706th Friday Blog Roundup

Crazy Rich Asians has been in my “to read” pile for months, but I pushed up its place in line when I realized the movie opening was one week away.  I knew the book had a cast of thousands — mostly in the same family — and I’d want to figure out all of those relationships in book form before I had to track it on the screen.  I finished the book 24 hours before our date night and felt pretty damn proud of myself.

Until I realized I wasn’t sure I wanted to see the movie anymore.

The book is fantastic, and I can’t wait to dive into parts two and three in the trilogy.  Could the movie be as good as the book?  The trouble with turning books into movies is that what feels natural to include in narrative feels stilted when it’s added to dialogue so characters can reveal details that can’t be conveyed otherwise.

To go or not to go.

What ultimately won out was a desire to see the fictional Indonesian island resort for Araminta’s bachelorette party and the scenery around Singapore.

So we went with all of the grandmas last night to see Crazy Rich Asians.  (I’m not joking.  Apparently elderly women love to go to the movies on a Thursday night.)  It was so much fun.  (Even though no one clapped with me when the bride and groom kissed at the wedding.  Apparently elderly women do not like to clap in the movie theater.)

It’s not like the book, and I spent half the movie leaning over and hissing, “they changed that, too!”  But that’s okay.  It is fantastic in its own right.

Kwan is a gifted storyteller so if you have time to pick up the book first, read it.  But even if you don’t, it’s a great movie.  I bawled at the wedding.  I laughed with Peik Lin.  And that ending… that ending actually surprised me.

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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:

• “The Lens of Infertility” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Cristy and Jess!
• “#Microblog Mondays: Firsts” (My Path to Mommyhood)
• “Into the Breach” (Weathering Storms)
• “Three passions #MicroblogMonday” (Dubliner in Deutschland)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Life As I Know It has a beautiful but sad post that has a line that sat with me all week: “The people I belong to are no longer here.”  It’s about missing the people who would have been invested in our stories.  It’s a brief post that packs a big punch if you’re missing somebody.

Baby Ridley Bump explains why she uses the term “mother” when speaking about her egg donor.  I love this post because it begins with this idea: “There is nothing wrong with respectfully disagreeing with someone, it’s one of the beauties of free thinking. I’m glad that she reached out to me instead of taking offense to what I said and not speaking up about it.”  She then explains her way of thinking and why “mother” fits in her situation.  It’s a great post that will get you thinking about language and relationships.

Lastly, Life Without Baby has a post about owning your childlessness; mentioning it without explaining it.  She talks about a woman telling a story and mentioning that she couldn’t have children.  “She didn’t pause for people to give her sympathetic looks, she didn’t elaborate on why she couldn’t have children, and she didn’t explain that she’d wanted to have them or tried to.”  It was merely a fact and not the defining characteristic of her life.  It’s owning who you are without apologies or explanations.

The roundup to the Roundup: Two thumbs up for Crazy Rich Asians.  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 August 10th and 17th) 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.