Apparently, this is not going to be the greatest month of my life.

I am not going to come into great riches, enabling me to get a new truckload of electronics and an in-ground swimming pool (with a pool boy to take care of any crickets or frogs that get in said pool).

I was told that “August, this year, will have 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. This happens only once every 823 years. The Chinese call it ‘Silver pockets full‘.”

Uh… but the reality upon closer inspection is that this happens fairly often.  In fact, any month that has 31 days will see the first 3 days of the month repeated 5 times.  So October 2014 has 5 Wednesday, 5 Thursdays, and 5 Fridays.  December 2014 has 5 Mondays, 5 Tuesdays, and 5 Wednesdays.  For January 2015, it’s Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

In fact, the next time we see 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays is May 2015.  So not quite 823 years.  Or even 823 days.

Crap.

I had really been counting on that extra cash.

i09 had a post about the personality test that came in The Pigman — which, yes, I read in middle school.  You are given a brief situation and then need to mentally debate the actions of the characters.  Ready?

A husband and wife live on one side of the river.  They have a good marriage and genuinely love each other BUT the wife has a lover on the side.  She hates this fact about herself and tries to resist the relationship, but she goes to this lover every time her husband goes away.  The lover lives on the other side of the river.

One day, the husband needs to leave on a business trip.  The wife begs him to take her along, but he tells her that she’ll only be in the way.  He leaves without her and she goes to her lover’s house.

One morning, she is leaving her lover’s house, trying to beat her husband home so he won’t know about her infidelity, when she encounters an assassin on the bridge that spans the river.  She knows that if she tries to cross, he will kill her.  She doubles back and goes down to the water where she asks a boatman to take her across.  He agrees, but asks for a great deal of money.  She doesn’t have the cash, so she goes and asks her lover to give her the money so she can get home safely.  He tells her that getting across the bridge is her own problem.

So she tries to cross the bridge, and she’s killed over the river.

As i09 writes, “The cast of characters in this little drama is – husband, wife, assassin, lover, boatman. List the characters in order you consider them responsible for the wife’s death.”

Scroll down and put your answer in the comment section.  Then come back here to read the rest of this post and click here to see what each character represents.

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Yes, this is your weekly reminder to back up your blog, social media accounts, and email.

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.

And if you don’t know how to back up your blog, read this post on BlogHer that talks about manual backups and plugins.

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:

• “On Living with Ghosts” (Inconceivable!)
• “Mine” (MissConception)
• “Dreams and Reality” (Invincible Spring)
• “The Weight of Weight: Women and Body Image” (Lavender Luz)
• “Should You Be an ‘Open Book’ in Adoption” (Creating a Family)
• “At the Playground” (Baby, Borneo or Bust)
• “The Closing of Bones — Part One” (Schrodinger’s Catbox)
• “The Closing of Bones — Part Two” (Schrodinger’s Catbox)
• “My (Ongoing) Journey with Secondary Infertility” (Runnin’ in Circles)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Searching for Our Silver Lining has a post about feeling silenced.  She so eloquently points out: “There’s a problem that emerges when one is silenced. For most humans, voicing worries and frustrations is a way to process what is happening. A form of problem-solving … Silencing takes all of that away, leaving the person instead involved with a growing shapeless form that tortures and torments. It also instills a sense of shame and guilt, all the while destroying.”  Go read her post in full.

Tales of a Batty Nurse has an emotional post about searching for and finding her birthmother’s name.  It’s a brief post, but it summarizes so well why children should always have access to their birth records.

It’s not an IF post, but I feel that it speaks to a general feeling that pops up often in our community.  I love the honesty and openness in Sassymonkey’s post about depression.

Inconceivable! has a post about her tattoo, and I love this sentiment: “When I first started considering getting a tattoo, I wasn’t particularly serious. I was worried about the permanence. I worried about making marks, about forever altering myself in any way.  Then infertility hit and I realized something: life was going to put marks on me, whether I willed it or not.”  The ink she chose is pretty too; prettier than infertility and loss and stomach bruises and surgery scars.

Lastly, Amateur Nester has a post about weight gain and infertility.  She writes of the extra pounds: “It’s all due to a combination of fertility drugs, not being able to exercise during treatment cycles, poor eating habits, and not feeling motivated to exercise during non-treatment cycles.”  Infertility, the gift that keeps on giving!  As someone who had to buy new jeans (and cried hard doing so), I stand by her in solidarity.

The roundup to the Roundup: How did you rank the characters?  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 25th and August 1st) 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.

Chickenpig asked my daughter in the last post: “Do you think there is a place for an autistic wizard at Hogwarts?”  The ChickieNob gave this some thought, and then wrote this post as a response.  And hells yeah, I think she’s right.  I’m glad this turned out to be the first post by the ChickieNob on my blog.

Today also happens to be Harry Potter’s birthday, and I can’t think of a better tribute to the series than to have one child interpret the books for another child.  I may be biased, but I think the ChickieNob is pretty damn smart (I mean, the kid has interviewed the President), so if she says this is the way Hogwarts is, then this is the way Hogwarts is.  And if any bully ever tells your child differently, they’re just plain wrong.

You asked if there was a place for someone with autism at Hogwarts, and this is the truth for anyone who wants to come to Hogwarts and has any type of what the Muggle world calls a “difference.”  If you notice, everyone at Hogwarts is a bit different than the person next to them.  Not in a bad way.  Just a different way.  For instance, the Weasleys are very poor and the Malfoys are very rich.  Also Harry is an orphan and Hermione has both parents.  There are Muggle-borns and Pure-bloods; and sometimes they are both friends, like Ron and Hermione.

Unlike most schools, Hogwarts accepts everybody as long as they have magic.  You don’t have to be a girl as you have to be at an all-girls school, or smart like you have to be to go to Harvard.

You just have to be you to go to Hogwarts.

I hope I see you there.

I would just like to highlight (cough, cough) the fact that PEOPLE WHO READ HARRY POTTER ARE MORE EMPATHETIC.  It’s science.  No, I mean, literally, it’s the subject of a scientific paper.  According to Mugglenet (yes, I read Mugglenet too):

In a paper published online in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology this week, researchers from Italy and the University of Greenwich report that students who read the Harry Potter series are less prejudiced against stigmatized groups than those who have not.

Methinks that my love of Harry Potter keeps me from being a total dick.

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Today is Neville Longbottom’s birthday followed tomorrow by Harry Potter’s birthday.  One of my favourite lines from the book is in reference to Neville Longbottom: “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”  It’s hard to call people on their shit, especially people you love that you don’t want to hurt or offend.  But… sometimes we have to speak up.

The kids had this great third grade teacher who imparted a Neville Longbottom-ish message to them throughout the year: learn how to stick up for one another because you’ll be in middle school sooner than you think.

In other words, if the 50 or so kids in their grade all make the promise to stick up for one another when they see someone being bullied, they will know as they mix with the sea of kids in middle school that there are 49 people in the school who have their back.  49 people having your back?  It’s brilliant.  Who is going to bully a kid who has 49 other kids supporting him/her?

So, I pass it along to you.  Kids don’t always need to be fantastic friends.  They don’t need to harbour deep wells of love for one another.  But having each other’s back?  That is such a simple thing to do, especially if you know in speaking up to a bully that 49 other people have your back in turn.

Happy birthday, Neville and Harry.  Thank you for teaching us so many valuable lessons.

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The ChickieNob often asks questions as we read Harry Potter to which I have no answer, so I turn these two over to the collective brilliance of the Internet.  Onward!

(Uh, though first a warning: question one contains a spoiler.)

Question One: Bellatrix has her wand taken away when she goes to Azkaban, which we know happens to every Azkaban prisoner.  Yet when she escapes Azkaban, she has a wand.  And she not only has a wand, she has her wand (which I know is only clear in Book Seven, but I shared that small fact with the ChickieNob as she was sussing this out).  How did Bellatrix get her wand back?  In fact, all the escaped Death Eaters seem to have wands.  Are we to understand that these escapees were not only lucky enough to escape BUT they also were able to get their own wands out from whatever protective measures were being used to store wands in Azkaban?

Question Two: This one is a bit more subjective.  You see, the ChickieNob is very concerned for her brother when it comes to their acceptance to Hogwarts.  She has a strong feeling that she is going to get an owl when she turns 11, and it would follow that her twin brother would get one too.  But he is a very picky eater.

She wants to know what happens if you don’t like what they’re serving at Hogwarts?  She asks (nervously): “What if they only have two vegetarian options and you don’t like either one?”  Though, have you EVER seen any vegetarian options at Hogwarts?  A vegetarian protein option?  I haven’t.

Yes, parents can send care packages, but at no point in the series do you see a kid reject the meal before them on the table.  In fact, no one at Hogwarts seems to be a vegetarian.  Or keep kosher.  Or keep halal.  Isn’t that a little odd?  I mean, yes, it’s England, and I get that Christianity is the dominant religion.  But really?  No vegetarians at the very least?  Picky eaters?

Do you have an answer to either question?

I read Kaui Hart Hemmings’ new book, The Possibilities.  It’s about a mother mourning the death of her 22-year-old son in an avalanche, and the book begins with her reentry into her regular schedule; returning to work and relationships.  There were a bunch of lines that I noted in Charlotte, but the one that I wanted to unpack with you comes on page 88 when she is in a conversation with another mother who also lost her child in an avalanche:

“I think it’s wonderful that you’re back at work.  I know it really helped me.  It takes a lot of courage, a lot of strength.”

Is she complimenting me or herself?  I hate the unearned kudos.  People get shot in the head and are called brave when they recover.  People lose a son in an avalanche and they’re suddenly admirable.  I’ve done nothing.  I have no courage.  Courage is only possible when you choose to do something.  I didn’t choose to lose him.

In other words, continuing to live life when shit happens isn’t brave.  Bravery comes from seeing danger and choosing to move forward regardless of that danger instead of turning back, which is equally a choice.  But the main character — Sarah St. John — doesn’t see continuing to exist after something horrible has happened, continuing to get up and go to work and eat meals, as courageous because what choice do you have?  To simply stop?  And if one does stop, would the character above call that cowardly by the very fact that it is the opposite of what she calls brave?

This idea obviously struck me because within our community, we deal with a lot of shit.  And there are a lot of days when it feels pretty brave to get out of bed and keep moving despite everything you privately know inside your head and heart.  Just because there is not a real choice in the matter — since stopping is just a fancy way of taking you on a fast track to death — doesn’t mean that it isn’t brave.  She didn’t choose to lose him any more than any of us choose infertility or loss.  But… I don’t know.  It feels pretty brave sometimes continuing to interact in a world where the object of your depression is all around you.  There is no way to move about the general world and not encounter babies, pregnant women, small changing tables hooked to public bathroom walls.

Is it only courage when you choose to do something?  Or can it be courage simply to live with the situation you’re dealt?