There are exactly two things powering me through life right now.  I wish they didn’t make me sound vapid.  But you know what? They do, so let’s just put it out there in the open.  It’s Shuffle Cats and Dirk Gently.

Shuffle Cats makes me happy.  Cats playing cards at a speakeasy and wearing flapper outfits?  Makes me happy.  It’s a digital card game made by the creators of Candy Crush, but unlike Candy Crush, there are few gates in place to slow down game play.  So I could conceivably play for hours, though I try not to gamble my life away.  It’s a free app, which means we owe King.com an enormous thank you for it.  Greatest app ever, and I don’t care how that makes me sound.

Dirk Gently is a television remake of the books (well, loosely based on the books) rolling out via BBC America.  I told Josh that on a scale from 1 to 10, I was a 15 when it came to pre-show excitement.  It lived up to all the hype in my head.  iTunes has the first episode free for download if you want to try it out.  I’m still at a 15 when I think about each episode.

Part of me is a little embarrassed that the only thing I have to contribute to conversations lately is information about cats playing cards and holistic detectives, but I own it.  Shuffle Cats + Dirk Gently = Getting Through the Day.

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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:

• “Measuring Myself” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)
• “Infertility Limbo. Or, Stopping so That You Can Carry On” (Different Shores)
• “No Regrets.  Boom Boom!” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Much Ado About Nothing has a post marking her child’s first birthday, but moreover, her own mental state when it comes to her fertility.  I love the two sides of this part — the highs and the lows: “I thank G-d every night I have this life, that He gave me this chance to be these tiny people’s mother. It’s messy, and stressful, and there is yelling and fighting, and tears, and laughter. And I would be lying if I said it didn’t weigh on my mind every single day if I will get to do this again, one last time.”  And it’s a gorgeous, aching ending.

A concrete post I can point to forever for why I love blogging: Kmina visited a place I wrote about on my blog awhile back; a place I had read about in an article and wanted to see.  And she photographed the whole thing and made the big, overwhelming world feel small and cozy.  And now I really have to get over there and see the salt mines.

Lastly, while I normally am not moved by articles on Buzzfeed, Laura Turner’s post about her miscarriage made me pause.  Actually, the turning point in the post was when she visited a friend who had miscarried while Turner was still pregnant.  She wrote: “She didn’t cry, and I didn’t ask many questions. I would have done that differently, knowing what I know now.”  Isn’t that it?  There’s one side where you just don’t know, and there’s another side where you do.  And I’m really sad for those of us who know, and it makes me look at those who don’t with a lot more forgiveness.  And this: “But when it’s a fetus that has died, or a baby, or whatever you want to call it, your life doesn’t change, and that’s the strange part — because it was supposed to.”

The roundup to the Roundup: Shuffle Cats and Dirk Gently.  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 28th and November 4th) 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.

Yesterday I had coffee with the twins’ old Kindergarten teacher.  We do this from time to time, especially now that the twins are out of elementary school.  She is one of the kindest, gentlest, wisest women I know.

Technically, we had the coffee date on the calendar for several weeks, but it felt like it materialized at the exact, right moment.  I received bad news as I got to the parking lot, and I had to walk inside with a straight face, trying not to cry.

Okay, I did cry.  But that’s not the point.  The point was that who better to spend time with when your heart is hurting than a warm, caring Kindergarten teacher?  She is criss-cross-applesauce and sound-out-the-word and add up the green pegs.  She is a reminder that everyone starts somewhere, and that the simplest moments are the ones that stick with you forever.

Like your children’s old teacher buying you a bagel for dinner because everyone needs to eat.

It’s funny because one of the twins has a roundabout way of doing things.  We say that they operate by their own clock.  They always get there in the end, on their own schedule.  This fact came up in the conversation, and we marveled that it’s true — leave that kid alone with some gentle prodding in the correct direction, and they will get there in the end.  (Whenever there may be.)

I am the opposite.  I am obsessed with time; with controlling time and using time wisely and worrying about time.  I never worry about my kid reaching where they need to go, but I worry about myself.  I worry that I am late.  That I’m not making the most of every moment.  That I am being left behind.

It makes no sense: How I can trust time to unfold as it needs to unfold with my kid, but I don’t release my death grip on my timeline for myself?

I’m running a race but I’m the only one on the track.  There will be no winners or losers because there’s just me, huffing along as if I’m being chased even though there is no one else there.

I think that sometimes the universe places the right person in your path at the right time.  That is what happened yesterday: a randomly scheduled coffee date unfolded right when it needed to unfold, reminding me through comfort, kind words, and the acknowledgment of well-timed coincidence that there is a timeline out there.  I just have to do enough to head in the correct direction.  I’ll eventually get there.

One week from today, the twins and I will walk down to our local polling place and cast our vote for Hillary Clinton. The twins have been voting every election since they were three months old. Back then, it was finger to the touch screen, which was a little easier for group participation. This year, we’re each taking a third of that Tic-Tac-sized bubble and filling it in for Hillary. We’ve been practicing. We’re ready. Onward!

Image: Ally Aubry via Flickr via Creative Commons license

I considered going to an early polling place, but I really love the kids to feel the energy of election day. I like to treat the whole day as a holiday, celebrating voting, making a special meal, and then piling into our bed to watch the voting results roll in.

I don’t want them to treat voting like the act of turning in the ballot is the end point.  I want them to see the action through until the results are in, and even then to look ahead as how they can either support or counterbalance their newly elected officials.

I don’t want them to go to the polls and barely register the qualifications of the candidate, just voting down the party line.  I don’t want them to walk away from the polling booth assuming their job is done, and they only needs to glance at the newspaper the next day to see who won.  And I don’t want them to get frustrated when the results don’t go according to plan.  I want them to take a long hard look at what they can do differently next time as well as ways they can make life more enjoyable between turns.

I have invested a lot of energy in having them fully involved in each election, making sure that they understand there are many other elected officials beyond the president, and they need to pay attention to each one.

So we will be at the polling place next week, and I hope you are, too.  We’ll be eating homemade pizza for dinner, and staying up late to watch the first female president win the election.  We’ll be seeing this damn thing through to the end, and then looking beyond because the work of keeping our local community as well as nation running isn’t just important every two or four years.  It’s important every single day.  Remember that.

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

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It’s Halloween tonight, and the kids are going in the same costumes they used last year.  Which are also the same costumes they used for Purim.  Which may very well be the costumes they end up using this upcoming Purim.

It has been a busy month.  Halloween sort of slipped through my fingers.

I actually like making them costumes, especially seeing their faces when they’re dressed up as their favourite characters.  So I feel strange that their costume doesn’t really reflect their current interests.  If we had more time, I think the ChickieNob would want to be Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Wolvog would want to be a character from Overwatch.

If I had more time, I would want Josh and I to go as Ember and Umber from The Magicians.  (Not that he would ever agree to this.)

Costume that best shows what you’re into right now?

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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.

I am smitten by the story that ran in Gizmodo (as well as other places) about the time capsule message from Gregory Lee Youngman who wrote:

I am dead. I go to Montgomery School. That is the olden school name. I was born 1900. You auto now I dead. My favorite subject is spooking the police. I play the guitar. In case you don’t know what it is, it is board with strings on then. I am 10 years old. See you later savages.

Of course, this message wouldn’t be nearly as amusing if the writer was actually dead, but a quick Google search for Gregory L Youngman yields a person who is very much alive and living in Anchorage, AK. He’s 58, which also fits since the author of the note was born in 1958. It seems like it would be a little too coincidental to have two Gregory L Youngman’s who are 58, right?

So working on the assumption that Gregory Lee Youngman is not actually dead, I love this because I was such a serious kid.  I would have never used my one time capsule contribution to write anything like this.  I would have been too scared, thinking that by writing it, it would come true.  That I would be dead by the time the capsule was opened and there would be no one left on earth who knew about guitars.

But, moreover, I would have worried that this would be the way people remembered me; that they wouldn’t get that it was a joke in the moment but think it was who I was as a whole.  So I would have played it safe and maybe a little bit boring.

I wonder if Greg Youngman is still like that 10-year-old version of himself, or if he looks back at it and wonders what he was thinking.