While I don’t remember ever seeing the show as a child, the theme song to Love, American Style has been stuck in my brain for weeks. Josh and I thought it was an early reality television show, but the Wikipedia page describes it as a comedy series with “multiple stories of romance, usually with a comedic spin.”

But before we saw the page, Josh thought it was like Real People with a romantic twist. That led us down a rabbit hole where we discovered you could watch Real People episodes on YouTube.

YouTube also has Circus of the Stars clips and Battle of the Network Stars.

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Back in February, Jellycat featured a jerboa in their daily email. I held onto the email, and told my nibling about it because we share a love of all things jellycat. But a week or so ago, my sister randomly sent me a package. I opened the box, and my fingers touched those long, soft ears, and I shrieked.

MY SISTER AND NIBLING GOT ME A JERBOA.

After making a shortlist of names, I decided to call him Kitto, which is Cornish for Christopher.

I set him on my side table at night so he can watch us sleep, which creeps out Josh a bit. But at least the stuffed version means I don’t spend all night anymore asking him how often he wishes we could have a real jerboa friend. So there is that.

I have the best sister and nibling.

Sometimes I feel sad when I read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland because she has this incredible experience and then has to go back to normal life. It’s one of the things that made me love the Magicians trilogy because Quentin addresses this multiple times: Why did the Chatwin children have to leave Fillory? Which is really why did the Pevensie children have to leave Narnia? Which is just another form of why did Alice have to leave Wonderland.

I recently returned to a project I worked on years ago, and it is exactly like getting to return to Wonderland. My March Hare and Mad Hatter and Queen of Hearts are all still working on the project, too, and I get to spend every day down the rabbit hole, remembering past work and thinking about pathways to future work.

I’ve been back to places I’ve left, but most of the people have been different. And I’ve seen people I’ve known a long time in different spaces. But it’s rare that you get to go back after many years and have the people and place together in the same formation. I feel very lucky.

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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:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Road Less Travelled writes about a blast from her past. I have had my own old television show in my head this week, so this spoke to me even though I don’t know her show. I can imagine it based on Mr. Dressup’s connection to Mr. Rogers. But while she may take you down memory lane, read all the way to the end to get her personal connection to the performer. Love that.

Lastly, reading All & Sundry brings you back to the old blogosphere, where posts were raw and either you saw the world in a new way or you whispered, “me too.” She is currently writing about life after her divorce. She explains: “The truth is that it was tough, it still is tough, it’s going to be tough. This is tough and that’s okay. It’s okay for things to be hard because sometimes things are hard. Pain does not automatically mean I did something bad.” She processes her story for herself, but in doing so, she writes in a way that makes people feel less alone.

The roundup to the Roundup: Going back to Wonderland. 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 March 27 – April 3) 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 took a mental health day yesterday to read books and sit with my guinea pig, so it’s a little hard to get back into the swing of things today because there’s a part of my brain that says, “Oh, that felt so nice yesterday. Why don’t you do it again?”

But get back into it again I must because there is work to do and cooking to accomplish. Pesach begins tonight, and I have to prep for two seders. And amid it all, I need to not open social media and believe anything I read because it’s also April Fool’s Day.

That’s your yearly reminder not to believe the fake pregnancy announcements. I wish people wouldn’t write them.

This is a monthly series, published near the end of the month summarizing what I found, ate, watched, googled, and felt this month. New categories added from time to time.

Books Added to My TBR (e.g., books I just learned about that I’m excited to read… maybe)

• The Infamous Gilberts (Angela Tomaski)
• This Story Might Save Your Life (Tiffany Crum)
• Murder Like Clockwork (Nicola Whyte)
• Big Nobody (Alex Kadis)
• Nonesuch (Francis Spufford)
• We Chase Shadows (Richard Osman)
• How To Kill a Crime Writer (Sarah Lotz)
• The Library After Dark (Ande Pliego)
• Good People (Patmeena Sabit)
• A Sociopath’s Guide to a Successful Murder (M. K. Oliver)
• Cleaner (Jess Shannon)
• A Bad, Bad Place (Frances Crawford)
• The Quantity Theory of Morality (Will Self)
• Last Seen (Lucy Clarke)
• Boring Asian Female (Canwen Xu)
• The Tainted Cup (Robert Jackson Bennett)
• Dead and Breakfast (Kat Hillis and Rosiee Thor)
• Based on a True Story (Sarah Vaughan)
• One Last Thing (Katy Birchall)
• I’m Sorry You Feel That Way (Rebecca Wait)
• Ungodly Rich (Katharine McGee)
• Death Writ Large (Susie Dent)
• No Hard Feelings (Genevieve Novak)
• A Fatal Legacy (Charlotte Vassell)

Notable Meals (new recipes, old favorites, and restaurant items we ate this month)

• Phở chay: Made my own (though bought fried tofu from H-mart)
• Vegetarian ramen: Made my own. I think I like it better than our ramen place.
• Creamy walnut and basil pesto pasta.
• Pesto pizza with sliced tomatoes.

Television, Movies, and Music (watching and listening)

• I am excited to start Would I Lie to You (thank you, Mali). We’re waiting for the kids to come home.
• We finished the US Traitors season 4. We never enjoy it as much as the UK Traitors, but we liked more contestants in this one (e.g., Tara Lapinsky and Johnny Weir). And speaking of which, we are in the middle of UK Traitors season 4. Love it.
• Travel Man. This is our new favourite show. Richard Ayoade is so funny, and you get to see a new city every half hour. He’s on the first 9 seasons, so we still have plenty to go.
• We just started How To Get to Heaven From Belfast. We’re only a few episodes in, but it’s quite good.

Added To My Ongoing Mix Tape

• “Temptation” New Order
• “Iceblink Luck” Cocteau Twins
• “Strangers” Ed Harcourt
• “The Passenger” Iggy Pop
• “Alright” (Supergrass)
• “Pump It” (Black Eyed Peas)
• “Love Is Like a Butterfly” (Dolly Parton)
• “Everybody Wants To Rule the World” (Tears for Fears)

Tabs I Left Open (things I Googled and left up on the screen)

• An announcement for the new BBC1 show with Claudia Winkleman
• Unreal Deli’s website
• A google search for the life span of a kinkajou
• The menu for Doghaus
• The website for Hicks & Healey, England’s oldest whiskey company, which is only 22 years old
• Rocket Dog shoes. I saw a woman wearing the rainbow sneakers, and I loved them.

Micro-Joys

• In Series 1, Episode 2 of Travel Man, Richard Ayoade and Adam Hills try a tripe soup, which was sheep’s stomach in milk, and they declare the experience “too Turkish.” We’ve been using the phrase to mark a step beyond our comfort zone.
• Suddenly remembering a mnemonic from elementary school for spelling Halloween, and then finding it on YouTube!
• We saw the BSO perform the most incredible “Bolero” by Ravel. That percussionist keeping a steady beat for 15 straight minutes without a break, and then being part of 1,800+ people walking out elated.

Mood

• Riding the wave of endings and beginnings.

What about you? Let me know what you’re eating, seeing, listening to, googling, feeling this month.

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

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Another geography-based game, which I love because I can pretty much name and place every country in the world on a map as well as identify them by shape or distance between two places. That was not the case years ago when I first started playing Worldle or Globle. Yay games!

I like this one — it’s one of my evening games — but you first have to guess the continent the mystery country is on. So you may lose two or three turns just trying to get on the correct continent. So I don’t love that aspect. But other than that, Geografind is a super solid geography game.

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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.