left Congress in 2010. So I left DC and came back to California 2010, 2011. And so I left pretty much right after the Affordable Care Act was passed.

11:14.54
Bernardette
Honestly, it was because I was very burned out.

11:17.40
Chris
I can imagine.

11:19.00
Bernardette
yes, so we were on appropriations, we were on the Labor Health and Human Services Subcommittee, and my boss at the time was the chairman of the Asian Pacific American Pacific Islander Caucus. And so in that caucus position, he was kind of the point person for talking about APIA issues within healthcare and in the in healthcare bill.

11:43.26
Bernardette
Uh, so that was, that was, um, quite a bit of, it was quite a bit of work.

11:50.20
Chris
Excellent. So you spent some time D.C. You moved back to California for a bit and then you came to join us in Chicago.

11:58.35
Bernardette
Yes.

11:59.24
Chris
And one of the things you've been doing while you've been here in Chicago is you started a podcast of your own. And I'm going to butcher the name here called Well,

12:05.66
Bernardette
It's okay. I realized I have to change the name. It is so difficult to pronounce.

12:10.47
Chris
why don't you say it so I don't embarrass myself and tell people what that's about.

12:14.76
Bernardette
Okay, it is the podcast, it's called Casa Acozamalotl which means the house of the rainbow. Casa means house in Spanish, and Acozamalotl means rainbow in which is the language spoken in indigenous to to Mexico, the area around Mexico City, Aztecs basically.

12:38.12
Bernardette
So I chose the name because I wanted to kind of talk about issues from the perspective of my very varied family background, racial and ethnic background. And so the the ah podcast The purpose of it is for people who are both racial and ethnic and religious minorities to share their spiritual journey. So this is people who are not Christian or Jewish within the United States or who aren't, you know,

13:07.05
Bernardette
non-denominational but still kind of fall under this Judeo-Christian umbrella. I was really interested in, you know, people who might be mixed race like me or Latinos or African Americans who chose to pursue and practice spiritual traditions that are very minority, so pagan spiritual tradition, North heathenry, Aztec revivalism, Ifa, African diaspora religions, because there really is, I think in this country, it's so dominated by Christianity. It is so dominated by Christianity that

13:47.00
Bernardette
you forget that there are people who are religious, people who are not Christian. It's, you know, people like to ask each other, do you believe in God? And, you know, that's a really, like, they're making the assumption that it is the Judeo-Christian God. And the answer is either yes or no, right? And instead of, well, I believe something different, right? But I still believe in a different, in a spiritual structure. I just don't believe in, like,

14:15.61
Bernardette
your idea of a God. But I think that the default conversation around being a religious person in the United States comes down to a Judeo-Christian umbrella of terms. And I was, i you know, it's particularly difficult in some minority communities to make a different spiritual choice. And so to feel both a racial and ethnic, be a racial and ethnic minority with all of the experiences that comes with it, and also to be a spiritual minority, in some cases facing prejudice and disapproval from people who share your racial and ethnic minority status, I felt was like a really interesting thing to discuss and explore with other people. So my podcast was is about kind of my own journey in that direction and also that of other people's.

15:08.70
Bernardette
And I've had a couple of guests who've been really kind to share their stories, and I'm planning on a few more coming up.

15:16.59
Chris
And how much podcasting had you done before you started this?

15:19.31
Bernardette
Oh, zero.

15:20.98
Chris
Okay.

15:21.83
Bernardette
None, none. I listen to a lot of podcasts, so I thought, well, gee, I can do that. How hard is that? Ah, turns out.

15:29.35
Chris
It could be a little tricky. I know.

15:32.38
Bernardette
It can be kind of tricky.

15:34.01
Chris
But it's doable.

15:34.10
Bernardette
Yeah.

15:34.85
Chris
You've done it. How how many episodes do you think you've published up to this point?

15:38.14
Bernardette
Oh my gosh, I have to look because it's been on hiatus for a bit because life got overwhelming and then there was the whole me climbing a mountain thing and kids. So I think I'm up to 10 or 11 episodes.

15:54.56
Chris
Excellent.

15:55.37
Bernardette
I'd have to look back and see, but but yeah I think that's what I'm up to. Oh, one thing I do want to note about my time in D.C. is that I got there right before Obama became president.

16:07.23
Bernardette
And so I was there when he was inaugurated and it was an amazing experience. So that that that was an extremely amazing time. And it was very I was I feel I always feel very lucky to have witnessed the kind of hard work and and leadership that he and the other congressional leaders displayed during that time. It was really great.

16:34.36
Chris
I know Chicago is very excited when that happened. And I think we might, we might've filled up Grant Park that evening.

16:38.85
Bernardette
Yeah, no, I heard about that.

16:40.51
Chris
I was, I was throwing like an election watch party when I had time to do that. And I think about three quarters of my guests left after they called the race to go down to Grant Park and be part of the party.

16:48.77
Bernardette
Oh my god, I can't even imagine how exciting it would have been to be here.

16:50.61
Chris
So yeah. Well, you mentioned something about climbing a mountain. So what's that all about and tell us more.

17:00.99
Bernardette
Sure. So, um, this was a complete surprise. Um, my father called me in January and I was cleaning my house and my dad told me it was his 74th birthday and I said, it was going to be a 74th birthday.

17:19.23
Bernardette
And I said, yeah, that's great. You know, we're, we should really plan something for you. And he said, well, um, I think I'm going to climb Kilimanjaro for my birthday.

17:27.67
Chris
Okay.

17:28.89
Bernardette
And I said, Wow, that's great, dad, you know, good, good, good job. Go for it. Go for it. And then he said, Yeah, so I was wondering if you would come with me and climb the mountain with me.

17:39.28
Chris
Okay.

17:41.37
Bernardette
Yeah, so

17:41.70
Chris
And just for our listeners, where is Kilimanjaro?

17:44.71
Bernardette
So Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania. It is the highest freestanding mountain in Africa.

17:47.27
Chris
Okay.

17:50.63
Chris
Okay.

17:50.72
Bernardette
It is, I believe, the fourth tallest peak in the world.

17:55.05
Chris
Oh, wow.

17:56.74
Bernardette
I think fourth or fifth tallest, something like that. The peak is 19,300 feet above sea level.

18:04.34
Chris
Okay.

18:06.19
Bernardette
And it it's located near the border of Tanzania and Kenya in East Africa.

18:10.45
Chris
Yep. And I imagine to steal a Lord of the Rings, a rings meme, uh, one just, one does not just walk up to Kilimanjaro. I imagine there's probably some preparation you had to do to get ready for that.

18:22.64
Bernardette
Yeah, I think one of the interesting things about the trek is that it is one of the mountains that's considered non-technical.

18:29.42
Chris
Okay.

18:29.97
Bernardette
So, meaning that you don't need ice picks, you don't need like special gear to climb it, right? You just climb it. You do just walk up Kilimanjaro. However,

18:39.23
Chris
Okay.

18:40.24
Bernardette
That being said, because of the altitude, right, there is a considerable amount of preparation. It's mostly mental preparation. I think that it's not exaggerating things to say that the experience of climbing the mountain was as difficult, tied probably with the physical experience of having children.

19:02.41
Chris
Okay.

19:03.22
Bernardette
So it is a very interesting, transformative, deep experience. At least it was for me. So I actually ended up, i I took a journal with me and I thought that I would write, you know, maybe a page or two here or there.

19:21.98
Chris
Yep.

19:22.40
Bernardette
And I ended up writing 110 pages in my journal about the whole trip. So I'm actually in the process of turning that into a book for my family. So I'm in the process of writing it all out. I'm now on like page 47 of a Word document.

19:43.61
Bernardette
that I want to put together with pictures and stuff because it really was a very special experience. And I'm very glad that I got to share with my father. We did not summit at the same time. I met him when I was coming back down from the summit. So we have a picture of ourselves together on the top of the mountain, but not at the peak because it was just, it's so difficult. We were both exhausted at that point.

20:05.47
Chris
I'll bet. And so for your climb though, you arrive in Tanzania, you're at the base of the mountain. How much time is it going from the bottom of that to the top?

20:15.06
Bernardette
It depends, oddly enough. So first of all, a note about preparation. If this is something that one of your listeners thinks they might want to attempt, I will just say that just because it says it is non-technical does not mean that it is not grueling or difficult, right?

20:19.42
Chris
Yes.

20:31.00
Bernardette
And so in terms of preparation, leading up to the trek, I trained four to six times a week doing endurance cardio and weightlifting.

20:43.74
Bernardette
and yoga. added in some breath work and I also was very diligent about tracking down exactly what I needed to take on the trip and what I would need on the mountain. They almost, well, I think you're required to use an outfitter. You might not be required to, but I would highly recommend using a reputable outfitter because there are people who get their who are definitely not prepared and people die doing this trek. They die from altitude sickness. They die due to overexertion. So it is not, just because it is not technical does not mean it is not difficult or does not require significant mental and physical preparation. So as far as how long it takes to get to the top, the longer you take, the better your chances of success are.

21:34.64
Bernardette
So you can take, there is a route that you can go up and down in, I think as short as like three days, maybe less. I think like, what's the guy who's the ice man?

21:46.49
Bernardette
The like, oh, he's, he's, come on.

21:47.40
Chris
Oh, I don't even know.

21:50.38
Bernardette
Oh, I'm going to think of, maybe you can put it in the show notes later.

21:52.82
Bernardette
He's the guy that does all the like ice cold plunges and he's like that guru.

21:56.22
Chris
Okay.

21:58.42
Bernardette
Anyways, he, he's a, He did it in I guess like a day or two like he basically ran up the mountain and ran down But that is an excellent way that is an excellent way to kill yourself So don't do that.

22:10.83
Bernardette
I would say like I we snuck up on the mountain. So it took us Five days to go up and two days to come down. I i think think I'm getting that right I keep getting missed I keep mixing it up and thinking maybe it was like nine days So it's seven days to go up and two days go down, but I don't think so I think it was five up and two down It just feels very long But the longer you take to get up to the top, the better your chances of success.

22:28.70
Chris
Yep.

22:33.50
Bernardette
And so our guide said that in his parlance that we were sneaking up on the mountain because what you don't want to do is you don't you don't want to get altitude sickness and altitude sickness

22:40.03
Chris
Okay.

22:47.53
Chris
Yep.

22:47.77
Bernardette
can hit anybody no matter how good a shape you're in. You can be an Olympic athlete and get sick with altitude sickness.

22:51.44
Chris
Yep.

22:55.18
Bernardette
So it's not about, it's just about luck, taking Diamox, doing the best you can to prep your cardiovascular system. And um my case, I loaded up on like every supplement that had any whisper of a chance of helping me.

23:12.39
Bernardette
So I was drinking beet juice. I was, I was drinking beet juice and taking maca and taking, what else did I take, of cordyceps.

23:23.33
Bernardette
So I was like loaded up on supplements and diamox and I was, I was, that's how I attacked the mountain.

23:23.56
Chris
OK.

23:30.38
Chris
And so it's taking several days for you to get up to the top. There's ah like infrastructure and Hutch you staying along the way. Are you packing a tent?

23:36.45
Bernardette
No, so this is kind of where a lot of the, you know, it's a very interesting thing because it's similar to Nepal in the sense that you have your outfitters have people, local people who carry the bulk of your gear up.

23:50.39
Bernardette
So for most of these outfitters, you're basically carrying a day pack with layers and water.

23:50.38
Chris
Okay.

23:55.62
Chris
Okay.

23:55.78
Bernardette
Okay, and then somebody else carries your duffel bag with the rest of your stuff because when you ascend Kilimanjaro, you go through five different climactic zones. So you start in tropical and the top is polar desert.

24:11.38
Bernardette
So you're going through multiple different layers of environment. So you have to take you a good number, ah a a wide variety of clothing. So all that adds up. And then most of the truck companies will, you can rent polar rated sleeping bags because it can be negative 40 degrees at the top of the mountain.

24:32.09
Chris
Wow.

24:32.39
Bernardette
So polar rated sleeping bags, the like, you know, North Face kind of Alpine polar tents. And most of them, most of them, I think all of them actually usually have cooking staff.

24:46.26
Bernardette
So ours was a very large outfit done through Stanford. So we had a lot of staff.

24:50.62
Chris
Okay.

24:52.34
Bernardette
For the 12 of us, there were 80 staff members, 80, eight, zero. to carry our stuff, break down and carry all of the equipment, set it up.

24:57.70
Chris
Wow.

25:02.94
Bernardette
So this is not like a backwoods thing, right? This is a very pampered kind of excursion. So even so, it's still physically difficult.

25:17.02
Bernardette
And so that's kind of, you're not really carrying much of your own gear, I guess is the short way of saying that.

25:23.61
Chris
I imagine the people that are working for those outfitters, they must be some of the people on earth in the best shape of their lives. I imagine just if that's what they're doing for a living.

25:32.76
Bernardette
Yeah, it was a very interesting thing because a few of them spoke pretty good English. you There were a couple of women who were porters with us on the trail, which I think is still pretty unusual.

25:41.64
Chris
Mm hmm.

25:44.91
Bernardette
Most of the porters are usually men. also will say I think they are fit, but I i think that it's more about people's people need money.

25:56.60
Bernardette
a And in Tanzania, I think one thing I didn't realize is like there's just a base level of activity that's much higher than anybody in the United States. like When we got there, people walk, they bike, and they carry

26:09.32
Bernardette
I saw women routinely carrying massive loads of carrots, greens, vegetables, fruit on their heads.

26:15.41
Chris
Yep.

26:16.41
Chris
Yep.

26:17.04
Bernardette
people are used to carrying and moving much more than we are here. So I think just their base level of fitness is higher. Like when we were going up to the mountain, there was a field of carrots and people were pulling the carrots by hand, stacking them, loading giant burlap sacks and carrying those giant burlap sacks to a truck, all by hand.

26:38.93
Chris
And this is not, this is on the side of the mountain there. They're raising the carrots.

26:42.12
Bernardette
Yeah, this is so what's interesting is Kilimanjaro is a national there's a national park, right?

26:43.33
Chris
Wow.

26:46.48
Bernardette
That's the national park.

26:46.81
Chris
Okay.

26:47.67
Bernardette
But leading up to the edges of the national park, like there are there's there's agriculture.

26:52.58
Chris
Yep.

26:52.74
Bernardette
So, you know, I think basically the national park officially ends where it becomes too steep for people to tell and to plant.

27:01.52
Chris
Yeah.

27:03.76
Chris
Excellent. Wow. You said there's five climate zones up there. You started a tropical, so that's the bottom. We have polar desert at the top. What are the other three in between?

27:14.69
Bernardette
Yeah. So you have, I'm going to have to look this up really quick cause I'm, I don't know if I'm going to get them all right.

27:20.08
Chris
Okay.

27:20.75
Bernardette
Um, but it is, it starts off with rainforest.

27:26.76
Chris
Okay.

27:27.70
Bernardette
Then you have the more land.

27:32.12
Chris
Okay.

27:32.98
Bernardette
Oh, I'm sorry. So it's four. So the very base is farmland, which you, you, you drive past rainforest more land or the Heather

27:35.39
Chris
Okay. Yep.

27:44.38
Bernardette
Alpine desert and then polar or Arctic.

27:46.10
Chris
Okay.

27:49.65
Chris
What's the difference with the alpine desert and the polar desert?

27:52.57
Bernardette
Well, the Alpine desert has plants.

27:55.41
Chris
Okay. Okay. That's a big difference.

27:56.81
Bernardette
And the Arctic has nothing. It has nothing.

27:59.61
Chris
Gotcha.

28:00.84
Bernardette
There is no lichen.

28:02.04
Chris
Yep.

28:02.30
Bernardette
There is no moss. There is no plant. There is nothing.

28:06.22
Chris
And is that just because of lack of oxygen up there? Is that the reason?

28:09.67
Bernardette
It's very cold and it's very dry.

28:11.93
Chris
Gotcha.

28:12.79
Bernardette
And it's about half of the oxygen that you have available to you at sea level.

28:17.97
Chris
Okay. Wow.

28:18.98
Bernardette
So yeah, at sea level, 20% of the air is oxygen. And 19,000 feet, 10% of the air is oxygen.

28:27.66
Chris
Wow.

28:28.53
Bernardette
Yeah.

28:29.39
Chris
That's pretty amazing. So again, regular people doing interesting things here.

28:31.18
Bernardette
Yeah.

28:33.26
Chris
So want I want to kind of close out here talking to you. You mentioned before that you you're here in Chicago now, which we're glad to have you.

28:40.21
Chris
And you're trying to start a couple of small businesses while raising two small humans. How's that going?

28:45.28
Bernardette
Yes, spotty. But I think I just have too many ideas that I'm fascinated by. So still want to move forward on my podcast. That's like a passion project. I don't really think it's a bit of a niche, but I think the people for whom it's for, are I think there's an audience out there. I just have to find them.

29:05.95
Bernardette
I'm writing this story about my about my climb and I am starting a educational consulting firm to try and help parents in the Chicago area make decisions about early childhood education for their kids because there's a lot of consulting and focus on high school, on the journey into high school.

29:09.58
Chris
Yep.

29:29.31
Chris
Okay.

29:30.41
Bernardette
But there are so many options at the early childhood level that I think it's overwhelming and confusing. And if you're a working parent, it's really hard to sift through all of the information to figure out who you need to apply to, when, what kind? Do I want Montessori? Do I want to go public? Do I want to go private? Do I want to go Catholic? There's just so many options.

29:53.30
Bernardette
So I think helping parents to sift through that is one thing that I want to do. And then I'm working with a woman to around motherhood ceremonies and motherhood blessing ceremonies that women can design for themselves. So she's a psychiatrist that works with women who are postpartum, and postpartum around depression and anxiety.

30:19.06
Bernardette
And she and I started talking and I talked about the motherhood ceremony I planned for myself. And we talked about how that would be something that might help more women with the really intense transition into motherhood. And so we're looking forward to planning a couple of workshops for people in the area to try and help them get started on planning something like that for themselves.

30:45.78
Chris
Well, it sounds like you have a full plate.

30:48.11
Bernardette
Yeah, I think I may have overreached, but I want to try all of these things. Life is so interesting, Chris. There's so much to do.

30:56.68
Chris
I'm the last person to be saying you're doing too much stuff, but that's beside the point.

31:05.76
Bernardette
your email.

31:05.43
Chris
All All the Substack stuff?

31:06.60
Bernardette
i Your email, by the way, I know we're going to, we don't want to dive into politics, but your last email was really amazing.

31:13.74
Chris
Oh.

31:13.97
Bernardette
Yeah, you're a very good writer.

31:15.85
Chris
That's a place for me to vent, but, um, but I'm glad to hear that you're starting a business about the, um, about the early childhood education, because, you know, the community I live in, we, where we live at it's, um, it kind of serves as like a, almost like a starter home incubator.

31:17.94
Bernardette
Yeah.

31:29.30
Chris
You know, there's the unit right across from me happens all the time where.

31:30.31
Bernardette
Yeah.

31:33.46
Chris
you new couple got married, they're moving in, it's their first home. They have one kid, everything's great, everybody's awesome. They have second kids, things starting to get small and they move on. That's literally happened like three or four times, right right in front of me.

31:45.34
Bernardette
yeah

31:45.35
Chris
And and talking to parents that I know in my community, we're not parents ourselves, so I'm not having to worry about all of that complexity. But I can imagine that resource is going to be Pretty well appreciated. So you have to let me know it comes online and I've got plenty of people to direct your way. So.

32:01.75
Bernardette
Yeah, I will. I think i too a happens a lot of times with parents is there's a knee jerk, especially with all the news about CPS. And I think there's a knee jerk response to think that Chicago Public Schools are automatically bad.

32:14.53
Chris
Mm hmm.

32:14.91
Bernardette
And I think that It's very important for parents to visit and to become familiar with their local school because when I toured, I toured 12 schools for my kids to try and figure out where I wanted to go send them to and where we wanted to apply.

32:26.43
Chris
okay

32:31.52
Bernardette
And almost all of them were excellent schools that showed that they had caring leadership and interesting teachers and all of these wonderful things.

32:42.19
Bernardette
So I think that there are definitely parts of the city that don't have that.

32:46.04
Chris
Okay.

32:47.47
Bernardette
But I think that it's worth people investigating and not just dismissing the public school system out of hand, at least at this point.

32:47.76
Chris
Yeah.

32:54.02
Chris
I think. This might be something that I'm pretty sensitive to because I came up in a small world high school. you There's colleges I applied to, I didn't get into because I didn't have art class on my transcript because we didn't have art class in our school.

33:06.95
Bernardette
right

33:08.47
Chris
so That's the thing is there's so much kind opportunity there out there.

33:08.72
Bernardette
right

33:11.98
Chris
I think that people don't really recognize and they get too get They get too obsessed with you what's the ratings and the rankings and all of that. and I think you're doing the right thing by going in and actually seeing what's going on on the ground and seeing you can we make of this, which I think is awesome.

33:26.41
Bernardette
All right. Right.

33:27.24
Chris
Well, anyways, I don't want to keep you too much longer here. This has been a great conversation. and I thank you again for joining us here on this inaugural edition. all the stuff that Bernadette's talked about, I will be posting links to her podcast and things like that within the show notes, so people want to subscribe to that, which I recommend you do.

33:44.73
Chris
It's super, super interesting. I'm not a religious guy by any means, but I i i enjoy every episode that comes out, and I'm always learning something

33:47.80
Bernardette
Thank you.

33:53.15
Chris
And, thanks again for, uh, coming coming on and, um, might do a follow-up episode a little bit to see how the new business is going and, um, you know, how the two humans might be doing when they're maybe not so small. So.

34:06.14
Bernardette
That's true. They do grow very fast. Thank you so much. I'm really really honored that you asked me to be on this. And I think it's a great, I think you're doing a great job here.

34:12.54
Chris
Well, you know, you're. You're one of the people in my life that you you're always doing something interesting. There's always stories that you can tell. And you were kind of like a natural first guest for me to say, hey, you want to have a board and do this you with me?

34:29.43
Bernardette
All right.

34:32.41
Chris
If you have Spotify where you can subscribe to the show on Spotify, I'll put links in the show notes, Apple, We should be in Google Podcasts now. I'll take a look at that. But we've got a pretty good schedule of guests scheduled to come aboard. And so stay tuned. And just just I'm going to do my best to try to surprise everybody here from episode to episode with other folks who are doing interesting things. So have a good one. And we'll talk to you later. Bye-bye.