I was trying to remember a song this week.  Usually I have a song pop into my brain, and I have to figure out how I know it or the words that go with the tune.  This time, I remembered that an old friend had taught me a song, but I couldn’t remember any other detail other than (1) it was in Hebrew, (2) I used to sing it all the time and (3) I heard it again at a Purim party a few years back.

I searched popular song lists and my notebooks, but I couldn’t remember anything about this song: not the tune, not a word in the title.  I could just remember where I was when I learned it and this memory: when the boy sang it to me for the first time, I was thinking about a child I once saw in Tzvat struggling to carry an enormous dog down a set of stone steps.  I had asked the boy if I could take his photo because it was such a funny image, but the boy refused to have his picture taken.  That’s what I was thinking about while the boy sang — that child and his dog.

I decided that I wouldn’t bother wasting my whole morning trying to remember the song title; I would go straight to the source.  I would Google the boy who taught me the song and email him.  It had been his favourite song 20 years ago.  He would know exactly what I was trying to remember.

The first hit was his obituary.

He died about two years ago.  His picture was at the top of the obit.  He looked the same, though his curls were thinner.

This is what I thought about as I looked at the photo:

After my grandfather died, he organized the whole camp to sing John Denver’s “Country Roads” when I returned to work because he knew I needed it.  He would call me up in the middle of the night and invite me out to eat cake.  I think of him every time I use the word ‘incredulous’ because one time, while we were eating lunch under a tree, I used the word while speaking to a child and he said, “I am incredulous that you would use the word incredulous with her.”  And I looked at the child and said, “What does incredulous mean?”  And the child returned the definition.  He used to go with me every week to the Peace Pagoda.  He once kissed me in my living room while I was balancing on the bike I was rebuilding, my feet on the pedals and my hands on the back of a chair.

All those things happened, and now he was gone.

I don’t know why I felt so sad.  I hadn’t seen him in 20 years.  I hadn’t spoken to him in probably 15 years.  I felt like I didn’t have a right to feel sad; like it wasn’t my death to mourn because I chose to let us drift apart when I moved out of town.  But I was sad.  I was really sad because there was once this person on earth who would thoughtfully teach an entire camp of children to sing a person’s favourite song just because he knew she was having a hard time and now that person was gone.

I started crying, and then his song popped into my brain.

Back in high school, a teacher gave us this question:

It is time to elect a new world leader. Here are the facts about the three leading candidates:

• Candidate A: Associates with crooked politicians and makes decisions based on information from astrologers. He’s had two mistresses. He chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis each day.
• Candidate B: He was kicked out of office (twice), sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whisky every evening.
• Candidate C: He is a decorated war hero. He’s a vegetarian, doesn’t smoke, drinks an occasional beer and hasn’t had any extramarital affairs.

Which of these candidates would get your vote?

The first candidate is Franklin D. Roosevelt, the second candidate is Winston Churchill, and the third is Adolph Hitler.

The point of the exercise is which facts a person chooses to highlight and which ones they sweep under the rug makes a difference.

In all of these cases, the criteria for choosing whether the person could lead a country is dubious at best.  Even as a non-smoking, non-drinking vegetarian, I can’t say that I give a crap about the dietary restrictions of my candidates.  But it’s a good reminder to look at the whole candidate.  To not just vote with your favoured party, but to look at the candidate as an individual and see where you align on major issues and whether there are any red flags.

I think you can guess which candidate I believe has major red flags.  He’s got a lot in common in Candidate C.

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For those who care about my challah situation, baking the challah early did not affect the quality of the bread.  I baked the challah, let it cool, and then wrapped it in plastic wrap and threw it in the freezer.  On Rosh HaShanah, I took it out in the morning and left it on my challah plate to thaw.  And then we ate as normal that night.  I couldn’t taste the difference.

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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:

• “Down the Worm Hole We Go” (Not Breeding in the Burbs)
• “Invisible Women” (Brain, Child)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Searching for Our Silver Lining has a sobering post about a life changed in an instant.  As she runs through her day, annoyed by traffic, she discovers the cause for her delay and it throws life into perspective.  She writes, “Just like that, getting into work didn’t matter … What mattered more was checking in with Grey and checking on the Beats. Because in a moment it can all be gone. Today, some family has to face that.”  A must-read and an important reminder.

Like many, I was agitated when Mike Pence brought together abortion and adoption during the debate, and I think The Stir has decent coverage of the moment.  She writes: “When Pence started to talk about the sad families who couldn’t have babies of their own, but desperately wanted them, he was talking about me. He wants to ‘make adoption easier,’ Pence said. He thinks that forcing women to have babies and then give them away is somehow a more moral way to honor ‘life’.”  Would I love to see adoption reform and more programs in place to help families remain intact?  Yes.  Do I want choices taken away and my condition used in order to justify dictating the situation of another human being?  Absolutely not.

Kmina’s Blog has a post on her blogoversary, reflecting upon changes in the blog and updating readers on life.  Maybe I liked this post because this is how I aspire to live: “The .5 is not a sore wound in my heart anymore, it is just a scar, always there, but not making my soul throb with longing and regret.”  It’s the sort of post that I need to read from time to time to remember that life moves on and it will not always feel as it does right now.

ANDmom has a moving post about her son’s size and trying to protect him from a world that will note his physical stature.  She explains: “My ‘small’ kid has a huge personality, an enormous sense of humor, and a gigantic imagination. I want him to live in a world where that matters so much more than the fact that he’s going to be wearing the same winter boots for the 3rd season in a row.  And I cry, because I can’t give him that world.”  It’s an emotional post about parenting.

Lastly, Lavender Luz has a post about the book You Don’t Look Adopted, and the passage she included about becoming a ghost is gorgeous.  Click over to read it if you haven’t read the book.

The roundup to the Roundup: Be careful how you vote.  I have a new challah option. 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 September 30th and October 7th) 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.

I was folded forward this morning during yoga, in the middle of eka pada rajakapotasana, when it occurred to me that there was no one in the twins’ class named Greg.  Greg used to be enormously popular when I was in school.  Every class had “a Greg and a spare,” as I liked to say.  Actually, I never said that until today, but you immediately see the truth in the clunky phrase.

Josh looked it up for me.  (This is the benefit of doing yoga in your living room while your partner makes the school lunches.  You can call out the random things you think up from the mat, and he can Google them.)  Greg has not broken the top 1000 most popular names in the last twenty years.

The same with Melissa.  Every class had at least a dozen Melissas.  I may have inflated that number a bit, but Melissa was a very common name where I grew up.  And now it’s as if the Melissas have all scattered into holes in the baseboard, never to be seen again.  I meet Jennifers and Jessicas all the time, but all the Melissas have seemingly disappeared.  I can’t remember the last time I met a Melissa, even one my age.

I get that names go in and out of vogue.  The people who make those name pencils and name necklaces need a little variety in their world.  (I assume those are the people who decide the popularity of names because they have the ultimate power as they choose which names to etch onto shot glasses and which names to leave in the dust.)

But shouldn’t the people who had that name back in childhood still be around?  I used to know 3000 Melissas. (Again, that number may be a little smaller.)  Now I know zero.  Well, I know one.  Myself.  I am cognizant of my own existence.

Where have all the Gregorys gone?  All the Melissas?  Where are the Coreys and Bretts and Cynthias?  Where did the Candices run and hide when the 80s ended?

I’m starting an Ex-Popular Name Club.  Are you in it?

What would you think if I said I liked or didn’t like Joan Didion’s writing based on the work of her husband?  If I picked up a John Dunne book and read it and said, “Well, now I know everything I need to know about Joan Didion’s writing style,” I think you’d cock your head to the side and say, “I don’t know how the two are connected.”

Even if I continued, “Well, she gave him writing advice and edits on all of his books.  So now that I’ve read his book, I can totally imagine how Joan Didion writes.”  You might counter, “But editing isn’t the same as writing.  If you read her work, you’re going to discover that they have two very different voices despite having lived and worked together for many years.”

This conversation isn’t really about Joan Didion and John Dunne.

The point is… Hillary Clinton isn’t Bill Clinton, and she should not be liked or not liked based on the leadership style of her husband.  Yes, they have worked closely together for many years, and I’m sure she has offered him advice.  But you cannot know how she’ll be as a president based on how Bill was as a president — good or bad.  She is her own person with her own foibles and strengths.

And neither her husband’s infidelity nor his policies have any place in a discussion of Hillary Clinton’s ability to serve as president any more that we would ever look at Melania Trump’s parenting or career in order to judge Donald Trump.  The fact that Trump keeps trying to bring this topic into the discussion means he’s treating the election like a tabloid article and not the American people hiring our next leader.

While I believe she has a lot of strengths and that her foibles are generally the ones of all politicians as well as the narrative created by the media, the decision to vote for her has to be about her.  Not about her husband or other Democratic leaders or the DNC itself.  Just a lone woman, standing on a public stage, requesting that we allow her to lead the country.

Yes, I am a little cranky as I read yet more coverage that doesn’t allow the woman to own her accomplishments and keeps bringing her future back to her husband’s past.  Which, when you think about judging Joan Didion’s work by her husband’s writing style, is reductive and demeaning towards the individual.

Plus Joan Didion’s books are amazing.  I would have really missed out if I hadn’t given her a chance as a writer based on her own merit.

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

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Remember #MicroblogMondays 64 where I wrote about that hoodie that was also a back massager?  Of course you remember it because you’ve been thinking about it non-stop since I wrote about it.

Um… so scratch that whole idea of it being the best invention ever because Refinery29 did a review of it, and it sounds like maybe it was too good to be true.  Which is all kinds of disappointing.

This is why I’m reluctant to get too excited (or, to be honest, invest) in projects I see on Kickstarter.  Sure, it sounds great, but will it be great in actuality?  It’s hard to embrace things before they’re actually here.  Even upcoming television shows and movies rarely turn out as good as I hope.

But we live in an age where “coming soon” begins when the product is still months or years away from release.  How do we temper our excitement when everything sounds so damn good in theory?

When was the last time a highly anticipated product or book or movie lived up to your expectations?

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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.