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

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Josh’s co-worker’s church was hit on Sunday.  A sign stretching out in front of the church announcing services in Spanish was defaced with the words “Trump Nation, Whites Only.”  This comes on the heels of a local middle school defaced with swastikas.  As of Friday, there have been 200 reported incidents of “hateful harassment and intimidation.”  So these acts aren’t part of that 200-count since they happened after Friday at 5 pm.

I live in the most liberal of states, and this is the most liberal county in the state.

Let that sink in for a moment.

I want to be writing about other things, really, I do.  I have a short list of non-political things I want to unpack such as robot eyes and this great hourly trick I learned for feeling more kindness during a stressful day.  THAT is what I want to be writing about, not this.

And yet this is what I keep sitting down to type.  It is what I keep unpacking with friends in conversation.  Maybe it is because I don’t feel safe.  Maybe if I was in a different position, I could set it mentally aside.  But I’m not.  So I keep talking about it and thinking about it and reading about it.

How do things feel for you a week down the road?

Tomorrow… kindness mind game.  I kinda sorta promise.

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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.

This blog changed my life.  Ten years ago, I felt so wholly alone as we delved back into treatments to add to our family, and I found all of you.  We haven’t had the exact same experience, and we come from diverse backgrounds and make diverse decisions on how to treat our infertility or loss.  But somehow this has always worked as an informal therapy session between us.

Thank you, blogging.

Yesterday I got together with my interactive fiction club, and it immediately launched into an informal therapy session about the election.  It’s not that I haven’t had that in other spaces over the last few days, but this conversation was exactly what I needed at the exact time; to remember that there are caring individuals out there who are going to do the hard work of offering protection to groups of people and organizations that need it over the next few years, even when they are going to need protection, too.

And then last night, we turned on SNL to watch Kate McKinnon sing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” as Hillary Clinton.  I started sobbing — just as I’m doing now, writing this — on her added stanza:

I did my best; it wasn’t much;
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch.
I’ve told the truth; I didn’t come to fool you.
And even though it all went wrong,
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.

I woke up the kids and brought them into our room to watch it a second time and told them that Mr. Roger’s “look for the helpers” advice rings true.  Look for the people who are supporting you and have your back.  Support them and have their back in return.  Gravitate towards those who are publicly, loudly, and clearly denouncing the swastika graffiti that has sprouted up across America this week — like on our local middle school — as well as the racist, homophobic, and misogynistic sentiments that have come from the mouth of our president-elect and his supporters.

They’re out there.  You just need to focus on those people in the larger crowd.

Thank you, Kate McKinnon.

I’m done crying, and I’ve moved on to the take action part of recovering from the election.  There are a lot of groups and causes that could use your energy right now.  Don’t boo… work?  Protect?  Aid?  Let me know if you are looking for outlets for your energy.  I would love to connect you with like-minded people.

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I thought I would tell this story in a how-sweet-is-life post on Wednesday, but that clearly wasn’t to be, so I’ll put this here.  Before we left the house to vote, the twins and I spent a few minutes practicing filling in a third of a bubble at the kitchen table.

We got to the polling station and did our usual song-and-dance in the voting booth, and then we brought our ballot to the machine.

Election Worker: I think it’s so sweet that the three of you do this together.  Just feed your card into this machine, dear.

Wolvog: Let’s all hold the paper together.

Me: Yes, wait, is everyone holding on?

ChickieNob: Yes.

Wolvog: Yes.

Election Worker: Just feed it into the machine.

Our three-headed election monster attempted to feed said floppy piece of paper into the machine.  We continuously missed the slot.  Each time we missed the slot, we started nervously giggling which made us miss the slot again.  And again.

Election Worker: Just feed it in there, dear.  Just do it.

Me: We didn’t practice this.  We only practiced the bubble.

Election Worker: Please.  Will you just feed the paper into the machine?

Wolvog: How could we have practiced?

Me: We could have made a fake machine out of LEGOS with a narrow slot and then tried to feed paper into it.

ChickieNob: I don’t think we have enough LEGOS.

Me: Well, it wouldn’t need to be this big.  We would just need to make a realistic slot…

Election Worker: THE BALLOT.  JUST PUT IT IN.

Not so sweet now, is it Ms. Election Worker?

We finally got it into the machine and realized WE HAD TO DO IT A SECOND TIME FOR THE SECOND SHEET.  The woman definitely didn’t love that I involved the kids in this democratic process by the time we got our I Voted! stickers.  But you know what, it was really important that we all had our hands on that ballot, that we all felt involved.

Because my kids own this election.  They feel the results of this election.  They are ready to take action after this election.  They are ready to roar.

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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:

• “#MicroblogMondays: A Halloween Blessing” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Normally these posts are all about infertility, adoption or loss.  But… this week is a different week.  Clearly the election is on everyone’s mind.  So election thoughts from Iffers:

Anabegins has a post about the upside down, which is fitting in so many ways this week. (Demogorgon!)  She writes, “This is OUR job. WE are the grown ups. We need to stand up, speak up, and fight for what we believe in… for ourselves and for our children. We are donating money, we’ll be calling/emailing/writing our state and local representatives frequently. We are brainstorming places to volunteer our skills and time. We know we want to be more involved with the process than just showing up to vote next time.”  Yessssssss.

A+ Effort combines her words with the words of her husband.  Read the whole piece, but this ending says it all: “As I walked back to my car with shame, sadness, and remorse in my eyes, I caught the glance of a Hispanic father dropping his children off for school. He gave me a nod, as if to say ‘it’s ok.’ Probably, because this is nothing new for him. He has come to expect it of America. Whereas I have only shouldered this burden for 4 years, 8 months, and 10 days–the day my African-American daughter arrived home.”

Lastly, Magpie Musing’s letter to her daughter filled me with tears and hope.  “Hillary’s defeat is saddening, it makes us angry, it makes us scared. But we are stronger than that. Stronger together in our little family, stronger in our little town, stronger in our conviction that all people need to be lifted up, that all children deserve an education, that all people need good and affordable health care, that no one should live in poverty.”  Go over and read her empowering words.

The roundup to the Roundup: Don’t just be angry: Take action.  The downside to doing everything together.  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 November 4th and 11th) 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.

President Obama has left us with a very important, lasting legacy: The ideology that when they go low, we go high.  Those weren’t just words for an election; they are a rallying cry that we need to put into place always.  Not just for the next two years until the mid-term elections.  Not just for the next four years as we endure the new administration.  Not just in politics.

We need to keep going high.

We need to keep facing racism and homophobia and antisemitism and misogyny and… well… this list is frighteningly long.  But we need to keep facing these lows and going high.

Our family will not be going anywhere.  We will be staying right here and continuing to fight the good fight so that we can actually keep America great since it’s pretty damn good as is.

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Though, of course, there are plenty of places beyond the isms that we can fix.

Two years from now:

• There are at least 33 Senate seats up for election.
• There are at least 435 House seats up for election.
• There are at least 36 governorships up for election.

Rather than joke about moving, stay and help love trump hate by getting out the vote in those elections.

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Week ago, my father slipped a Madam President magnet on my refrigerator, and it has been making me smile every time I made dinner.  Looking at it this morning made my heart hurt, but I’m not taking it down.  Clinton may not be our first woman president, but she — like Susan B Anthony and Shirley Chisholm — is a stepping stone toward that goal of assuring our daughters that they really can be anything.

So I’m leaving it up.  She’s staying.

This is not the post I thought I would write.  But in retrospect, especially after the Brexit vote, I’m not sure why I thought otherwise.

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The cold, grey rain outside matches the mood in the house.  We went to bed last night at 1 am.  We didn’t know the results until we woke up this morning.

I tried to explain what happened to the kids, but I failed, miserably.  Their fears are very concrete: What will happen to the marriages of gay family members?  What will happen to their Muslim friend?  Our fears are a lot more amorphous, and the only answer we’ve found is that we just don’t know.

I wish I had better words, but they’re really failing me this morning.