A fish in the pond | Relaxed Company for a Peaceful Moment

In A Fish in the Pond, Amanda and Marco allow their thoughts to drift gently from one ordinary observation to the next, creating a soothing soundscape of calm reflection. Inspired by Amanda’s lovely metaphor of being a fish in a pond — quiet, unhurried, and perfectly at ease — this episode embraces stillness in the everyday. The conversation moves like lily pads across water, touching lightly on simple ideas and whimsical musings without ever rushing or demanding too much of your attention.
As with every episode of this calming podcast, the tone is soft and intentionally meandering, offering a relaxing conversation designed to help you fall asleep, ease anxiety, or settle quiet racing thoughts at the end of the day. It’s ideal for background listening while you wind down in bed or during a middle-of-the-night wake-up when you need something steady and reassuring. There’s nothing urgent here — just gentle companionship and small reflections that create space for rest. Let the rhythm of the dialogue wash over you and guide you toward a peaceful, untroubled sleep.

​A fish in the pond
(original airdate: June 7, 2025)

Welcome to the Insomnia Project. Sit back, relax and listen as we have a calm conversation that's meant to help you sort of follow your thoughts and fall asleep.

Amanda:Perhaps let your thoughts be the fish in the pond, each one of them floating by, and you're not any of those fish, you are the pond.

Marco: Oh, I like that. I'm your host, Marco Timpano.

Amanda:I'm Amanda Barker. Listen, it might surprise everybody, but we don't do any prep for this.

Marco: That's right. That's right. None whatsoever.

Amanda:I didn't know you were going to start the podcast.

Marco: Sometimes.

Amanda:Okay, he does. I don't.

Marco: Speaking of which, I want to just say this. I am looking into ad free abilities for people who want that with the podcast because Acast no longer offers it. So just give me some time. I'm gonna figure that out for you all. So just hang tight if you want,

Amanda:in the coming weeks. Yeah, just give us a few weeks here and we'll get it sorted.

Marco: Yeah, everything takes longer.

Amanda:Sorry about that, everybody.

Marco: Yeah, I'm a little disappointed, but what are you gonna do? I got the backyard set up.

Amanda:You did.

Marco: And I.

Amanda:Back deck. Really?

Marco: Back deck?

Amanda:No, really? Yard. There.

Marco: There's no yard.

Amanda:Yeah, back wood, wooden thing set up.

Marco: I put our inside plants outside.

Amanda:That's a big moment.

Marco: That is a big moment.

Amanda:The traveling of the plants.

Marco: I still have one plant I gotta bring from all the way upstairs out.

Amanda:Mm. And that plant has done pretty well, actually.

Marco: Money tree. Right?

Amanda:The money trees. And they're guys. They're big. They're like, big. They're tall. They're proper trees.

Marco: Now, I was told you should never buy a money tree for yourself. Someone's supposed to buy you the money tree.

Amanda:Well, I bought you yours, you bought

Marco: me mine, so that's fine.

Amanda:Yeah. Do we have another one? I don't know that we did.

Marco: No, those are. Those are the ones we have.

Amanda:Those are the ones.

Marco: Yeah.

Amanda:That's all we need.

Marco: Yeah. But I have that floofy plant outside.

Amanda:I'm sorry.

Marco: That floofy plant that I got, It's.

Amanda:I think it's called the. Is that the genus?

Marco: It's called chenille, I believe.

Amanda:What?

Marco: Yeah, it's a chenille plant. Yeah.

Amanda:Oh.

Marco: Never seen it before. And we were at a.

Amanda:It's got red floofers on it.

Marco: Yeah, it's got like these really fluffy. I'll take a photo of it and I'll put it up. I don't know how else to describe it, but they look like. Almost like a cat's tail. But it's not a cat's tail, if you will.

Amanda:But it's like that. You're in.

Marco: Yeah.

Amanda:Yeah. That one's neat. So we'll see how that one survives the summer.

Marco: Yeah.

Amanda:I can't believe, like, even today it Felt like, oh, is it going to be warm enough? And we're mid June. I know What a cold spring this has been.

Marco: Right.

Amanda:That's all right. That's fine. I just have decided it means we'll have a nice, beautiful fall.

Marco: I like that. I like when you make decisions like

Amanda:that for the planet.

Marco: There was something I wanted to talk about that we talked about last week that got executed, and I can't remember what it was executed.

Amanda:Well, I know something that just came into my head.

Marco: Okay.

Amanda:Like a fish in a pond.

Marco: Yeah.

Amanda:But now I don't remember. What's the name? Okay. Do you remember on Shark Tank, there was a woman, and she was from Japan, and she said, in Japan, there's a. There's a name for old person smell.

Marco: Oh, my goodness.

Amanda:Like, old man smell.

Marco: No, I don't. I do remember this, but I don't remember what the name of it is, but what a thing to bring up on the podcast.

Amanda:Oh, is it. Is that triggering?

Marco: People don't want to talk about old man smell.

Amanda:Well, I only say it because I made this big pot of lentils, which, by the way, is something that I do when I'm low on groceries or the budget's tight or whatever. I like incorporating, doing a big pot of lentils. It's something I've done forever. Years and years and years ago, I bought a UNICEF cookbook, and there was a recipe in there from a Canadian Olympian swimmer. And what was that? Like, recipes from Canadian Olympians. So pretty specific cookbook. And all the proceeds went to unicef. Anyway, and there was one called Spanish lentils. And I was like, my mom never really cooked with lentils, so I didn't really know what to do with them. And so I have followed versions of this recipe forever now. I mean, like, 25 years at least.

Marco: Wow.

Amanda:And this wasn't really that. It was kind of a version of that. But anyway, I made a big pot of lentils, also known as pulses. Pulses, yes. And incorporated sweet potato. I had a sweet potato to use. Anyway, when I first made it, it was good, and I had it in the crock pot. So sometimes what I do is I take the crock pot, sort of bowl and top out, put that in the fridge, and. And then I can just reheat it, like, plunk it back in and reheat it. So when I made it, we actually were going out to dinner, and so we didn't end up eating it that night. I forget. I thought we were going to have it for lunch, and it wasn't Ready yet? So, anyway, I didn't time it right. That was on Sunday. Well, it's been in the fridge. Today's Wednesday, so I was like, okay, time to eat these things once and for all. And I put. I heated them back up today, and it made the house have that sort of old person smell. I think.

Marco: I'm glad it wasn't me.

Amanda:Like, kind of like that nursing home smell. And I think that's just. Okay. He's not happy with me saying these things, but. Okay, let me be more specific then. A smell of sort of soup.

Marco: Okay.

Amanda:And I also. Soup and then, like, laundered sheets.

Marco: Okay.

Amanda:I associate with that smell and like, so, like the scents of cleaning products and. Or the laundry mixed with this soupy smell.

Marco: And that's what your pulses smell like.

Amanda:Well, that's what this one. This is what the house smells like right now.

Marco: Okay, well, I don't love that.

Amanda:Well, I didn't say you were gonna love it, but I didn't think you'd be extremely triggered by it.

Marco: I'm a little bit like. I mean, this is a bodyguard.

Amanda:So we put a trigger warning.

Marco: Well, I can't now. We've already sort of.

Amanda:You can do it at the beginning. You can backtrack. I mean, I like the man that

Marco: just tells me to do stuff. And she. She has no. She does no work in the editing room. But she just.

Amanda:Yeah, I don't. But I do work in other ways in our relationship, and it all works out in the end, I think. Question mark. Oh, my gosh. Okay, listen, I don't. Do we want to do a deep dive on the amount of work I do not do for this podcast?

Marco: No. No.

Amanda:I'm sure that can be fun for you and all our listeners. Okay. He's mad at me. I just kicked the table.

Marco: She always puts her foot on the table, and then it makes it grumble

Amanda:because I have short legs, Marco, and it's uncomfortable if I don't put them on the insides of the table thingies. I know.

Marco: Put them on the table at the start before I hit record.

Amanda:But then I had to itch my leg. Okay, fine. Well, I brought some. Some great lentil content to the table.

Marco: Fair enough. So the other day, I was washing out my water bottle. So, you know, you have a water bottle. Water bottle you take out to work. So I put some Palmolive in it, and I filled it up with water halfway up with water, and I was going to shake it and really clean it out, and I left it on the counter. Well, unbeknownst to me, an hour or so later, when the. When the foam or the bubbles were

Amanda:no longer there, you came home and your water bottle is often sitting around, laying around. It's often in various states, and often it's clear ish, so you can see how much water is in there. And it was more than half full. And so I thought, oh, I'll be kind and I'll put it in the fridge.

Marco: So we ended put it in the fridge. And as you might remember from last week, I wasn't feeling well, so I was taking some, you know, medication for colds and flus and whatnot. And I grabbed my water bottle and downed it so that the medication, the pill would go down. And it tasted like soapy water that I drank.

Amanda:Well, it wasn't a good sight. I was falling asleep in bed. Marco was like, I think I'm going to take one of those nyquils or nighttime.

Marco: It's like a Tylenol for colds.

Amanda:And I said, good idea. And then he took a swig of this water and started violently spitting it out. And I felt so bad because he was like, it tastes like palm olive. And I was like, oh, I wonder why. Maybe because you washed it. And then he was like. We realized what had happened, right? I was trying to be kind. Now, here's my version of that story.

Marco: Here we go.

Amanda:So I feel like that was unintentional revenge. Last January, we were in Florida visiting my folks, and we often, very often, spray our mouths and throats with propolis.

Marco: And we've talked about propolis on the podcast before.

Amanda:So I always have. I always have one on me, really. One in my purse, one in my pocket of a jacket, backpack, etc. We always have one in the car as well. So we had one in our rental car. And, you know, we were. If we were in a crowded area, shopping mall, that kind of thing. You know, what if we didn't have it on us? And when we got to the car, we'd just do a couple quick sprays in our mouth just to try to keep things as antibacterial and antifungal and antiviral as possible, just to make ourselves at the very. And listen, I don't mind the taste of it, so.

Marco: But if you are allergic to bee stings, do not use propolis.

Amanda:Sure.

Marco: Okay.

Amanda:So anyways, and so we had been spraying in her mouth every time we came in the car. So we came in from the mall or the movie theater.

Marco: It was like a Target or something.

Amanda:We had gone to.

Marco: Yeah.

Amanda:And I reached down to where we had put it in the rental car, grabbed it, did two generous squirts in my mouth and immediately had to open the door and violently try to spit it out and wash it it out with water. Because instead of the propolis in that exact space and the exact same shape and size of bottle was a container of off bug spray. And I had sprayed that directly into my mouth, generously.

Marco: It was like all natural off. Oh great bug spray that I had

Amanda:actually held out to my tongue. Anyhow, so I spat it out, spat it out. And I was, you know, it was a moment of like immediately opening the door, immediately trying to get it out of my mouth. And all I can see is Marco's shoulders silently heaving because he finds it hilarious and yet is trying so hard not to openly laugh at me because he knows that'll just aggravate me more. But he couldn't stop. He was laughing so hard. And he didn't mean to do it. But to be fair, he put it exactly where we had put the propolis that whole week in the car. So anyway, I wasn't mad. I was just, you know, it left a bad taste in my mouth, that's for sure. And so I didn't mean to do that. I didn't mean to give you a palm olive soaked water bottle full of a mouthful of soap, but that is exactly what happened a few nights ago.

Marco: Listen, it happens to the best of us, doesn't it?

Amanda:I mean, I. I guess, I guess it does. Yeah. Anyway, us and our water bottles, we seem to have so many. They travel around sometimes.

Marco: I don't know if this happens to our listeners, but we'll find water bottles under the driver's seat or, or the seat of the passenger side car under the bed.

Amanda:I found one under my nightstand this morning. I really got to clean out that area.

Marco: They just, they just like to hide.

Amanda:Yeah, they just, they fall and they roll and. Water bottles, man. Speaking of which, I need to pack a water bottle.

Marco: That's right, that's right. We're going on a little vacation. You'll hear about it when we get back. Very exciting. I started to pack and I thought you were finished. I did, I did. I just need to locate a couple things and I want to iron a shirt that I want to bring.

Amanda:Or two, we're in pre pre trip mode. So there are two things I always have to do. I'm a woman of a certain age and so I always have to try and get my nails done before we go, okay. And try to dye my hair before we go so that I don't have roots coming out and that my nails aren't grown out either. Sort of the same idea. But this one is going to be a polish change more than a mani because I think these nails still look pretty.

Marco: What's the difference between a polished change and a mani?

Amanda:It's a good question. I usually always do a mani pedi and I, and I usually do one, I'm going to say once every six weeks.

Marco: That's hands and feet.

Amanda:Yes. And it. Listen, it's been a long time thing for me because I have a hard time, I don't know, being one of those people that actually goes and does that every single time for my nails and feet. But what I've realized is I'm an obsessive picker at my nails. So if there's something rough, I will try to pick at it. And what I've realized over a lifetime of doing this is that it's always me trying to perfect it. So if there's something to be dug at or picked at, I will do it. And it's, it's, it's a well researched, you know, it's like nail biting or anything.

Marco: Sure.

Amanda:You're trying to get it down so that it's perfect. Right, right. And of course it never is and you just make it worse. So anyways, I know that when I get my nails done, I don't do that. And my fingers are not all ripped up. And Mark was a lot happier because they can get really bad.

Marco: Yeah, it's like a mangle hand, so.

Amanda:Oh, mangle hand. Used to call them zombie fingers. Yeah, so. So that's an act of self care that I indulge in. And listen, I'm a grown up and I make money and nobody else is judging me other than myself. And I'm not, I'm just. It's always one of those things where I'm like, oh my goodness, am I really going to spend that much a year on my nails and my feet? But I enjoy it. I do it. So it's my little act. And you know, and I don't, I don't buy coffee out very much anymore.

Marco: That's true. That's true. And Amanda will often text me and say, what color should I get?

Amanda:Yeah, I let him choose. Often if I don't care or if I have, if I'm shooting a film or commercial or whatever, then I'll usually go fairly neutral. I'll usually still get them done. I used to not get them done, but I think it's better if I get them done and I'll just go very neutral, like a cloudy clear or just a beige or something. So anyway, these ones are pretty good, but I'd like to. But they're gonna be grown out by the time we're at the end of our vacation. So if I have time, I will get them changed. And then I gotta dye my hair tonight. So I'm on it now. And the other thing I do is I always. I always fill up my cheap little tablet with movies and TV shows.

Marco: I see.

Amanda:Yeah, because I've noticed it's actually, you can't really do that on your computer. It's a whole thing. You have to do it on a device. So I like the device more than having it on my phone.

Marco: Okay, well, there you go. Some tips from Amanda. Her little nail routine.

Amanda:Don't. Don't diminish my nail routine.

Marco: I'm not. I'm really.

Amanda:My little nail routine.

Marco: I think it's great. Your wonderful nail routine and my hair

Amanda:routine and you bought me hair dye. Marco bought me three dollar hair dye in a bargain bin. So we're gonna. We're gonna try it out tonight.

Marco: Are you gonna use that one?

Amanda:Yeah. Are you okay with that?

Marco: Oh, for sure. I don't. I mean, I don't.

Amanda:What if my hair comes out crazy?

Marco: It was so. One of my favorite areas in our local grocery store is the sail rack or whatever you want to call. They do this, like, they have this little bin where it's like things are 94 cents or really, really discounted and you don't know what it's going to be. It could be, like blue icing. It could be, you know, thermometers. It could be anything. And so I happened to be there and it was all the natural hair dye.

Amanda:Yeah, it's all natural.

Marco: I think so. And it was like they're.

Amanda:They're. I will say this, they're companies I've never seen before with hair dye, which makes me a little nervous. But I don't have anything filming coming up. I just have, you know, you're gonna be the one looking at my hair, so.

Marco: Well, you would think that would be even more important.

Amanda:Well, here's the thing. This is why I want to do it tonight. So that if it's a total disaster, I can fix it before we, you know, hop on a plane.

Marco: Sure, sure.

Amanda:Anyway, so wish me luck. He got me the color chocolate, which I'm wondering if that's Gonna be too light, but.

Marco: Oh, are you not a chocolate?

Amanda:I'm more like a dark chocolate. I think hair like a.

Marco: Like a chestnut.

Amanda:A chestnut would be even lighter.

Marco: Oh, chestnut is lighter. Yeah, like a walnut.

Amanda:Well, listen, everyone's chocolate is a little different, so we're just to see what it looks like.

Marco: My hair is like white chocolate.

Amanda:Yes. Delicious.

Marco: Alpine, my favorite. Yum. Yeah. So the deck. I just. I gotta deal with the deck again because all the little things from the tree fell on it and I tried to plug in the light on the tree and I'm not tall enough. And so.

Amanda:Okay. So it's just been pulled out.

Marco: Yeah. So I need to deal with that.

Amanda:Okay.

Marco: But we don't have a ladder is the problem.

Amanda:Well, that's when we have neighbors, I guess.

Marco: Yeah.

Amanda:So do you want to buy a ladder? But where will we put. Then we have a ladder.

Marco: Then we have a ladder.

Amanda:Where do our neighbors put their gigantic ladder?

Marco: They have a shed in their backyard. Right.

Amanda:I mean, isn't there a such thing as a ladder that becomes short?

Marco: Yeah. Retractable ladder.

Amanda:Yeah. Well, can't we just get one of those?

Marco: Yeah, we can. I'd like to get one. Trevor has one. Our good friend Trevor has one that like it. So basically retracts and it can be.

Amanda:We need a ladder like twice a year.

Marco: But when you need that ladder, you need the ladder. I know. The only thing with a retractable ladder is you need to lean the retractable ladder versus an A frame ladder. Right.

Amanda:I will say our city does have a thing called the tools library.

Marco: Oh.

Amanda:And so you can take things out tools out just the same as you can take out books from a normal library.

Marco: Where is the tool library?

Amanda:I don't know, but I've heard about it a few times.

Marco: Oh.

Amanda:So do you think maybe they'd have a ladder and we can just.

Marco: I mean, I would hope so.

Amanda:We can just check out a ladder for a week. That would be helpful. Are you going to look it up? Yeah.

Marco: The tool library. Where is it? Toronto Tool library. Oh, yeah, there's a tool library. Oh, but there's a membership for the two. I don't think it's part of the library system, Amanda. Oh, yeah.

Amanda:Oh, there's a membership.

Marco: Yeah.

Amanda:Oh, how much is the membership?

Marco: Looks like it's. Your membership is 85 bucks. Oh, for the year.

Amanda:Just buy a ladder then.

Marco: Well, letters are more expensive than that. But I guess if you use it. If you use it often enough or if you like, I don't know. You, you only need a lawnmower every once in a while. It might be worth it. But I'll figure it out. I'll figure out the latter situation and get that. And get that worked out.

Amanda:Okay? Well, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Marco: No, it wasn't. No, it wasn't.

Amanda:That we know of.

Marco: No, I don't think it was.

Amanda:All right.

Marco: Yeah.

Amanda:Marco, we went to Stratford this weekend.

Marco: Oh, that's right.

Amanda:And I think we've talked about Stratford on the podcast before. But Stratford is a really interesting town. It's a town devoted to theater, I would say. Wouldn't you?

Marco: And the Pork Council of Ontario.

Amanda:The Pork Council of Pork, Isn't it the Pork Congress.

Marco: Congress, yeah.

Amanda:Which is an even funnier name. Like, the idea of a congress of pork is so weird and funny. Yeah, I mean, it's a very. It's farm country and theater country and theater country. Well, here's the thing. In the 50s, you know, the town, all these towns, listen, people just name things the same thing over and over and over. I think we've established that. So yes, it was not the original Stratford, but anyway, it's a Stratford. And right next to it is the town of Shakespeare as well, which is so small.

Marco: Like you just drive, right, you drive

Amanda:through Shakespeare to get to Stratford, basically. Anyhow. And then I think it was the late 40s or early 50s, maybe, I think the 50s, they were trying to like drum up tourism for the town. And because nobody was going, it was, you know, aging farmlands and things like that. And so they decided to develop this little theater festival and they put it in a tent every summer. And from that this world class theater festival grew and it's well beloved by Canadians and all sorts of people abroad that, that go to it. And we happen to be there on one of the opening weekends. Now, what's funny is when you say Stratford and you're seeing theatre in Stratford, everyone of course, assumes it's part of the Stratford Festival, of which I think there are five stages, at least two main ones, and then some other smaller ones. However, we have some friends involved with the creation of a more of a more recent festival called the Here for Now Festival. And they, much like Stratford, they were doing things in a tent outside, which was actually quite magical and beautiful.

Marco: It was nice.

Amanda:It was beautiful. I wonder if they're going to do more plays outside. But anyhow, they got a space. So we went and saw their new space and we had a friend who was doing a beautiful performance in that space. And so we went and visited with her and had delicious meals all weekend.

Marco: And as luck would have it, we had another mutual friend who was going to see one of the shows at the Stratford Festival. Anne of Green Gables.

Amanda:Anne of Green Gables. Not the musical, a new version of the play of Anne of Green Gables, which actually I'm pretty intrigued about. I'd like to see it as well.

Marco: So we had, we had lunch with our friend who was performing and another friend who lives in Stratford. And then we had like an early dinner with our friend who happened to be seeing Ann or what's it called? Anne of Green Gables. Anne of Green Gables. And so it was a lovely, it was a lovely day in Stratford, Ontario.

Amanda:It really was really lovely. Just visiting with friends. And that was the whole weekend for us. I spent Friday night. Oh my goodness. At a meal that I will never forget. It was so good. A restaurant called Maven here in Toronto that's just opened. So my friend Daniel and I checked that place out because it's really close to his house. And then we ended up having a friend who was having her 43rd birthday on Sunday night. So then we went out to dinner with all of them.

Marco: That's right. And we just had a lovely weekend

Amanda:of food and friends. We ate our way through the weekend and enjoyed the company of dear friends too. What's. What's more to life than that? Nothing. Right. That's true. Is that how you say that? Is there more to life than that?

Marco: Sure.

Amanda:And the answer is not really. I mean, or maybe there is.

Marco: Up to you. I guess.

Amanda:That's a great weekend anyway, was what I was trying to say, very inarticulately.

Marco: And now I'm racing to get the house in order before we go, which is always. Yeah, that's my plan.

Amanda:Here's the things. Like I would be ready, but then inevitably things. Curveballs get thrown.

Marco: Curveballs get thrown.

Amanda:Here's an eight page audition full of monologues you have to get done by Friday.

Marco: Speaking of which, our niece needs us to coach her through a voice audition that she has and tomorrow her day is pretty full.

Amanda:Oh right, because she has her violin.

Marco: Yeah. So we've got to figure out if we can do it tonight or she said maybe we can squeeze it in tomorrow is what she said.

Amanda:So, okay. Am I involved in this or is it more you and her?

Marco: You can be. Or I can be.

Amanda:The only thing reason I say that is because I'm going to be working till about seven tomorrow.

Marco: I see. Okay.

Amanda:Yeah.

Marco: So then I'll. I'LL get involved with it.

Amanda:I'm just letting you know.

Marco: Yeah, sure, sure, I'll work on it.

Amanda:It's one of the reasons I want to get more work done tonight.

Marco: Great. So our night is not going to be over until we get all this work done.

Amanda:Oh, it's a long race to the finish line, but then the finish line is always the plane.

Marco: Yeah. So much fun. Well, listen. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Of course. We always look forward to your. Your feedback, your thoughts, your. Your. What do you call it when people.

Amanda:Your engagement.

Marco: Your engagement.

Amanda:Honestly, that's what it's about. We're here for you. The number of people that, you know, we. I record this and then I skip off and do other things and Marco sits and edits it, and. And then I'll get a text from somebody saying that they listen to this one or they listen to that one and. And. And hopefully helping them on their journey to sleep. Sometimes it's just our friends checking in with us.

Marco: Well, thank you for listening, no matter what. And some people listen for sleep, and some people just listen for their day. However you listen, we appreciate having you as our listeners. I can't. I can't say listen anymore. But, Amita, I'm looking forward to next week with you. We will have a podcast episode that we'll record either tonight or tomorrow, and we'll have that ready as well. So until next time or until the

Amanda:time after that, just know that each one of those thoughts is just a fish in the pond, and you're watching them. And ultimately you are the pond.

Marco: And there you go. All right, Amanda, I will see you in a moment, but for the rest of you, we'll see you next week. Or you'll hear us next week.

Amanda:You're gonna say, listen and sleep. That's the most important.

Marco: Oh, that's right. And don't forget, we hope you were able to listen and sleep.