I read a fascinating article on the BBC about delivery people who serve almost as default social workers, checking in on people as they bring yogurt to people’s homes.

On paper they’re delivery workers, but in practice they’re part of the country’s informal social safety net. In a country grappling with a rapidly ageing population and a deepening loneliness crisis, Yakult Ladies have become an unlikely source of community, helping to reduce the problem of isolation one drop-off at a time.

It’s not just reducing isolation. They end up being almost a front-line worker:

The maternal figures offer a friendly face, weekly check-ins and, for many older residents, a lifeline of human connection. They also notice subtle changes in a customer’s routine. If someone fails to answer the door, they may alert family members or seek assistance.

I think about how different it is here, where items are often left outside and the delivery person texts to let you know it’s at the door. I love this idea of people keeping the same routine, the same houses, year after year. Having the exchange be a societal check:

Are you okay?

I’m okay.

It took five days, but he is now grudgingly eating the pea flakes. He has silently promised me that he will never, ever perform a trick for one, but he will take it in his mouth and chew it instead of dropping it on the ground. It’s a small step forward in getting rid of 8 ounces of pea flakes.

The first time I tried licorice as a kid, I didn’t like it. I don’t know if I actually didn’t like it, or if I heard enough people say that they didn’t like it that I decided that I needed to dislike it, too. But soon after, I decided it was one of my favourite flavours. And to this day, I save my licorice jelly beans for last.

I am hoping that Quentin’s pea flake journey will take a similar route. From dislike to tentative curiosity to gusto.

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

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I have a game… of course, I have a game. I always have a game. But this game has a lot of replay.

With Habitat, you get a tiny land with trees, wheat, and bear-like animals. The job is to build houses from the trees, grow food to support the people in the houses, and keep your resources plentiful without depleting the land.

It took me three tries, but I entered an endless mode where I had all elements in optimal balance. It’s a fun game to pick up for a few minutes while you’re waiting for the water to boil.

Enjoy!

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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.

We had a stranger do something super kind for us, and they live in another country. I had the thought that we should bring them a gift, something they couldn’t get in their country. But as I thought about it, I realized that I couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t super niche and therefore probably not enjoyed by people outside the area. (Root beer is an example of this.) Or anything mainstream, they already had there.

I can’t pinpoint when it changed. I know I used to bring a handful of candy bars or things with English on them when I traveled to give away. Or American entertainment magazines. It took so long for shows to air overseas that if you had those, you could know plot points before anyone else.

But the last time I remember doing that was 1995ish. After that, I traveled without items, except in rare circumstances when the gift was for a specific person I knew (and knew their tastes), rather than a stranger I encountered along the way.

The world feels smaller, but it made me sad to think about that sort of exchange and how I haven’t participated in a long time.

If you peruse the “guinea pig tricks” online forums as I do because MY PIG IS A BRILLIANT, PUZZLE-SOLVING MACHINE, you know that pea flakes are one of the tools you use to train your pig to be an adorable, curious, trick-performing lump of pure love. Pea flakes are dehydrated, flat peas, and other guinea pig parents promised that they were catnip for pigs.

The bag with the best label art at Chewy only came in an 8-ounce size. Not a problem. Our pig was going to love these flakes, and we were going to be thrilled that we had a stash of flakes equivalent to about 6 bags of dehydrated blueberries at Trader Joe’s.

I couldn’t wait to open the bag when it arrived. I had talked about these pea flakes with Quentin nonstop. I had to deliver the goods.

He hated them. Absolutely hated them. Took them in his mouth and buried them in his bedding and then urinated on them. I tried breaking them into smaller bits (hard to do because they’re already tiny) and mixing them with his dried food. He ate around them and then dumped out the remaining flake dust on the ground. I even pretended to eat one while I said, “Mmmmmm, this is great people food.” But the pig refused to try it. He liked taking them in his mouth, allowing them to dangle from his lips, and then dropping them. Just to waste them.

I’m glad we committed to housing a mountain of pea flakes.

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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.

In Search of Motherhood broke my heart (which was, admittedly, already broken, too) with her post about a lie we tell our kids. She writes: “Tomorrow I will lie to my children. I will tell them that they are safe, that the terrorist attack can’t happen at our shul or at their Jewish day school, that our security is tops.” It is on my mind every single day, and it is exhausting and depressing.

Lastly, No Kidding in NZ writes about a book from one of my favourite authors — David Nicholls. It is admittedly in third place, but third place David Nicholls is eons beyond other writers. She writes, “How nice to see ourselves reflected in a book in a calm, non-histrionic way, when childlessness was not the central feature of the book, but it was a very present, talked about, and acknowledged feature that contributed to the richness of the characters and story.” You Are Here is a great book if you’re looking for something that will transport you (and maybe transform you?)

The roundup to the Roundup: Quentin rejects pea flakes. 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 13 – March 20) 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.