I’m writing this ahead of time because Yom Kippur started last night.

Last weekend, ChickieNob and I tested out 7 trailers, trying to choose a new television show to watch together. We landed on Bad Sisters on Apple TV. (Side note: We really loved the first episode. Funny and dark and interesting characters.) The show’s opening music is a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Who By Fire.”

How timely.

The song is Cohen’s version of the “Unetanneh Tokef,” a prayer central to the High Holidays. Who will be written in the book of life for another year, and who will be lost before the next Rosh Hashanah. The prayer talks about how all of that is decided during these days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

It’s a prayer I’m struggling with this year — actually, I do every year — because I feel time so acutely right now. I didn’t as much when the twins were little, but they are older and I am older and everyone I love is older. But we’re living the next eight months or so in a period of deep unknown. Where will the twins be next year? What will have changed? What will not be as bad as I fear? What can I not predict at all right now, still standing on this side of the change? Having to sing about not knowing things, having to reflect on everything humans don’t know on a yearly basis is really really hard.

That’s what is on my heart today.

ChickieNob and I bought ourselves a new book — A Winter’s Promise. I’ve always been drawn to the cover but didn’t know a lot about it. It’s held up as the French Harry Potter or His Dark Materials in terms of world building.

But what sold me on the book was something I read in a review. The main character’s scarf, which is always with her, has its own personality: “Objects have souls. Ophelia’s scarf, a loyal and excitable creature, becomes just as integral and three-dimensional a character as Ophelia herself.”

And I thought, how brilliant is that? If the objects you carry with you behaved like objects — unlike an animal, they would not need to eat or sleep or make noise — but they can talk (I assume?) and reassure you and keep you company? I would love my water bottle to be able to listen to me vent, or have my pen discreetly give me advice on the go. This is kind of nerdy Melissa-as-a-kid’s dream come true.

Cannot wait to dive into this.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I think I found this on A Strong Sense of Place, which makes sense because… travel. It’s a fun tool if you have two locations and you want to know what you’ll pass along the way. I’ve used it for two points in our area to see what is around me, and I’ve put in a common road trip we take to see what is along the way.

It kind of does make your drive fun as the name proclaims.

And I’m totally bummed that we went right by the oldest hat shop in the world this summer and didn’t even know it.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

We have an appointment to get the flu vaccine and COVID booster in one day. Either vaccine was going to ruin the next day because I have a reaction to both vaccines. So putting them together makes sense — I’m going to have a bad next day, but only one bad next day vs. two bad next days.

Unless, of course, doing them together creates double the reaction, and I have deep regrets. Is it like mixing beer and… milk? Like you could drink a lot of beer and feel queasy, and you could drink a lot of milk and feel queasy, but drinking beer + milk = vomiting.

Has anyone else had both shots in one day?

And what about the arm thing? I was planning to get both in one arm, reasoning that I’d rather have one arm not hurt than both arms hurt. I may not get a choice on this, but in case they ask what I want, has anyone gotten both shots in one arm? Or in both arms?

Planning ahead.

Klara’s post below is a nice contrast to this ridiculous story. On Tuesday morning, I walked into the bathroom and a cricket jumped on me. JUMPED ON ME. I have no clue how or when the cricket got into the house, but I ran from the bathroom, which made Beorn run as far away as he could get from the bathroom door, too. He was scared in solidarity. I stuffed a towel under the door and texted Josh at work. He came home, got the cricket (he admitted that this was a large, jumpy one), and went back to work. In the meantime, I sat with Beorn and shared how scared I was. He think he was nodding his head on the inside.

It is weird to be scared of something that is so tiny that cannot harm me. But I am. I can pick up wasps and bees — I have no fear of being stung. I always remove ladybirds from the home on a piece of paper. I’m mostly okay taking care of my own spiders. But crickets undo me.

I wish I could train Beorn to catch crickets.

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “It’s Okay to Quit” (Infertile Phoenix)

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Next 15000 Days talks about how facing your worst fears makes you fearless. She explains in this brief post: “The most terrible thing that can happen, has already happened. And now I am just not afraid of anything any more.”

No Kidding in NZ writes about frequency illusion, which I’ve definitely experienced. I see what is on my mind. What she notices around her has shifted from children and pregnant women to “elderly people needing care.” It is interesting what we notice at different points in our life, and how the world around us prepares us for what is to come.

Lastly, The Uterus Monologues passes along five things she learned in five years to celebrate her fifth blogoversary. I thought all of them were good, but this one was thought-provoking: “One unintended side-effect of more people talking about pregnancy loss is that it can add a layer of comparison where there wasn’t one before: How is it they seem so much more ‘together’ than you?”

The roundup to the Roundup: Crickets are scary. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between September 23 – 30) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.