Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: April 10th through April 16th

April 10, 2016 JanF Community 91

Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings posts give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.

Welcomings will be posted at the start of each week (every Sunday morning). To find the posts, just bookmark this link and Voila! (which is Moose for “I found everyone!!”).

The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining (or bragging!) about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or simply checking in.

So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?

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NOTE: The comments page will now split off after 20 or so left margin comments with the most recent comments on the current page. To see the older comments, scroll to the bottom of the page and use the link.

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20 Comments

  1. Good morning, 52 and mostly cloudy in Bellingham. I’m so sleepy this morning and coffee isn’t helping. I’m going to the pool regardless, hoping for an energy infusion!

    Pleasant Friday wishes to all.

  2. Good morning, meese! Saturday …

    It is 45 degrees in Madison on its way up to 76. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    I have been a bit distracted after finding out about the death of a friend and longtime blogging buddy a few nights ago. Since writing is cathartic for me, I have been penning emails sharing my thoughts with friends. I will share a little of it here, with my moose friends:

    Julie Gulden was my blogmother, teaching me the ways of the Great Orange Satan, helping me not take myself too seriously, laughing at my jokes, making me laugh … a lot. We met in the late night threads and in person in Providence at NN12. She passed away on February 16th after a short stay in hospice … Julie had no enemies. She genuinely enjoyed being with and interacting with people and took the edge off an edgy place. She will be missed.

    A special person has left the earthly plane. But her spirit lives on in the hearts of those whose lives she touched, including mine.

    See all y’all later!

    • Sorry to hear this, Jan. It’s so hard when a good friend departs this life. I hope the memories of your great friendship will comfort you. What is remembered, lives.

        • I think of her “morning glories” welcome when I turn on my computer every morning. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and memories, and for creating a place where I could interact with her.

    • Thanks for sharing that Jan – I was shocked when I heard about Julie – who I met at Netroots Nation.
      May she rest in peace.

    • Just checking in while my stock cools – {{{{HUGS}}}} loss of a friend, especially unexpectedly, is always a jolt. NN 12 must have been one heck of a deal – the number of wonderful meetings if nothing else. Spirit does indeed live on.

  3. Good morning! It looks as if it will be clear today. Current temperature here in NoVa is 39 F. at 6:30 a.m., going up to 68 F. today.

    Not many thoughts in my head this morning. Horrible earthquakes in Japan, with loss of life, turmoil in Brazil, neighbors up as early as I was this morning (5:30).

    Have boring shopping to do today but very much hope to get some writing done at some point. Hubby called Verizon and got HBO especially so we could watch “Confirmation” tonight. I remember how my fellow editors and I, sitting in a row in the proposal room, listened to the hearings through earphones. We were all riveted.

    Back later to see how everyone is doing. Have a good Saturday!

    • I remember the hearings vividly and the reaction to them. People were convinced that Anita Hill was lying but they could never adequately explain to me what was in it for her, why she would expose herself to mockery, to ridicule, to having to listen to Orrin Hatch for more than 2 minutes!! For the hearing to be called a “high tech lynching” by a bitter hater of his own race, Clarence Thomas, was a willful perversion of the meaning of words – hyperbole that paved the way for those who now call the Affordable Care Act “slavery” and minimize the real lynchings and actual slavery that were part of our ugly history.

      But what came out of it was a movement. Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray and others were inspired to run for office after they saw the maleness of the panel that was charged with deciding if a woman was lying about her treatment by someone who was going to be sitting on the Supreme Court for possibly the next 30 years.

      Hill’s accusations that then Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her when she worked as his aide cost her greatly. She came away from testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee humiliated, her reputation in tatters, while Thomas was confirmed. But her testimony before the all-male committee — to be dramatized by Scandal’s Kerry Washington in an HBO on April 16 — galvanized millions of women across America.

      One of them was a state lawmaker in Washington who found that Hill’s humiliation was all that women wanted to talk about at an event that evening.

      “It was so stark, watching these men grill this woman in these big chairs and looking down at her,” Democratic Senator Patty Murray … “And I just said, I am going run for [U.S.] Senate,” she recalled. “Because they need somebody there who is going to say what I would say if I was there,” which would’ve been to defend Hill and question Thomas instead.

      Murray was elected that year along with three other women, Illinois’ Carol Moseley Braun and in California Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer — marking not only the first time any state was represented by two women in the upper chamber but a tripling of the number of women in that body. … The Senate wasn’t the only place that saw gains. A record 24 women were elected to the House, increasing female representation in the lower body by more than 60% from 30 to 48 women. Hundreds more ran for school boards, county commissions and state legislatures.

      The legacy of Clarence Thomas will be lots of bad decisions … and lots of women inspired to get into politics and challenging the good old boys lockhold on the way Congress works, and looks.

    • Very odd, indeed. I hope he is well.

      We will have that 70 degree weather here and for once I am pleased to send it your way. Normally I send you bad storms. :)

  5. So, it’s supposed to rain some today, then severe weather tomorrow. They’re preparing for flooding. I’ve got to buy groceries — my co-op’s quarterly 10% off is now, and today is an extra 10% off bulk. So — quinoa here I come. For right now, eating breakfast & drinking tea.

  6. Good morning, 47 and mostly sunny in Bellingham. Ron and our son are off for a whale watching day, so Heide and I will putter around the garden. We’re having a family barbecue for the April birthdays next weekend so I want to plant a few flowers on the patios. It’s still to early for begonias, but I hope to find some Gartenmeister fuchsias and geraniums with interesting foliage.

    Welcome the Whales Festival April 16-17, 2016

    The “Saratoga” or North Puget Sound Gray Whales return to Saratoga Passage and Possession Sound each spring, for their annual three-month feeding foray in North Puget Sound. Cascadia Research of Olympia has been studying this population of Puget Sound Gray whales for decades, and has photo-identified a group of approximately 10 – 12 whales that visit this area each spring.

  7. Morning all! Still not desperately hot here today, so I will take that – I hold on to spring as long as I can!

    So Bernie met with the Pope for 5 minutes in a foyer – some speculation that he actually ambushed him there, but I’ve also seen something indicating it was a planned “meeting” . I don’t actually think 5 minutes is enough time for a “meeting” myself, but it’s enough for the Bernie forces at DKos to go nuts. On twitter, what’s causing a stir is the menu for dinner served on Bernie’s flight home – very fancy! I myself am more outraged by those idiots demonstrating outside the George Clooney sponsored fundraiser for Dems, that Hillary attended. Fortunately, it was not the 1800 people the Sanders campaign said would show up, but rather about 100-150. Still, they got lots of press calling Hillary a fraud and a cheat in primaries and caucuses, without of course, giving one specific to substantiate that claim. Argh, the stupid, it burns!

    I’m about done giving Markos traffic at GOS – as I said in a comment in the “safe” diary over there, I feel like clicking on the site rewards him with traffic as he’s let the site blaze up into a full blown dumpster fire. He’s not enforcing anything he said about not attacking Hillary in diaries, and it’s just as bad as it was before March 15th. These people aren’t Democrats and neither is Bernie – but I guess kos likes the traffic controversy brings to the site so he lets the vitriol and vile aspersions continue.

    On a happier and personal note – the health scare my oldest brother had earlier in the week turned out to have a silver lining, as it brought the first conversation I’ve had with my sister in law in almost 9 years. I don’t like her and she doesn’t like me, but I’m glad we were able to have a civil conversation (mostly complaining about my middle brother, we can find common ground there). I’ve been a bit concerned that my big brother could die and I might never know because Susan wouldn’t call me, so being at least back on civil terms is a good thing. We also apparently have a purchaser for the last piece of property in Tennessee we inherited from my mother, if the RE agent who called me can get his act together. We won’t get as much as we had hoped for it, but then, one rarely does, and I just want to be rid of it and stop having to pay taxes on it.

    And today is a great opera day! The final opera in Donizetti’s “Tudor Triloly” – “Roberto Devereux, set in Queen Elizabeth’s later years. The great soprano Sondra Radvanovsky will complete her tour de force of singing all 3 lead roles in one season (Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and now Queen Elizabeth). I’m really looking forward to it as I’ve never heard it, and the previous two broadcasts of the trilogy operas this season were wonderful!

    Hope everyone has a great day!

    • The protests outside of the fundraiser stomped on my last nerve. How the heck are we supposed to get our people elected to FIX the problem of money in politics?? So stupid, so shortsighted … so rude.

    • You have a good day too, Geordie! I hope you enjoy visiting the quiet shores of the Moose Pond where we can share our words and our links without all the NOISE. I will be glad when the primary wars are finished because I have an itch to write about politics but I am not sure I can be pleasant enough for a front page post until the deadenders get a clue … and a calculator. Hillary Clinton will be our nominee and the sooner she can pivot to the general election, the better it will be for our party. I read a story on Vox that said she gets by far the most negative press of any presidential candidate, even Donald Trump. NOT breaking news.

  8. And guess what! The Pope himself basically CONFIRMED that Bernie stalked him! This from his conversation with reporters on his plane –

    Sanders was staying at the same residence, because that’s where all participants in the Vatican conference he attended on Friday were spending the night. The only exceptions were Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Rafael Correa of Ecuador, who stayed at their country’s embassy in Rome.

    “This morning as I was leaving, Senator Sanders was there,” Francis said. “He knew I was coming out at that time, and he had the kindness to greet me.”

    “When I came down, he introduced himself, I greeted him with a handshake, and nothing more,” the pope added. “It’s common courtesy, this is called common courtesy.

    “If someone thinks that greeting someone is getting involved in politics,” he said, “I recommend that they find a psychiatrist.”

    This is hilarious and sad.

    • It’s very sad – I don’t care about Bernie himself nor the AfBs, but the DfBs were very happy about Bernie meeting the Pope and to not only have it all blow up on them but our team rub salt in the wound, well, that’s not the way to bring the party back together for the general. I know some of our side wants to get back at the AfBs, but they’re missing the target. The AfBs aren’t for Bernie as anything except the person running against Hillary. Nothing’s going to phase them about Bernie because that’s not what they’re about. But the DfBs are upset and our team is doing nothing but making it worse. I can’t even stay in a Hillary safe diary today as our side is not being nice. No way as nasty as the AfBs, but let’s just say I’m not taking any more part in it. I’ll see what tomorrow’s diary looks like, but if it’s more of the same, I’m not participating or staying.

      • I wish our side would not be rude. We need to practice being “good winners” in order to counteract the “poor losers” and start moving towards healing.

  9. 60s and overcast all day – probably get 7 or 8 KWHs for the day, if I’m lucky. Making stock today, soup tomorrow. Got a fire going to take the damp chill off. Probably end up doing the same tomorrow for all the forecast says in the 70s – if the sun doesn’t come out, it won’t make it. Got the 1st of this year’s strawberries at the Market this morning. We had just enough sun last week that they are perfect. Had some for breakfast and will have some more for dessert – not about to let perfect strawberries go without being eaten! :) {{{HUGS}}}

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