Hi everyone, I'm Joanna.

And I'm Jenny.

Welcome to hyphenated, the podcast about living in the hyphen.

Why did I say it like that?

I don't know. It sounded very newscastery.

Like I'm about to say something really tragic, but in a really upbeat voice.

There was a tsunami.

I don't know why they do that.

How are you, Jenny?

I think that's what most people say when they don't really have much going on.

Even though I have a lot going on.

The equivalent of like the English is like, you know, fine, but I really love just saying,

it's just like I'm here. It's just the fact that you're still here. And I feel like that very much reiterates what the past year has been for everyone. I'm still here.

I'm still existing. I know that we've been talking about this a lot lately, but you've been telling me recently

how you're talking a lot more to your abuelito.

Yeah, since everything went down with my, you know, my weird-based cancer, my grandpa

has been calling me all the time, like all the time. Every day, he's like,

hello, my mom, how is that? Tomo te's tis tis intuendo, and I, you know, it really sort of hit me.

He's my only living grandparent left around. And I've been thinking a lot about my grandparents,

just like more than usual. And we know, when I brought it up to

you a couple days ago and we started talking about grandparents, I was like, oh my God, you are

heavily influenced by your grandparents. You literally have a character based on your grandmother.

...