Carmen Talk - Making a Presidential Decision and Why It Matters to Say Something

In this episode, we wade into the often murky waters of political discourse, challenging the charm of a charismatic leaders and urging a deeper evaluation of their actions. It's a talk about the nuances of power, manipulation, and the real impact of presidential decisions. There is a decision to be made, Trump or Biden. The end of democracy as we know it or step in the right direction bringing our country back from the ledge.  

We navigate today's societal divides with the lens of empathy. Shared anecdotes underscore the importance of recognizing our own blind spots when it comes to race and gender, while also understanding the shifting political sentiments among former supporters of certain leaders. This isn't about pointing fingers; it's about the courage to look inward, seek truth, and engage in genuine discourse that transcends the echo chambers of media.

Wrapping up, we return to the heart of what brings us all together: joy. Our next live stream beckons as a celebration of the moments that truly matter, and you're warmly invited to be a part of this enriching experience. As we share reflections akin to a TED Talk, remember that it's the pursuit of happiness that drives our conversations and knits our community together. Tune in, and let's continue to embrace the joy in every facet of our lives.

Check out Last Week's Live with Rick and Cynthia: 
https://youtube.com/live/7tIQgyaLIzM

Thank you for stopping by. Please visit our website: All About The Joy and add, like and share. We'd appreciate that greatly. Also, if you want to find us anywhere on social media, please check out the link in bio page.

Music By Geovane Bruno, Moments, 3481
Editing by Team A-J
Host, Carmen Lezeth


DISCLAIMER: As always, please do your own research and understand that the opinions in this podcast and livestream are meant for entertainment purposes only. States and other areas may have different rules and regulations governing certain aspects discussed in this podcast. Nothing in our podcast or livestream is meant to be medical or legal advice. Please use common sense, and when in doubt, ask a professional for advice, assistance, help and guidance.

Transcript

Carmen Lezeth: 0:04

Hey, welcome to All About the Joy. This is Carmen Lisette, your host, and this is actually an episode of Carmen Talk, which is one of the offshoots of All About the Joy. If you're new to listening to our podcast, let me just give you a little background. All About the Joy is an umbrella for three different entities that we play around with and we have the live stream. That's kind of like the neighborhood hangout on Thursday nights at 6pm Pacific and 9pm Eastern, and it is kind of like a Zoom call with a whole bunch of friends in the neighborhood, but they happen to be all over the world and we have a regular crew, but we invite people all the time. You're also able to chime in in the chat. So I hope you'll check us out and join at our next live stream Hanging Out in the Neighborhood episode. We'd love to have you, it'd be great.

Carmen Lezeth: 0:50

The other thing that I do is called the Private Lounge, and the Private Lounge is a place in which I can hang out with individuals who have something to add to the world. Right, they tell us a little bit about who they are and what they do, and it's more of an interview one-on-one with me, maybe also with one of our co-hosts or guests and we just have a little conversation, and that is a little bit more intimate. The other thing that I do, which is what I'm doing right now, it's called Carmen Talk, and this is just kind of like an offshoot of TED Talks. This is where I get to share just a part of me, something I'm thinking about, something that I think is important enough, and I had really tried to keep it under 20 minutes. So those are the three things that are under the umbrella of all about the joy. So I appreciate those of you who've been so supportive and are here, and for you new folk, thank you for stopping by and we hope to see you again.

Carmen Lezeth: 1:37

So let me start with this. We had a great conversation on Thursday on the live stream hanging out in the neighborhood. It was Cynthia and it was Rick and myself, and we had a conversation about customer service. They actually, in the work that they do, handle and deal with customer service on a much more regular basis, because they actually are people who provide customer service skills to people who they interact with and call and stuff like that. I was coming to it from a place of being the consumer and having to deal with customer service, so it's an interesting conversation. Please check it out. It's on YouTube. I will also post the audio here on the podcast so you can check that out when you have a moment. I will have more to say about customer service and hospitality in the future, especially when I kind of compare it to all the travel I've done, and most recently to Aruba. But I'm going to wait on that. But that will be an interesting conversation that I hope to have in the neighborhood and also on the podcast.

Carmen Lezeth: 2:32

Today, what I want to talk about has more to do with something that I think is truly, truly important and something that I think has been misconstrued. I don't know how else to say that, but we all know this quote that's been attributed I would say incorrectly to Edmund Burke. I don't think he actually said it and there's evidence to say that he never said this quote. But the quote is the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. I know this is not the first time any of you have heard this quote. You've heard different variations of it, but basically it's about the idea that when something is happening that we should intervene in, we choose not to, for whatever reason, it doesn't matter whether it's a valid reason or not. If you choose not to get involved in something that's what this quote is about and when good people with good hearts and good meaning and good intellect and good possibility don't jump in the fray when something is wrong, when something is bad, when something could be fixed, then that's why evil triumphs all the time. I know that there is also I think it's Proverbs 24. I mean, if you're a Bible person or a Christian person, you probably know more than I do. I mean, I went to 12 years of Catholic school, but I always say I'm a recovering Catholic. I do believe in God, but I don't really adhere to religion in and of itself. But with all that said, I think in Proverbs 24, there's something akin to this as well.

Carmen Lezeth: 4:04

My point is this On our show All About the Joy, we don't talk about politics and religion, and I want people to understand why. It's not because I am not an avid, avid political person and it's not because I don't have opinions about religion. I absolutely do, as I've already kind of stated. But the reason why I make the choice is, I think there are a lot of places where, especially on the interwebs, especially on all social media, where people have these conversations, I don't think they're healthy conversations. I don't think they're helpful conversations. I think a lot of people spew a lot of stuff and I want all about the joy to be a different place and look at.

Carmen Lezeth: 4:40

I understand that controversy is what brings people and an audience to have conversations, but I don't want to fall into that. I don't want to have arguments and hatred and violence and being mean to each other. I want All About the Joy to be a place where we can just come and chill out and hang and talk about whatever, and maybe have differences in whatever it is we're talking about, but it not be so painful that you leave there angry. So that's why I don't talk about religion and that's why I don't talk about politics in the live stream or even. You know, when I'm doing interviews, unless that person wants to talk about that. But usually when I'm interviewing people in the private lounge, we want to know about them personally, you know. So, unless they want to talk about politics or religion, I really don't touch base on that.

Carmen Lezeth: 5:20

So why am I bringing this up? I'm bringing this up because I also believe, back to the quote that I have a purpose in making sure that people understand something that I believe in and that when I think something is wrong, when I think something is not at its best, when I think there is something quote unquote evil happening, I'm not going to just stand by and allow that to fester and allow that to be something that I don't get involved in because I'm afraid or I don't want to be bothered or I don't want to have the hard conversations. You know, I've spoken to quite a few people recently who are staying out of the political fray and I reminded them. You know, I understand that you don't want to talk about politics, but this is the moment where we're supposed to be doing this. This is the moment where we're supposed to be doing this, and you staying out of the fray, or you deciding not to vote or you deciding that's allowing bad things to happen, when you know very well we need all boots on the ground. We need everyone out there trying to deal with this current situation here in the United States, where we are about to possibly reelect Donald Trump into office, and that is look.

Carmen Lezeth: 6:24

I know I have a lot of people who come on the live stream and listen to my podcast, who are Trump supporters? I am not by any means, not even a little tiny bit, a Trump supporter, so I don't think anyone is confused by that. By the way, I think everybody knows that. But why would I say evil, right? Why would I even dare to say that? That's kind of a really strong thing to say about former president or a politician, right? Well, here's the thing. I'm not angry with Trump supporters. I'm not even disappointed anymore in Trump supporters. I'm more upset with the fact that all of us don't get in the fray and try, from a place of respect, from a place of sympathy and compassion, to understand what's happened here. Because of the live stream and because of some of the podcast audience that I have, I know that quite a few of them, if they are involved in politics at all, are Trump supporters. And here's what I want to say about Donald Trump.

Carmen Lezeth: 7:23

Mr Trump, I was angry at people who voted for him and the more time that went on, I started disengaging from people who voted for Donald Trump, and part of it was because I just couldn't handle watching what was going to happen to our country. And, of course, what happened is exactly what everyone thought would happen is this huge political divide. And, in my point of view and from where I sit, what Donald Trump has done has been so absolutely heart-wrenching to me, because he has taken the pain and the suffering and the anger of a certain group of people who are having a real come to Jesus moment and I am talking about white people right now and he's taken that anger and he has used it to manipulate the situation, and what I mean by that is there is a change happening in our country that is involving us understanding, as Americans of the United States, as United States citizens, understanding that a lot of our history, a lot of things that we once knew, have been kind of flipped on their head. Right, we are now understanding things a little bit differently, and a little bit. I mean, look at, black folk have known for a long time, and Indigenous folk for real have known for a long time what the real deal is. But for a lot of us, what's happening is we're starting to understand things like Tulsa, rosewood, understanding and none of us knew that before, right, understanding that our history was not fully told, not fully told. We're starting to grapple with the idea that we made a lot of mistakes, understanding who we are as a people, and what's happening is white people are being told that they are racist, over and over and over and over again, and people of color are saying you are racist, you are racist, you are racist, and that racism is flourishing in this country. We need to stop it. And so all of these things are this really amazing mix of such heartache for our country and Trump who, by the way, used to be a Democrat right? Nothing against people evolving, but Donald Trump didn't evolve.

Carmen Lezeth: 9:40

What Donald Trump did and this is we're talking about way back, okay, way back years and years and years ago is Donald Trump did what a lot of people do. He found the easiest avenue to jump into to get what he wants right. That doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing, but that's what he did. And it was easier to tap into the anger, especially after Barack Obama was in office, the first African-American president, which I think also threw white people in for a mix right. It just kind of no matter how supportive you were of Barack Obama. That was a visual change. That was a concrete change that this country had never dealt with before and for people who were already feeling like they were being pushed aside.

Carmen Lezeth: 10:23

After being at the top of the hill, I think what happened is the pain and suffering. You were looking for somebody who understood you, who could understand that you had nothing to do, from your point of view, with racism and institutional racism and hatred or whatever, even though that's all you keep hearing over and over and over again. And then having Barack Obama be in office and having to hear all the rhetoric that went along with that, that was different than when white people were in office. Right, I think that kind of became this I don't know how to explain it, but like the perfect storm. And then here comes Donald Trump, who was a person at that time who imaged himself as a person of a lot of wealth and power with his name and influence, and he was able to tap into that Tea Party backlash, republican Party anger, hatred, thingamajiggy. That was happening, you know.

Carmen Lezeth: 11:17

Now, look, I'm no big time scholar or anything, and there are historians and academics who can talk about this in a much more eloquent way. But what I'm telling you is is that I understand why people voted for Trump. I can honestly say I don't know why you did it the second time, and I surely don't understand why you're going to do it a third time, but I am telling you that Donald Trump is not a good person. He's not a good person and the fact that, like I saw a meme yesterday that talked about all these things why you should like Donald Trump and like the first two, is like there's been no war. And you know, no, no, there was no war under Donald Trump. And I forget what the next one was, but all of them were false. All of them were false. And you know the no war thing. That's such an interesting thing. I believe that people are so much smarter, but we've become so lazy. There is such nuance to what happens in this world, especially when it comes to war, and let me tell you, the biggest problem with war in this country is that men keep running the world. That's really, I think, one of the biggest problems with this country, but I don't want to digress.

Carmen Lezeth: 12:26

Donald Trump was absolutely involved. I think it was 65 or 67 American troops, military persons, died under Donald Trump. He was also involved in the whole ISIS situation, like there was war going on and the Middle East was not fine under Donald Trump. Are you out of your mind. You just need to Google and not go to your regular places of reading, which are places that keep bringing you towards what you want to read and see. The only president I think in you know, right now, times like in recent history that can actually claim having no war is, I think, jimmy Carter, and I'm not even 100% sure, but I think I read that somewhere.

Carmen Lezeth: 13:13

But here's the thing. Let's just go with the premise that that's the reason why you want to vote for Trump, because under Trump, you believe that there was no war and the Middle East was perfectly fine. What about everything else I would like you to think about? Not the things that happen in the world as we live in them, but the character of the person, the character of the person that you're trying to vote for to run the biggest and most important quote, unquote company in our country, right, the United States, and the fact that so many people keep trying to twist themselves in knots to explain away stuff. There's these great TikToks, and you know all these things, where reporters from Comedy Central, no less, will go up and ask people who are Trump supporters. You know these questions and they'll say isn't it horrible that Biden, you know, stumbled over his words and did A, b, c and D and he actually said blah, blah, blah. And the person who's a Trump supporter would be like, yes, absolutely, it's horrible. That's why Biden can't be president. Blah, blah, blah. And then when the reporter retracts and said you know what, I'm sorry, that wasn't Biden, it was Donald Trump Then they actually find a reason to support Donald Trump and not use the same basis of argument as to why that action should be a reason why they should not be president of the United States. There are so many of those everywhere, I don't even need to pin one out. Comedy Central continuously keeps doing that, so haven't other reporters and look at this whole thing.

Carmen Lezeth: 14:45

If you're going after Biden's age, okay, that is an absolute argument that we can have as a country about the aging population in our government and how that may or may not be a good thing for us as a country. We can have that conversation, but here's my problem with that argument about Biden being so old. Biden is, I think, three or four years older than Donald Trump. That's it Three or four years older than Donald Trump. That's a really bad, silly, stupid argument and that feels like that's all you have. That's all you have, and when I say you, I mean people who are supporting Trump. That's not good enough. You need to do better. And if Donald Trump was 50 years old and Biden was 80, okay, great, that would be a solid argument, I guess. But stop with the ageism, because these two candidates are old, they're older, they're older people, and what I'll say is the age thing doesn't bother me as much and is not even a valid argument for either one of them, because I think I would like to vote for younger people. So I think that's just a wash. They're the same age and it's just not a good, coherent argument.

Carmen Lezeth: 15:58

If you're going to vote for Donald Trump, then you actually have to pull the policies that you believe in and you actually have to do the investigative work, because what you're listening to over and over and over again are these you know little lines, these little tiny memes, these little momentary things that organizations are telling you. I want you to really think about in your heart. Have you really done the work to understand what it is that so many people are troubled by with Donald Trump? It's not even Democrats like me. There are so many people are troubled by with Donald Trump. It's not even Democrats like me. There are so many people that worked for him that are against him. There are so many Republicans who worked for him who are against him. I want you to understand something you voting for Donald Trump the first and second time and, I hope to God, not the third time is not your fault. He is a master manipulator of the truth and there is no shame in understanding that.

Carmen Lezeth: 16:58

He hoodwinked so many people to become president of the United States, especially when there was an underlying hatred of Hillary Clinton, who would have been the first woman president right, which again is kind of like that first black president thing. Right, we're a great country, but it really takes us a long time to figure out the right thing. I've been saying this since I was a kid, like I love my country but, my goodness, it takes us forever to figure out what the right thing is. But when we do the right thing, then we double down and we're solid. It's just so hard. It's so hard and I feel like there's a little bit of light. That's happening Like the January 6th situation is really a great example of how he has been able to change this into these people being hostages, into these people like just taking a stroll, as they're breaking into all of these buildings.

Carmen Lezeth: 17:53

And here's the thing. I know that the people who are in any way, shape or form listening to this podcast. I know that you know that that was wrong. I know that you know it, but you keep trying to justify it. Because, listen, we're human. When we are human, we don't want to be wrong. We want to be right, especially when our whole heart, our full chest, is all up in it. Right, we want so badly not to have done the wrong thing. That's such a human, human thing to be and I get it. I totally get it. But voting for Donald Trump again is going to destroy everything that we believe in and it's going to take us that much longer, it's going to be that much harder to move forward.

Carmen Lezeth: 18:38

And I am not going to sit here and tout the Biden storyline, but I will tell you that the job numbers just came out. The economy is doing well. You need to get out of the bubble. The economy is doing the best it's been able to do in so long. Am I going to attribute that all to Biden? No, because when we understand how the economy works, you can't just pinpoint one person, one aspect, one thing and give them all the credit. You can't do that, whether your party is in office or not.

Carmen Lezeth: 19:11

It is so nuanced, it is so intricate. Does the president of the United States have a lot of power when it comes to the economy? Of course, but then if you're going to be so black and white about it, then you have to go back and look at what Donald Trump did when he was in office and how the economy suffered so hard. Now a lot of you will turn around and be like, well, no, that was COVID, that was da-da-da, and you'll get into all of these conversations. But either you're going to look at it as a nuanced thing right the economy and look at all the aspects and not give anyone one credit, or if you're gonna give people credit or blame people, then they've gotta take all of it. So then you've got to say Biden has done an amazing job all these years he's been in office and give him all the credit for this economy right now, and that Trump was horrible and you've got to give it all to him because he messed up and COVID was an issue.

Carmen Lezeth: 20:00

You can't parse those things. That's not how it works and I know that y'all know that. I know you do, but this is what happens when somebody is so fixated on power and money and manipulating people. He's supposedly a billionaire. Explain to me why he was selling Bibles. He is selling things because he needs to, because he needs money in order to turn around and pay for all of these things that are happening that were his doing. There is no way on the planet that people that I respect and think highly of do not understand that. Even if you want to take away some of the indictments that are against him, there's no way all of those have been fabricated or come on, you are smarter than that. You are better people than that.

Carmen Lezeth: 20:55

Americans, at the end of the day, are good and decent, honest people, and we don't even have to go back that far right To think about some of the things. He said that right away. I know most people don't agree with. My whole point in All About the Joy is to remind people that even when things are bad, there's a way in which to move through them and to move forward. In this hostile environment where our politics and our country is so fractured, it saddens me that we can't even have conversations on policy because we're about to fight for just keeping the Constitution in place, you know, just to keep our country on track to be a democracy Not about being a Democrat, but being a democracy.

Carmen Lezeth: 21:44

There's never been a president who has said they just wanted to be a dictator just for one day. You know, that's not a funny joke, that is not something. If you had ever heard that from the mouths of any other president, we would be up in arms. We would be so scared. If Barack Obama had ever said that, can you imagine? Or if Bill Clinton ever said it, or if Ronald Reagan had ever said it.

Carmen Lezeth: 22:09

We don't do dictators. We don't do this craziness where we're going to lock up people we don't agree with. We don't do that in this country because we don't have kings and queens, right. That's why we left. That's why we left Europe and when I say we, I mean white people, but I'm saying it as an American right. The reason why we came to this country is because we no longer want. We wanted a better way to govern and help each other and be there for each other.

Carmen Lezeth: 22:40

And what Donald Trump is saying over and over and over again and he's not even kidding around, I know he's acting like he's kidding around, but at some point, when somebody has that much power and they're saying they want to put their you know enemies or people that don't believe what they believe in jail, that's a problem. That's a problem. And it's a problem because that's not how our country works. It's we, the people. It's we, the people who decide. We, all of us, all of us and I'm going to get back to the race thing for a moment.

Carmen Lezeth: 23:09

I know this is a tough time for white people, white men in particular, but white women, you right up there doing your thing, and you know a lot of my friends get mad at me, both white and of color. They get mad at me because they think I'm being too compassionate to this situation. But I'll be honest with you. I wouldn't want to be a white person in this country right now, because it is a tough, tough time. It is hard to keep hearing over and over again, I'm sure, that you're racist, or that what you're doing is inappropriate, or that institutional racism, this and DEI this and woke that, and what white people are doing, instead of trying to understand that situation, is they're. So I know white people are having a tough time right now. But what I want to offer is this when somebody tells me and it's happened more than once that I did something wrong Most recently I called someone by the wrong pronoun and I did it over and over and over again in a conversation we were having and the person turned around and said to me you know what, carmen, that's not the appropriate way to talk about that one individual.

Carmen Lezeth: 24:19

I don't automatically turn around and get defensive and start talking about all the people I know who are gay or trans or whatever it is. I don't get defensive about it. I turned around and I said you know what? I'm so sorry I misspoke. I apologize. What is the correct thing to say? And I'll give you another example when I was having dinner with a whole bunch of friends, they all happened to be white women. We were going around the table talking about things and I said one of the things I was grateful for was that I went to this dinner and on this trip with all of these lovely white people. And you know, I didn't know how it was going to work out.

Carmen Lezeth: 24:56

And I realized as I said that that all the people at the table were a little bit thrown by me saying that and their first reaction was I didn't even see color. I don't see color. And look, I get that reaction all the time. You have to see color, because I do. I see color because when I walk in a room, it's hard not to not be the only black person in a room. I went to the University of Vermont and when I walked into my biology class, there were 300 white people in the room, and unless you're a white person who has walked into an auditorium full of only black people, if you've walked into your classroom in high school and it was only black people, then it's probably not the same. But at least you'd have some relative understanding that, if you're doing that every day in your life, that sometimes you're not sure how people are going to take things right. I've been with white people a lot of group of white people many times, and it's not gone so well.

Carmen Lezeth: 25:44

So what I'm trying to say is that we're all working through all of this, and being woke is a weird thing that people keep trying to use as a definition as to how stupid we're being. But all being woke means is being someone who is awake and aware of everyone around them and trying to be as compassionate as possible. Why wouldn't you want to be a good and decent person and treat people the way that you would want to be treated? Right? This whole thing with DEI right, diversity, equity and inclusiveness I mean, that's going through the ringer now and it shocks me because I know you all understand that that was put in place as a good thing to try to equal out all the bad things we've done in history, all the things that we're learning about.

Carmen Lezeth: 26:34

Let me just get back to this and kind of put a cover on all of this conversation, because I know I'm going off on tangents, but it all comes down to the same thing I want our country to get back to a place that I'm scared we've lost, and part of it has to do with our politics and the way in which we have conversations. And the fact is and I say this with my heart and my soul and on my mother's grave, which people know I don't normally say that. I said it the other day on the live stream we are in a really terrible place because people who are voting for Trump can't really dig down deep and see him for who he really is, and it scares me. He is not a good and decent human being and he's manipulating so many of our good citizens, good people. The only thing necessary for triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, and I don't want to be one of those people. I don't want to not share my part and my piece.

Carmen Lezeth: 27:37

Look, I'm done hating Trump supporters. I was really like when he was in office, I was just, you know, I stopped talking to a lot of friends and I stopped talking to a lot of family who supported Trump and, luckily for me, so many of those people have figured it out. It doesn't mean that they're all Biden supporters. It doesn't mean they're all jumping up and down. And now you know, look, I've never been a left wing person. You know, I'm definitely a more conservative Democrat, but I'm a Democrat nonetheless. But I feel blessed and lucky that so many of my friends who were Trump supporters have found their way back. And I really want to emphasize that. I am not criticizing anyone. If anything, I'm opening the door and I'm saying I get it.

Carmen Lezeth: 28:18

I understand, I know why, but please, please, dig deep, dig deep, do your research. Do not go and look at only the things you always look at. Do not go and look at only the things you're used to seeing, because that algorithm keeps feeding you whatever it is you keep looking for. Right, think about it this way If you do a research and you're trying to buy a new bag and you look for a new bag online, then how long does that bag that you were looking at, or bags in general, keep popping up as ads. That is the same thing that happens when you go online to look and you do your Google search or you do your Bing search or you do your whatever search, if you keep searching and looking only for the same things that you have always gone to. So if you Google something about Trump and you only go to Fox News to look at it, you're going to continuously get only that information. You have to force yourself to go.

Carmen Lezeth: 29:11

Look at other media, right, I look at everything Reuters, the Associated Press. I look at the BBC, I look at CNN, msnbc, I look at Fox. I look at everything and I try to understand it all. And then I realize there are places that I don't need to look at anymore because they're not telling the truth. And the reason why they're not telling the truth is because I can go to places like Snopes I think it's S-N-O-P-E-S, but I don't know if it's Snoops or Snopes, but Snopes. But they do fact-checking, and so doesn't Reuters, and you can fact-check this stuff. And when I mean fact-checked, I don't mean just get a thumbs up or a thumbs down, I mean actually go in and read whatever article it is that you heard this and this and this about.

Carmen Lezeth: 29:47

If you have to twist yourself and not to excuse something that someone's done, check yourself. You're better than that and no one running this country should make you have to question their integrity, their character. It should be really easy and all we should care about is the policies that they're going to implement. But we can't do that right now. We can't even fight that right now, because if Donald Trump becomes president, we're going to go down a really horrible, horrible part of the United States and I don't want to do that.

Carmen Lezeth: 30:17

So please, I hope those people who listen to my podcast or come to the live stream hear me and don't get too upset. Our live stream will not be about this. This is just my little TED Talk, my little thing I do, and it lets you know who I am as a person, so you make whatever choices you need to make. But, with all that said, thank you again. I appreciate so much that people stop on by and check out All About the Joy, and please visit us next week on the live stream at 6 pm Pacific, 9 pm Eastern. And, as always, remember it really is All About the Joy. Thanks for stopping by. All About the Joy. Be better and stay beautiful folks, have a sweet day.