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

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While I’m normally good about updating to the latest software version, I put off the change from iOS 17 to 18 for months because I didn’t want things to look different. I’m fine with not having new features. I would rather have everything look the same and be located in the same place than have my device capable of doing anything new.

I waited until the Wolvog was home so he could change all the settings and get it as close to iOS17 as possible. And it still took me a few days to feel comfortable with it again.

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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.

A few weeks ago, Scientist on the Roof had a post that I loved where she rounded up books and television shows and mood commentary into a single post. The Road Less Travelled also has a monthly “right now” post. I decided to jump aboard and create my own, which I’ll update on the last Sunday (or close to that) of each month.

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

• Seven Reasons To Murder Your Dinner Guests (KJ Whittle)
• Welcome to Murder Week (Karen Dukess)
• The Night Stairs (Erin Kelly)
• Murder on Line One (Jeremy Vine)
• Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife (Martin Edwards)
• Mean Moms (Emma Rosenblum)
• The Wasp Trap (Mark Edwards)

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

• Perfected my recreation of the artichoke parm.
• Falafel at Shouk.
• Walnut pesto sandwich with fresh mozzarella.

Television, Movies, and Music (watching and listening)

• The Traitors UK, Season 3. We saw our first episode of The Traitors while in the UK, and we came in mid-season and left before the end. It was finally added to Peacock, so we went back to the beginning and saw the whole thing.
• Augustin Hadelich playing Bach Sonata No 2 – Andante and Allegro.
• Severence, Season 2.

Added To My Ongoing Mix Tape

• Personal Jesus (Depeche Mode)
• Israelites (Desmond Dekker & The Aces)
• La valse à mille temps (Jacques Brel)
• Miss Freelove ’69 (Hoodoo Gurus)

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

• The Wikipedia page for Frusen Glädjé.
• A lot of pages about guinea pig health issues.
• The real life Lumon building. (Was debating whether to mess with the kids and drive there without saying anything until we got to the parking lot. Decided against it.)
• A recipe for Cornish pudding.

Micro-Joys

• Inexplicably remembered the lyrics to a song I called “Mystery Love” back in the 90s that I heard on the radio. Tried to find said song. Failed. Looked up lyrics to the song, and Google delivered the true title: “Miss Freelove ’69” by Hoodoo Gurus. Wondered how many other song titles I’ve written down wrong on mix tapes throughout the years.
• One night, while Beorn was sick, he was making this terrible moan, and we all became terrified. It went on for at least five minutes, and I finally took out my phone to record it so I could play it for the vet. I was bringing the phone closer and closer to his face to make sure I captured the sound. I was inches from his nose when he let out an enormous sneeze, and we all shrieked. The whole thing was just a build-up to his sneeze, and then he went back to sleep.
• Passing along a pair of favourite pants to the ChickieNob and watching them get a new life.
• Jelly beans while we watched television.

Mood

• Feeling fairly panicked between Beorn’s health and the state of my country. In both cases, I feel powerless because nothing I’ve tried has made a big enough change.

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

Beorn stopped eating his vitamin this week, which is definitely one of his top five favourite things, along with timothy treats, apple slices, head rubs, and when the Wolvog tickles his armpit. Looking at that list, he had been off timothy treats for weeks, moving slowly with the apple slices, and not into moving around, much less popcorning after a tickle. So that left us with head rubs. He still asked for head rubs by leaning into my hand and nudging me.

He also wouldn’t eat a blueberry. That was the last straw. I called the guinea pig specialist, who agreed to see him that day. I jumped in the car to bring him over because I was desperate enough to leave him at the clinic – one of their policies, which makes me anxious. It was my last resort option.

Of course, when I got home, I discovered the stinker had eaten the blueberry without me noticing while I was on the phone.

The vet did not find anything obviously wrong with him. He let her examine his teeth — twice — and they looked normal to the eye. He didn’t have any lumps or impactions. He was clearly thinner. He had a heart murmur that may or may not be connected and some inflammation on his paws. But one big point was that my normal vet didn’t give me the correct amount of critical care he should have been receiving to keep his intestines moving. I was giving him less than half the daily amount.

So that’s what we’re trying now. An anti-inflammatory painkiller + the correct amount of critical care. Hoping this gets him back to normal because I could not concentrate without my baby in the house.

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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:

• “Good Advice” (Stirrup Queens) – thank you, Jess!

Okay, now my choices this week.

Slaying, Blogging, Whatever writes about stress and worry. Namely, that dreamlike quality that hangs over unusually stressful times (9/11, the pandemic, etc), and how it normalizes after weeks or months. She fears the dreamlike stress state currently unfolding will one day become normal, which may be worse than the unreal state.

Lastly, The Barreness also writes about the situation unfolding in our country and at the local level. After a disheartening council meeting, she reflects: “To look for the good; I stood beside people I socialize with who were there to fight for more protections for people they don’t know, maybe know, and love. I took heart in that.” I too wish there was a superhero coming and agree that it’s up to us.

The roundup to the Roundup: Still waiting for Beorn to bounce back. 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 21 – 28) 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.

Beorn can differentiate Saturday from all other days of the week. On Saturdays, we have popcorn and apples for breakfast, and he gets apple slices off my plate. It’s the only day of the week when he calls out for us if we sleep in, and when we come down, he continuously wheeks for us to start apple time from the moment I pour my first coffee.

We would prefer not to eat popcorn or apples first thing in the morning, but there is only so long the pig can wait. And it’s super impressive that he doesn’t anticipate apples on Sunday mornings or any other day of the week. He only does this on Saturdays. Smart pig.

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I’ve never seen Paddington, but they were heavily promoting Paddington in Peru while we were in the UK this winter, and I decided that I wanted to see the first movie because everyone said it was wonderful.

I wrote myself a note. Then I forgot about it. Then I found the note and promptly returned to saying I wanted to watch Paddington. Then I forgot about it. Then I found the note…

I feel like this is the story of my life. Deciding I want to do X, writing it down, forgetting about it, finding the note, realizing I want to do X, forgetting about it, repeat, repeat, repeat.

I still haven’t seen Paddington.

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I wanted to go to the beach this weekend, but Josh had a work event and it made no sense to go away for a single night. I decided to stage my own beach vacation in the living room. I’m getting the snacks I like at the beach and placing a blanket on the floor and putting on the sound of waves and reading books.

Is it a beach vacation? No. I am not biking to the beach and smelling salty air and hearing real seabirds and watching the waves. But I’m getting close-ish to it. Sort of.

You know that I’m all about distracting myself with games, and this IS a game, but it’s also not really a distraction. You get to change one moment in history, and you can choose between two options. You then learn the cascading effect of that single change.

The first time I played it, I quickly jumped into the thousands with karma. I was helping the world! But just as quickly, my great changes — things I knew would be good — had unforeseen negative consequences. In time, I pretty much botched the whole thing.

The point, of course, is that it’s easy to play armchair historian and point out all the things you would do differently, but we often make those choices without thinking through the full impact of the decision. Even actions or inventions that are clearly “good” can end up having a negative impact on future generations.

Play it and see how you do.