Links + Local Love (Vol. 6)

podcast endings & beginnings; bubblegum alley

Hello to my new subscribers, and welcome! You can get the backstory on this newsletter in this post, have your burning questions answered here, or share this with a friend via the button below. Thank you!

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Well, it’s not every month that a decade-long creative endeavor wraps up and a new one debuts, but that’s what June had in store for me - right alongside all the usual trappings: graduations, school trips, kid birthdays, camp beginnings, broken water heaters, random heat waves, glitchy WiFi, and a guinea pig funeral.

Meagan Francis

and I said goodbye to our incredible community at The Mom Hour podcast after more than 10 years of continuous publication. You can read Meagan’s beautiful thoughts about it here (I co-sign it all!), and listen to the final episode in the player below:

And ALSO, because we may be done talking about motherhood and hustling for dwindling ad dollars but we’re never done actually-just-talking, Meagan and I launched a new show out into the world! Have a look around the

Midlife Lady Leisure Pursuits

Substack and check out our first few episodes wherever you get your podcasts. We’re having a lot of fun.

sunset, sunrise, and all of that

Onto the links…

a smattering of things I’ve been using, loving, reading, listening to, or thinking about

• This OXO Cold Brew Coffee Maker continues to be Summer MVP in our house; I drink hot coffee in the morning year-round, but my afternoon iced coffee using the cold brew concentrate is an absolute delight

• TV making us laugh this month: Hacks (season four!), The Four Seasons, and John Mulaney: Baby J, a comedy special from 2023 that I’d heard Mullaney and others talk about, but never actually seen

• My 17-year-old made this Skillet Chicken With Mushrooms and Caramelized Onions (NYTimes Cooking) last week and it was incredible; he served it with toasted french bread and the whole thing gave Parisian bistro vibes

• I left my Kindle in a hotel room (sad!) and used the opportunity to switch to a Kobo Clara BW eReader (happy!); online reviews agree that Kindles are best for those who get their books from Amazon and/or Kindle Unlimited, but I’m 100% a library gal, and the Kobo is known for making it easy to check out eBooks via Libby and Overdrive¹

Local Love

a few items of note pertaining to my hometown - tell me what’s happening in yours in the comments!

• I dare you not to smile looking through these gorgeous photos of Santa Barbara’s iconic annual Solstice parade

• When we moved back to town in 2020 I was delighted to discover that someone I remembered from high school was now my representative to the California state senate; that same former schoolmate continues to climb the ranks in Sacramento and I have enjoyed following along

• We’re coming up on the exact date marking 100 years since Santa Barbara’s famous 1925 earthquake; I can’t get enough of old photos of familiar streets, so these earthquake commemoration exhibits are right up my alley

• I enjoyed learning the backstory behind The Barbara beach club via this interview on Santa Barbara Talks (and I would probably have made some incorrect assumptions about this venture had I not learned more about it first)

• Two restaurants that aren’t new but I’ve only recently tried and loved: Secret Bao (contemporary Asian, in their words) and The Blue Owl (in their words: crafty and uncommon cuisine that combines elements of classic dishes with Asian-inspired ingredients)

• We’ll talk more about Jacaranda trees in an upcoming What’s Growing post, but I loved

  @oliviajoffrey
  ’s painting and the accompanying guest essay over on Beachtown Bohemia

• Not totally local, but definitely regional: I visited Bubblegum Alley in San Luis Obispo earlier this month. Who knew? (Photo below.)

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That’s it for now. Tell me what’s new in your neck of the woods! -S

1. Also, I like sticking it to Bezos when I can.