One thing we didn’t talk about on the show today is whether or not I’m going to have to touch a frog. Because I’ll be honest with you -- I don’t want to touch a frog. 

Hello, by the way, this is Andrew from the TBTL podcast. I hope this email finds you well.

In case you missed it, Jon joined Luke and me on the podcast today to announce our big plans for this year’s TBTL-a-Thon. Mark your calendars for the week of July 13, when the three of us will live stream episodes of TBTL from my hometown of Valley City, Ohio! That’s right, we’ll be setting up shop in my old elementary school (now a community center that is *not* named after me for some reason) and broadcasting daily on YouTube, starting at 1pm ET/10am PT. 

We’ve met a couple of guys named Dave who are going to be our Valley City Frog Jump liaisons while we’re in town. The Daves are going to take us out to a pond (or possibly a golf course?) one night to help us find our own frog to enter into the competition. We plan on keeping the frog in a terrarium and caring for it in the days leading up to the big event. I don’t know how you train a frog for this kind of thing, but I suspect we’re going to find out. And all that leads me back to my original question: 

Am I going to have to touch it? 

For a guy who grew up in the country, I am remarkably squeamish when it comes to things that slither and crawl and hop and such. I don’t like touching worms, mice, snakes, spiders, moles, rats, fish, lizards, or -- you guessed it -- frogs. So this might be a challenging assignment. 

My plan right now is to let Luke and Jon do most of the frog-touching. They are both mature adults who seem well equipped for this sort of thing. And if it’s true that touching a frog does give you warts -- as I grew up believing -- then I’ll be the first to buy them each a tube of Compound W. 

We’ll have more announcements to make in the coming weeks leading up to our big adventure, so keep your eyes on this space and your ears tuned to TBTL. Oh, and if you have any good names you’d like to suggest for our pet frog, Jon is keeping a list of ideas. You can email him here.

In the meantime, I hope you all have an absolutely wonderful weekend. We’ll talk to you on Monday! 

Andrew

Lucy has a new best friend named Edna Mae who lives down the street.
Here they both are, absolutely covered in slobber, taking a little
break during last Friday’s romp.

What’s your name and where do you live? 
Kathy Estes. Olympia, WA.

When did you start listening to TBTL? How did you find the show?
Day 1 on the radio. On days I had to work late, I’d hear TBTL on my drive home. Then I started downloading it to play late night on my little Sansa MP3 player so I could listen daily.

How would your friends describe you?
Nice

What was your favorite cereal when you were a kid?Is it still your fav? 
Apple Jacks. Now it’s fruit and homemade granola.

What food do you love to eat the most of?
Every time I leave my house I have to try to talk myself out of stopping at the local taco truck to pick up a burrito al pastor.

What’s the best or worst nickname you ever had?
My dad called me Knute. It started as Noodle, my favorite toddler food, then got shortened. My uncles and Dad’s cousins all called me that. Now there’s only two people still around that I hear it from, and it warms my heart.

What’s a special skill that you have?
I’m a glass half full person. That’s just leaving a little room to top it off with something interesting.

What’s a skill you *wish* you had?
Small talk. (Or maybe not really. I do like to hang out in a corner and eavesdrop.)

If you were driving down the street and you saw Luke and Andrew on the sidewalk, what would you yell at them as you drove past?
“Jalapeña!” 

Can other Tens find you on social media?
I don’t post much but @kathyoly on Bluesky, @kathyeoly on Insta and Kathy Beck Estes on FB.

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