Upworthy Weekly podcast: Bizarre bucket list, Upworthy cats, hearing black holes and moe

[Upworthy Weekly podcast: Bizarre bucket list, Upworthy cats, hearing black holes]( Have you been listening to our new podcast “Upworthy Weekly”? Every Saturday Alison Rosen (“The Adam Carolla Show,” “Alison Rosen is Your New Best Friend”) and Upworthy staff writer Tod Perry cruise into the weekend by taking a lighthearted look at the site’s most popular and engaging stories. The podcast has great reviews on Apple Podcasts (4.6/5) with listeners calling it “delightful” and “good news delivered with great humor.” On this week’s episode of “Upworthy Weekly,” Alison and Tod discuss some fun cat stories, a couple who took engagement photos at Olive Garden and a woman whose 100th birthday wish was to be arrested. Plus, what does a black hole sound like and why is this time of year so special to Tod? [Listen and subscribe here.]( [Two women at a Texas Denny's realized it was short-staffed so they jumped in and started cooking]( We've all been there. Standing in line to be seated at a fairly busy restaurant while your stomach growls in protest. But when two women left a concert August 22 in search of food, they had no idea they'd find themselves taking orders and cooking food. Sylvia Arrendondo and her mother Idalia Merkel went to a local Denny's in Texas and were seated by another customer before realizing the restaurant was extremely short-staffed. Instead of taking their business elsewhere, they decided to roll up their sleeves and get to work. Arrendondo wrote about the unique experience on her Facebook page where she explained that only two people were working. One was serving tables and the other was the cook. As for the man that was acting as host, seating new guests, he had no idea what he was doing because he didn't work there. He told Arrendondo and Merkel that his wife used to work at Denny's so she started helping to serve tables and he decided to help get people seated. [Couple who took engagement photos at Olive Garden are now getting a free honeymoon in Italy]( Carlsey Bibb and Caden Mills went viral this week for taking their engagement photos in front of an Olive Garden in Cookeville, Tennessee, pretending it was Italy. The photos turned out gorgeous and fooled some folks, while many of those who got the joke saw it as a statement against the social pressure to be perfect for Instagram. The photo shoot was the brainchild of photographer Shea Cravens. “A little over a year ago I had the idea of doing a session at Olive Garden. I mentioned it to some friends but never got around to doing it,” Cravens wrote in an Instagram caption. “Fast forward to today, it finally happened and I am so happy with the outcome.” Most importantly, the couple was over the moon with the tongue-in-cheek photos. "They were way better than we could’ve ever imagined," Carlsey told BuzzFeed. "We've never been to Italy so I didn't know what to expect from the pictures, but when we got them back we loved them," she added. [Orcas engage in human-like fads, including weird fashion trends and teen hooliganism]( Orcas are among the smartest animals in the world and their combo of intelligence and social behavior can make for some interesting surprises. Adolescent orcas have been causing headaches for boaters off the coasts of Europe with some seemingly aggressive behavior toward boat rudders, repeatedly ramming into and biting them, causing major damage. Most of these rudder encounters, which have reportedly been happening for just over two years, have taken place near Portugal and Spain. However, as NPR reports, the same kind of boat attack recently took place off the coast of France. Ester Kristine Storkson shared that she was violently awakened on her father's 37-foot sailboat by several orcas ramming into the vessel. "They [hit] us repeatedly ... giving us the impression that it was a coordinated attack," she told NPR. After about 15 minutes, they swam away, leaving the boat's rudder destroyed. The location of this particular encounter has surprised orca experts, as it's nowhere near where the other rudder incidents have occurred. Renaud de Stephanis, president and coordinator at cetacean research group CIRCE Conservación Information and Research, told NPR that the Spain and Portugal encounters are thought to have been from a small group of adolescent male orcas from the same pod, but the coast of France isn't in their home range. [10 things that made us smile this week]( It's interesting how "good news" can be relative, isn't it? This week, President Biden announced a student loan relief program that has millions of Americans jumping for joy and millions of other Americans irked. What's considered good news to some is considered bad news to others, and that's often the way it goes with anything remotely political. That's OK. We all have different opinions based on our different understandings and experiences. Unfortunately, social media can often be a place for people to bicker over such things, which is why these weekly roundups of joy are such a refreshing respite. Here we come together to take a break from the political fray and celebrate things that are universally smile-worthy. So let's drop the debates for just a few minutes and relish in a little collective serotonin boost. Find us on the World Wide Web: [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [Twitter]( [Website]( [LinkedIn]( Copyright © 2022 GOOD | Upworthy, All rights reserved. 1370 N St Andrews Pl, Los Angeles, CA 90028 You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](.