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

*******

I was this many years old when I discovered that Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea” was a copy of Charles Trenet’s “La Mer.” I discovered this when I downloaded an album of 100 Charles Trenet songs, and then found this copy of him singing it on YouTube. I love this performance. It sounds like the sea and kind of breaks my heart at the same time.

*******

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.

The twins accidentally dressed like twins one day, wearing the same t-shirt and shorts, and didn’t notice until late in the day when we commented that they were dressed identically. The same thing happened the next day, except the ChickieNob and I both got dressed without seeing the other one and ended up in Breton shirts and overalls. The third day in a row, it was the twins again in identical shirts and jeans. The rest of the week, everyone was really careful to peek outside the bedroom before going downstairs.

Anne Helen Petersen recently had a piece on mother-daughter dresses. It was my first time hearing the term “nap dress,” but I got the concept instantly. It’s a simple dress, and in this case, she’s highlighting the trend of producers to create two versions—a child-sized one and an adult-sized one.

She writes:

Historically, these mother-daughter dresses have exploded in popularity in times when culture, as a whole, was occupied with reasserting the strength of both the nation and the domestic sphere. Historian Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell traces the first instance of high fashion mother-daughter matching to 1908, but it wasn’t until the late 1930s, when the United States was just beginning emerge from the ravages of The Great Depression, that what Life called “the mother-and-daughter custom” became popular.

It’s kind of a weird idea, especially when it pops up in societies that simultaneously value and promote individuality. We’ve never been a dress-like-each-other home (even if, strangely enough, the ChickieNob and I both own Breton shirts and overalls), especially not the twins when they were little, though it has inadvertently happened to them sometimes after years of getting the same camp or event t-shirts. I also don’t remember ever matching with my mum, though I always wanted to match with my sister. (Which only happened with a t-shirt or two.)

Maybe I see the trend in another light due to infertility; that it feels in some ways the same as baby clothes—sections of box stores I still avoid. So I read the article feeling a little raw.

I’ve been super into French mysteries this summer, either in translation or written by UK writers living in France. This past weekend, I ran into a mystery bookstore, hoping to pick up the first books in two series, and they had used copies in mint condition from both. I was so excited that when the owner was ringing me up, I started babbling about how much I love French mysteries since I was introduced to Martin Walker’s books.

“He’s my neighbour,” she commented.

“Here?” I asked, looking around the Maryland bookshop.

“No. In France. We also own a home in France, and we moved there because he told us about the town.”

She pulled out a bound photo book behind the desk and showed me pictures of her home in this tiny town in France. Sure enough, one of the pictures contained Martin Walker, cooking dinner.

She rents out her French home, and she gave me the information so we can book it next time we travel. And she reminded me to read quickly because he has a new book in the Bruno series coming out this summer. If you can’t travel, you can always go mentally to the French countryside with a story.

Completely random moment that I did not expect to happen while picking up books.

*******

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.

*******

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:

• “Die dritte Zahnbürste” (Die dritte Zahnbürste)
• “The Murder & The Funeral” (Lavender Luz)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Happy birthday to In Quest of a Binky Moongee. I loved this post because the things needed to make the day feel special were so simple. Food she wanted to eat. People she wanted to be with. She writes: “Last year they had to stand outside with a cake to sing me a birthday song. The fact that we could all be under one roof to sing a happy birthday song and enjoy a birthday cake is such a blessing. That was all I wanted.” Glad it was a great celebration.

Infertile Phoenix went through a difficult (fifth!) move, but she learned lessons along the way. Like she can do really hard things. And I love this thought: “I just kept moving away from what I didn’t want and moving toward what I did want.” Yes!

Lastly, No Kidding in NZ has rounded up great quotes that speak to the experience of living child free after infertility. The quotes are great, but so is Mali’s thought: “Being open to the future, rather than clinging to the hopes of the past, is really what sets us up for a happy No Kidding rest of our lives.”

The roundup to the Roundup: Random moments in bookstores. 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 July 9 – July 16) 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.

As I say every month, I’m shamelessly stealing this idea from Jessica Lahey. She has a recurring monthly date where she reviews all the books she read that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better about doing this.

So. I’m going to review them here and also online, but I’m going to do it a little differently. I’m only going to review the stuff I really liked. I don’t see a reason to spend my time writing about something I didn’t love; it’s just using up more of my energy. So only positive reviews.

These are the books I liked (or mostly liked) from June.

People We Meet on Vacation (Emily Henry): I adored this book. I am normally not a fan of books or movies giving us the ins and outs of someone else’s friendship. It’s kind of like listening to the details of someone’s dream. But this friendship book was fantastic. I cared deeply about both characters. I laughed aloud so many times. (It was the same kind of laughter I got from reading Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall—snarky, perfect bon mots.) I cried. I can’t wait for her next book.

Ace of Spades (Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé): I waited a long time for this book. I heard about it many months earlier—before it had a Goodreads listing so I had to write it down in my bullet journal so I didn’t forget to check for it. It was billed as “Gossip Girl meets Get Out… but gayer.” It was the first of two books I read—back-to-back—that both billed itself as like Get Out (see below). How did it hold up to expectations? It was a solid book clearly written by someone who was not from the US but was setting their book here. (Meaning, it really didn’t feel like a book from the US.) But it was thought-provoking and scary, and I tore through it in a few nights. I’ll definitely read this author’s next book.

The Other Black Girl (Zakiya Dalila Harris): It billed itself first as “Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada” and then changed the listing to “Get Out meets The Stepford Wives.” Neither description really works, but that’s okay. Some books defy comparison. This one was a 5-star for me despite there being HUGE plot holes. Like super huge things that aren’t explained and don’t make sense. Even with those plot holes, I loved this book and couldn’t wait to get back to it each day.

The Guncle (Steven Rowley): There were points where I was laughing and points where I was crying and points where I was laughing and crying at the same time. This was a very sweet book about continuing to live after loss and whether we can really help each other mourn. The book made me feel good, and I loved all of the characters.

What did you read last month?

Kottke posted an image from Robin Dunbar’s book, Friends: Understanding the Power of Our Most Important Relationships. What struck me was the differentiation between close friend and best friend; namely, close friend was closer to you than best friend. Doesn’t “best” connote… well… best? As in the top?

Kottke quotes Dunbar (I need to read this book) in The Atlantic:

The innermost layer of 1.5 is [the most intimate]; clearly that has to do with your romantic relationships. The next layer of five is your shoulders-to-cry-on friendships. They are the ones who will drop everything to support us when our world falls apart. The 15 layer includes the previous five, and your core social partners. They are our main social companions, so they provide the context for having fun times. They also provide the main circle for exchange of child care. We trust them enough to leave our children with them.

So the 1.5 intimate means you can have a romantic partner and maybe one other just-as-intimately-close person. The shoulder-to-cry-on friends include your partner and maybe that one other intimate, and 3.5 to 5 others. The best friends are those 5 plus 10 more who are trustworthy enough to go on vacation with or—if you have children—leave your kids in their care.

And that includes family. Dunbar makes that clear when speaking about the Dunbar number: “That includes extended family as well as friends. In fact, people who come from large extended families have fewer friends because they give priority to family members.”

I think the whole exercise of looking at your social circle is fascinating.