Many years ago, my brother introduced the kids to Trader Joe’s cat cookies for people, and they immediately became a shopping trip staple.

When we dropped the kids off at college this year, we swung by their local Trader Joe’s for cat cookies and Bamba, and they were sold out of both. Panic! They grabbed other snacks, and I said I would pick up these treats at our local Trader Joe’s before our October visit. That way, I would be sure they would have them.

While Bamba was quickly back on the shelves, there continued to be a blank space where cat cookies should be. Every time we asked about it, the person would check the computer and tell us they would be back in stock X days later. We would return, the shelf would be empty, and we’d be told there was a delay, and now it was Y says later. They have not been discontinued. They’re just having trouble getting them in stock.

We tried up until the trip, tried random Trader Joe’s along the way, and tried up in their college town one last time. No cat cookies.

I haven’t given up. The Cat Cookie Crisis of 2025 has only made me more determined to keep at this until I can present tubs of cat-shaped cookies to the kids. Making me a hero.

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The kids also taught me the term “rubberducking.” It comes from computer science, where coders are encouraged to “explain their code, step by step, in natural language—either aloud or in writing—to reveal mistakes and misunderstandings.” And they do this to a rubber duck or other inanimate object.

I needed it explained because a person said to me, “I’m not a rubber duck!” And I didn’t understand the reference. It’s when another person uses YOU as their rubber duck. They’re not telling you so you understand them better. They’re using you as a rubber duck to talk through their problems so they can hear them outside their head. And the point the person made is that humans absorb emotions, rubber ducks do not, so talking at someone for a half hour while listing out all of your issues is not a productive conversation. It’s rubber ducking.

So now you know, too.

I don’t read a lot of nonfiction, but there was a book that kept popping up on “best of” lists, and when it came in at the library, I decided to check out the short audiobook. It’s called A Beginner’s Guide to Dying by Simon Boas, and I liked that it started by pointing out that every single person on earth is a beginner in their own death. We never get to become an expert on our own dying because we only do it once.

He says, “I am obviously as much of a novice as you are at this dying business and may well be talking bollocks.”

But to that end, these are the profound takeaways I captured. And while he points out that they are nothing new, they appear in every book about dying. We know that our relationships matter more than our jobs, that the things we worry about rarely come true (and if they do, we deal with them), that we should take more time to enjoy life, but even though we know all of these things, we don’t behave as if we know them.

And for what it is worth, he mentions midway through the book that they went through “10 fruitless years of IVF,” and I think that experience plays into this advice, too.

“All of our tombs will be unvisited in a few short spins of the rock around the star, but the smile you gave the check out lady might still be rippling forward.”

It’s profound to think about: With the exception of the genealogy fans in our families, most people will be forgotten to have ever existed in a few short generations. But the tiny ways we impact other people while we’re here may still be rolling forward, impacting the world in the future. He’s not talking about the major discoveries or inventions. He’s just talking about the small kindnesses or moments of connection we extend to other people.

“We fret about what other people think of us, even though actually other people devote much less time doing so than we imagine. A huge mistake we all make — I think it must be hardwired into us — is to compare ourselves only upwards. Social media probably makes this worse.”

It’s so true — we always compare ourselves up (“I’m not doing as well as she is”) vs. down (“I am so grateful that I have this job”). It would make more sense when you feel yourself comparing yourself in one direction to also look behind and realize where you’re not and happy that you’re not.

“I don’t advise consuming too much news as it’s too skewed toward the awful, and can leave one just hopeless and wrongly depressed about the state of the world.”

Such a good reminder to close down the news app. It doesn’t make you ill-informed. The important news has a way of getting to us even when we try to shut it out. But understanding that we’re being manipulated by the media and what is reported and how. So dip into coverage, get what you need, and then go and process it yourself (or do something about it).

“Thoughts and emotions arrive, and they fall away. The past exists only in our memory, and the future, only in our imagination. By recognizing that, we can focus on the present, let go of worry, and even pain, though I’m not quite there yet, and understand that so much of our suffering is actually made by ourselves, both through our expectations and our inability to see how beautiful we all are at our core.”

Very true.

“Grief is the price we pay for love.”

He quotes Queen Elizabeth’s words, but I wanted to set them here, too. Big love = big grief. There’s no way around the cost.

“We humans are programmed to focus on the negative. To remember losses more than gains and hardships more than softships. That kept our ancestors alert and alive on the savanna. However, many developed countries today seem to be experiencing an epidemic of depression, pessimism, and anger. This simply isn’t justified by the conditions we live in.”

He admits that there are problems in the world, big issues that need addressing. But the book is also scattered with reminders that the negative lens doesn’t always serve us. And the solution is to stop the comparisons, stop the things you know are making you unhappy, and connect with the people you love.

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

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I learned a new term this week: ambient panic. Being surrounded by low-frequency panic at all times. It’s not a new term, but it kind of perfectly describes the world right now. Or always? It’s so hard to know.

I think I look at the past through rose-tinted glasses because I got through it. Whatever “it” is, it has happened, and I am on this side of it with all of the knowledge and memories and experience. Whereas the future is like an invisible steamroller. It may go by you on the street and crush someone else, or it may roll right over your body and smash you to bits. And you can’t get out of the way because you have no clue where to go because that is, of course, the issue with invisible steamrollers.

The future, on the other hand, feels do-able. Just being in this moment. Breathing. But then I tell myself that I can’t stay in the present forever. The future has to roll by.

Or does it? Can’t I just stay here, always in the present?

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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 connected to businesses or sponsored posts.

Speaking of Susie Dent’s Guilty by Definition (we were speaking about this many days ago), the book introduced me to a new term: a commonplace book. This was a notebook where people collected thoughts, bits of poetry, recipes, ideas they liked, lists, etc.

Essentially a bullet journal. Or, at least, how I keep a bullet journal. I collect up tasks I don’t want to forget to do, dump out feelings, write down quotes from books or television shows, copy recipes, and record everything I am scared I will one day forget.

I also do the bullet journally thing of writing down a single sentence for every day of the year. I’ve been keeping a bullet journal since May 2014, so I have over 10 years of these one-sentence entries, and it makes me happy to flip through them and see what I thought on this day in a random year.

Oh! The point with Susie Dent’s book. There is a commonplace book in the book, and it made me think about how I shouldn’t destroy these journals at some point in the future. I mean, most of the scribbling will be meaningless to anyone but me, but then there are the pages that give a snapshot of the time vs. not just my mind.

The writings we leave behind keep popping up in books I’m reading. Maybe the universe is trying to send me a message.

A long time ago, especially when the kids were little, I loved switching the clock back in the fall. Spring was awful, but we got an extra hour of sleep in the fall. Not on Sunday — on Sunday, they would wake up at their normal time. But on Monday, they would sleep in. And by Tuesday, we would all be adjusted to the new time.

That is not what happens to my body anymore. Sunday morning is fine. By Sunday evening, I’m exhausted at a ridiculously early hour according to the clock. So it says 10 pm, but my body thinks it is 11 pm, so I am falling apart. This continues on longer and longer into the week. This year, I was still struggling with the time change on Wednesday. Wednesday! Or maybe I notice it more than I do when I travel because we do not have the distraction of seeing and doing new things.

In any case, not a fan of time changes anymore. At all.

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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.

And now the blogs…

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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:

• “Where Do I Belong?” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Road Less Travelled’s blog is now an adult. She writes, “18 years ago tonight, after the last trick-or-treater departed and we turned out the porch light, I hit ‘post’ on my very first entry here.” Go over and congratulate her on hitting the milestone.

Scientist on the Roof asks about splurge dreams, what task you would hire out if you had disposable income. I’ve solved the personal stylist thing by buying 20 of the same shirt. You never have to think of what you wear when you only have one look 🙂 It made me think about my splurge dream, and it would probably be a personal assistant to make the phone calls I don’t want to make or take care of tasks that always seem to linger on my to do list. It’s fun to think about.

Lastly, Jewish IVF had bad news both before and during her beta. She writes about this end of an era: “Unlike all the other failed transfers, I can’t comfort myself with a resolve to try again soon. This was our last embryo and there are no more chances.” Sending a huge hug.

The roundup to the Roundup: Not great at falling back. 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 31 – November 7) 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.