I just realized that we’re coming to the end of a decade. Have you even considered that? We’ve been the 20teens all this time and I never thought about it. Since the turn of the millennium, everything has been like one continuous download of time. Decades, shmeckades. We’re about to enter our Twenties. One hundred years ago that meant the 1920s, or “the Roaring Twenties,” when flappers turned society on its head with their shortened hemlines, and modern hair bobs, doing the Charleston and waving their cigarette holders.

What will our 2020s be known as? The burning 20s is my thought – given the fires in California and in Australia – and general the climate catastrophe, not to mention the flammable anger that seems to be the mood of our time. This moment feels like a turning point, doesn’t it?

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My guest this week is always a source of calm amidst these turbulent times. It is the psychologist Dale Atkins, who you might know from her frequent appearances on the Today Show. She has a newsletter you can subscribe to called “Sanity Savers.” Her newest book, which she has written with social worker (and her niece) Amanda Salzhauer is The Kindness Advantage: Cultivating Compassionate and Connected Children.

1. “Parasite,” the new Korean movie which is both a modern fable and a psychological study. Beautifully shot in what I assume is Seoul, Korean, in two homes – a spectacular modern mansion and a grim crowded and dark basement apartment at whose window, men always seem to want to pee – it is about class differences and how not every opportunity is one worth taking. See it and tell me what you think of it.

2. Conversation with my friends. After seeing the film, we had a fascinating conversation led by our friends Valerie and Rick. We talked about how we each read, and how we get the most out of the books we choose to read. Who finishes everything? Who changes their mind if they don’t love a book? Provocative questions and actually rather intimate. Our reading habits are as personal in a way as a talk about religion or family.

3. I love when I dream about food. I often have very complicated and strange dreams. Sometimes there’s an episode having to do with dinner parties or breakfasts, and after I’ve awakened, I realize I didn’t really eat that whole lasagna and Sara Lee banana cake. It’s filling, but without the calories. In other words, a victory.

4. Vintage shrunken t-shirts. I keep forgetting I’m a middle-aged woman when I’m shopping, especially online, and I love the look of a cute or ironic t-shirt under a pants suit, say, or under a cardigan. The thing is, I have no vintage shrunken t-shirts in my possession and am not a cute young thing. But I can keep the dream alive. It doesn’t hurt anyone.

5. Last weekend my boyfriend and I transformed my messy office into an elegant library. The project isn’t quite finished, but here’s the best part. Most of the books in our library were in storage for the last four or five years. I’ve missed my books. There were some I didn’t even know I had. I just keep walking over to the shelves and smiling at my titles. Soon the new office will be organized (by me) and then we’ll have you all over.

My guest on the podcast this week is Dale Atkins, Ph.D. we talk about how there seems to be a cruelty epidemic these days and how kindness still counts.