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?
…
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.
…
Hi from Kennewick, where it is 66 and sunny. We had computer issues and no internet this morning, but thanks to the helpful guy a the Verizon store and to Frontier phone support we are back on line again…..interesting how important that has become!
I’ve got some needed time alone today, with Porkie the Pug keeping me company. So I’m upgrading my bil’s computer to W 10, reading my book, and hoping the sale is going well. Yesterday was pretty good, but there’s an alarming amount of stuff still to go.
Good morning, meese! Saturday …
It is 68 degrees in Madison on its way up to 80. Scattered thunderstorms are in the forecast. A little rain shower just passed through minutes ago. This is pretty much the expected weather for the next week with a break on Monday. Still too hot for me!
The Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the education funding plan passed by the Kansas legislature and signed by Trickle Down Sam Brownback is unconstitutional. Brownback has threatened in the past to disband the Supreme Court and the court really has no way to close the schools or change the unconstitutional allocations. So what now? The Great Experiment in Grover Norquistism has indeed starved the “beast” of government and rendered it dysfunctional. Thanks, Grover!
The president’s weekly address is a Memorial Day tribute which I will put up in a comment in the FP post I had been planning on the Hiroshima speech. I have been waiting for the text of those remarks (I watched it live). The president’s speech at the memorial or, as the right-wing calls it, part of his “America sucks apology tour”, was important. By the way, he didn’t apologize but he did speak of hope for a world where nuclear weapons were no longer used.
See all y’all later!
Hola Meese
Grill is on the porch – now to get the burger meat, the hot dogs and the fish. Trying to decide if I’m gonna make potato salad and deviled eggs.
plan to spend the weekend eating :)
Have a good one!
Sounds great, except for the “making the food” part. I try to find others to do that. :)
Good lovely Saturday morning, Meese! Plan to enjoy this day while I can. It’s going to rain tomorrow. It’s 70 F. now, going up to 87 F. later.
My husband has sometimes repeated an old English saying, “Cast not a clout ’til May is out.” That has been literally true this year. The past couple of days have been so hot I’ll have to start looking for the summer sheets. Can’t keep putting on the flannel ones in weather like this!
I planted the runner beans yesterday, two grow-baskets of onions, and one grow-basket of chamomile, so little Pink Cheeks can see what it looks like. Had to order a new set of child-size gardening tools for her as the old ones are buried in her family’s garage.
Hoping the little family can come to tea this weekend so I can give Babylicious his chief present, a toy drum that plays songs. When I ordered this from Amazon, a note immediately popped up: “You ordered this five years ago!” Yep, I did, and two more grandchildren have been born since then! When the youngest turns two at Lammas Tide 2017, I’ll order one for him, if the other grandparents haven’t beaten me to it.
Wishing a lovely Saturday to all!
Morning all. Had trouble sleeping so was up a couple of hours ago, very early for me. My AC stopped working yesterday afternoon – the repair guy came, and OF COURSE it needs a part which, since he was here after 5PM and the office had closed, cannot now be ordered till Tuesday. Grrr – appliances always know when it’s a holiday weekend, I guess. The AC sort of works after he tinkered with it, but will stop periodically at which point I’m supposed to flip the circuit breaker on and off to restart it. I set the thermostat to 78 hoping to keep it from working too much – we’ll see how it limps thru to Tuesday. Or Wed or Friday – depends on if they have the part in stock. And of course it’s going to hit the low 90’s every day next week. Sigh. Oh well, as long as it cools off at night into the 60’s, it should be tolerable during the day, but we’ll see.
Diana, that toy drum that plays songs sounds like it might be a great present for my great-nephew, I will look for that! He just turned 2 in March, and is the apple of his grandfather (my brother)’s eye.
I’m amazed at the Sanders’ campaign’s continuing descent into petty grudges – Sanders wants Barney Frank, who has only disdain for Sanders and makes it public, and Ct Gov Malloy, who’s an enemy of the NRA, one of Bernie’s patrons, removed from their Convention positions. And threatening to gum up the works of the convention if that doesn’t happen. Some revolution – the letter to the DNC actually cites Frank “insulting” Sanders in 1991! Good golly. I was hoping Sanders would be done with all his foolishness after Hillary clinches the nomination with NJ and CA primaries in 10 days, but now I’m not sure he’s ever going to give up.
Ok, despite that foolishness, I intend to have a good day and stay as cool as I can – and hope everyone else does the same!
I saw the letter and outrage on Twitter last night but nothing in the news this morning. I wonder if Sanders being a peevish old man is simply not newsworthy any longer? Someone speculated that the DNC attacks are coming from Jeff Weaver and Sanders is pretty much giving him carte blanche to do what he wants … Sanders has a revolution to run, you know, and can’t worry his pointy little head with the details! They picked the wrong guy to attack, by the way, because Barney Frank does not suffer fools gladly.
I saw a jpg of the attorney letter and laughed out loud. Why redact the firm’s address on the letterhead??? Like no one has the googles to look it up based on the name? Sheesh.
Sorry about your air conditioning. Do you have a place to go if it gets miserable, a library or a friendly cafe?
Oh, I could always go out to the movies or the nearby Starbucks – my dogs, alas, can’t. So far today, it worked up until about 2:45, when the warning sign went up on the thermostat – so I raised it to 80 to stop the cooling for a while. We’ll see how that works – I think it will ok for most of the day but mid-late afternoons are going to be a bit warm.
Geordie, what rotten luck about the air conditioning!
Vital in this climate. Drink lots of lemonade and draw all the blinds!
Hope the temps drop after dark – you can sleep OK as long as that happens. I grew up in Houston, mostly spent my summer evenings up til midnight or so walking around because it was cooler outside than in, but the temps never fell far because of the humidity. And yeah, drink lots of lemonade or tea and keep the blinds/curtains drawn.
Yesterday was so exhausting. We were short staffed, because holiday weekend…. ugh. Relaxing now. Watching the news — all flooding, people washed away from roads, houses with water….. maybe I’ll find something happy…
Anyway, got a relaxing weekend ahead. Hope to get some exercise & maybe see a movie.
Good morning, 58 and sunny in Kennewick, 49 and raining in Bellingham. I’m wishing we were home, but we’re not, so it’s another day of family and estate settling. We are making progress though……the house sale is underway, prices at the sale will start being reduced today, and Ron’s older brother is coming with his truck to take the items his family wants to them. And my sil and I are going to find some non estate sale activities to enjoy this afternoon :)
59 at dawn and heading for 80, maybe. Another of those days that started sunny but got over it – only got 10 KWHs yesterday and looks to be the same sort of day today. (At least let me have a couple of hours of sunshine during the middle of the day, please.) I did get my walk home so that’s 3 for the week. I stay relatively healthy on that regime.
If I didn’t know who would get stuck doing the work, I’d swear I’ll walk out the door and not look back if the Legislature mandates one more superfluous redundant approval chain on any more of my work! They just added an extra approval on moving money around from one cost center to another within our own department! It showed up yesterday afternoon and I don’t know who’s more P.O.’d – me or the department Chair. My estimated Social Security is actually something I could live on, if I was careful. My main concern is not knowing how much they’re going to ding me for with Medicare Parts B & D (I may or may not bother with C since it’s apparently optional). I’d have to give up most of my charitable and political giving and have some money stashed back for when/if I have to replace the HVAC but otherwise I’d be pretty much doing what I’m doing now. (Well, after I get back from NN and recoup/replace what that costs. heh) But I do know who’d get stuck with the work – me walking off won’t make them change things – and I don’t know how much Medicare is going to ding me monthly, so I guess I’ll keep on keepin’ on for while longer if not the entire 21 months.
Only thing I’m going to say about the latest of B.S.’s demands is he can go pound sand. I love how Hillary is pretty much ignoring him except to say how much stuff they both want to do for America/Americans. Actually I love Hillary’s whole campaign. It is so positive – yes, we have problems but we can and we will make things better. It’s the “we will” that is so great. She not promising pie in the sky, just to make things better – I like better. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
I know someone whose brother told her she couldn’t possibly live on $18,000 a year, which is what she has from Social and a little pension she’s getting from a company she once worked for. She lives in Nowhere, Pennsylvania, Amish country, in a trailer. Seems to manage very well, with fresh country produce, eggs and goat cheese from the Amish neighbors, and so on. She has two little dogs who won’t be around forever, and an old car.
So it can be done, but many, many corners must be cut. She’s another casualty of American business, a highly skilled desktop publisher who was “downsized” and can’t find another, comparable job in her area. She tried working a menial job at some sort of factory, but when she was sexually harassed and management did nothing about it, she said “Eff this,” and called up Social Security. The man on the other end of the telephone line said, “You’re 64? Of course you can get it. We’ll do the paperwork and you can have your check next month.”
Four years later she’s still doing fine.
Well, mine will be closer to $14K a year (before Medicare comes out), but I own my house – yeah still have property taxes and insurance but that’s about $1100 a year right now and I don’t see it going a lot higher. And if I do, well, I’ll cancel the insurance and pray. My utilities run about $200 a month, so $2400 a year. Various other insurances are $600 a year combined. The rest is groceries, cats, and car. Those are the “required” categories and a few things are flexible within them – mostly groceries, cats, and car. Everything else I’m spending money on is either house stuff in preparation for not having anything to spend on that and charitable/political giving. I’ll make it.
The basic Part B premium right now is about $120/mo – you only pay more if your income in the previous year was over $80K or something like that. I don’t know about the prescription drug part D – I didn’t sign up for it because I am in the FLorida retiree supplemental plan (for state employee retirees) that is a Medigap plan and includes drugs. It’s not cheap at all – $360/mo – but there are probably cheaper alternatives depending on where you live.
Thanks – it’s hard to get a straight answer from anybody about that. I hope to heaven I can find something cheaper. If not Medicare premiums are going to take close to half my income. If the Part D weren’t required, I wouldn’t get it. My opinion of pharmaceuticals is not good. Of course my opinion of doctors isn’t good either, but I know insurance only works if everybody is paying in so I’ll live with it.