I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still

watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you,

soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making,

Stories Without End from WB EZ Chicago.

Join me as I share how the genre began, their social impact, and why these stories endure.

Listen wherever you get your podcast.

From WBEZ Chicago, this is Nerd Ed.

I'm Greta Johnson.

We did it.

We made it to another weekend.

Here to help us unwind from the week that was are the producer and host of the podcast,

Normal Gossip, Alex, Sujong Loughlin, and Kelsey McKinney. Alex, Kelsey, welcome. Hi. Hi. Thanks so much for having us. Thank you both for doing this. I love Normal gossip. It's such a fun hang. So I'm excited to have you all on my gosh. Thank you.

Okay. So I want to start with a story that caught my attention this week from the New York Times style section. It is about the it plant. Apparently the fiddly fig is no longer the hit plant to have. There's a new one. It's got the market cornered. And it's called the geogantus

ciliatus. A plant buyer founded on an expedition somewhere. Apparently it's super pricey. It's like a whole

thing. It's funny because like I am a house plant person, but this article kind of made me really

sad and sucked all the fun out of having plants because it was like, oh, this is another market. I don't know. What did you think? Kelsey, are you a plant person? I am a new plant person,

and I feel like I am already kind of a decade behind on plants just by showing up, like, in the year

2022. I went to a plant store the other day to get a new plant for my house, and it was $40,

which was a very large surprise to me.

And then the woman at the counter gave me all of these, you know, tips for how to keep it

alive.

And I realized I was just way over my head.

...