I’m not great with blurry lines; I’m a rules follower and work much better with yes or no than maybe. Last Halloween what to do was clear: no trick-or-treating. No one in town was supposed to take their kid around, and no one in town was supposed to hand out candy. I knew what to do and what not to do.

This year, it’s all a little amorphous. Some people are trick-or-treating. Others are not. Do we buy candy? How much if we don’t want a lot leftover? How do we pass it out safely?

We’re opting to place a bowl with candy at the end of the walkway and sit by the door, many feet away from the bowl, so we can see costumes and be friendly but not have small kids crowding outside the door. So it’s kind of a grab, wave, and go. They get candy, we keep safe, we keep them safe, and we drink tea to keep warm.

What are you doing in your town?

I posted a story about Beorn on Facebook and the loveliest thing happened:

I need to kvell about my pig. Beorn went over to his empty hay ball, tapped it with his nose, and looked at me. THAT IS COMMUNICATION, PEOPLE. I filled his hay ball while he popcorned around me, clearly happy that I had understood him. There may not be an honour roll for guinea pigs, but if there was, my pig would be at the head of the class. #proudpigmum

(Whatever. People kvell about their kids and no one bats an eye. I’m going to kvell about my pig. My pig is amazing and pure love.)

People started chiming in with times their cats or dogs or chickens communicated with them. Like chickens who say, “good night” and cats that let you know the water dish is empty. I love these stories about animals.

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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 in order 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. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

In Quest of a Binky Moongee gives life to a maternity dress she didn’t get to wear. When a friend gets pregnant, she realizes she can give her the dress to wear. She writes, “It almost feels like she is not only going to wear this dress for herself, but for me and for her other friends who didn’t/don’t ever get to carry our own babies.” I love this. It’s a beautiful dress and a beautiful story.

Not a Wasted Word perfectly sums up the feeling that accompanies an abnormal cycle or perimenopause: destabilizing. She explains: “I’m hoping that tomorrow my period will just come already and I’ll feel better. But maybe it won’t. The truth is, I have no idea what to expect anymore, physically or emotionally, and it’s incredibly destabilizing.” Cycles can be hard enough. Having them unpredictable takes it to another level.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled just celebrated her 40th anniversary! It’s such a huge milestone (and it comes with a great story and picture) that you have to go over and celebrate with them.

The roundup to the Roundup: Beorn communicates with me. 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 October 22 – October 29) 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.

Modern Mrs. Darcy linked to an old 2011 NPR essay (that I feel I read once upon a time, but maybe not) about how we need to be okay with all the things we’re never going to do because it is the fate of every single human on earth. We will not get to read all the books, see all the movies, travel to all the places, meet all the people, have all of the experiences.

She writes: “We could do the same calculus with film or music or, increasingly, television – you simply have no chance of seeing even most of what exists. Statistically speaking, you will die having missed almost everything.”

Missed almost everything! That phrasing. No matter how many books I read, it’s a small drop in the bucket of what’s out there. No matter how many people I meet, they’re a tiny fraction of the billions of people on earth. Many of whom would have possibly been good friends. (Though perhaps it is a small joy to know that I inadvertently avoided others.)

She tries to bring you to a place of peace by the end of the essay, but I’m afraid I got too hung up on the facts; the sheer amount of knowledge and art and humans out there and how little I’ll get to encounter during my time on earth.

Nothing like your own mortality to get you into the Halloween spirit.

There are 9 years left to the next decade; 79 to the next century. I found a fun time-based site, counting down the remaining seconds until the next minute, the remaining minutes until the next hour. Look at how much time I have.

I clicked over to see who was my age now back when I was born. Andy Warhol! But Andy Warhol was old. I’m not old. And he’s dead. I’m not dead. Gabriel García Márquez? But he died in 2014. David Bowie was only 27 when I was born; Freddie Mercury 28.

Which means I’ll likely be gone when all the kids born this year are in their late 40s.

A sobering thought to start your morning.

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

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I’ve written before about my fake meat squeamishness. Most of these Beyond Meat or Impossible products feel too real. They make me feel panicked after I eat them, even though I rationally know that they’re not real meat. But they feel very real to me.

At the same time, I love Morningstar bacon. I love it with the intensity of a thousand suns. And I love Beyond Meat breakfast sausage links. And their bratwurst. We probably end up having them alone or in something every other week.

But this new Impossible pork? It really squicks me out. I know it makes no sense, and I’d probably be fine ordering it in a restaurant. But I haven’t been mentally able to bring the Impossible beef patties into the house. It’s something about seeing it uncooked that makes me feel woozy.

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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.