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.
Good morning, Moosekind. It’s a beautiful, clear but cold morning in NoVa, 27 F. now, going up to 39 F. later today. Last night I covered up my tiny evergreens—got one each in pots on the front porch, trying to look festive.
Not much to say. Had lunch with a Kossack and her friend yesterday. Both said they still couldn’t watch the news on TV or read the newspapers beyond the headlines. The awfulness is simply too awful to take in.
Still don’t feel like writing. Wonder why. I’ll have the house to myself for a large part of the day, so perhaps I can clean up my horrible office. Wishing all a good day!
I saw that we may be in for another polar vortex like the one we had in 2014. ANOTHER example, of course, that global warming is a hoax. Sigh.
I found a hopeful(!) Tweet yesterday from a Great Quotations account that I follow:
{{{Diana}}} – when you get some free time to write, just write. Whether you vent about the election or create a totally fantasy or mythological place far, far away from what’s happening – just write. Writing is part of who you are. Don’t let Thing take that away from you. {{{HUGS}}}
Thank you, sweetie. I might pull myself together sufficiently to finish my Christmas newsletter to email to the family. :)
Take care Diana. Just writing a few sentences is all I can manage, so we may not send a Christmas letter this year.
Cold again — 34. My plants would probably have been ok uncovered, but this is the1st cold snap so it’s probably good I covered them.
So, it looks like Trumplethinskin has filed a thing barring all protests in DC for weeks before & during the Inauguration. Real secure in that “mandate” thing, right?
Listening to a Snow Patrol Christmas song.
I noticed that the ban includes the Women’s March on Washington scheduled for the day after the inauguration at the Lincoln Memorial.
apparently there is a “dump Star Wars” thing going on, Joy Reid had a funny take on it:
https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/807103276961374208
12 maybe heading for 35 but sunny again. Got 7.6 KWHs yesterday, most for the month so far bringing the daily average back up to 4 (still not enough, but definitely better). Hope to get about the same again today.
The white-male-support-Bernie-to-hide-Hillary-hate group at GOS is seriously showing their white male privilege. They cannot get it into their privileged heads that the results of this election is triggering PTSD events from everybody – the range is from the “milder” groped by grandpa when a kid to the most extreme beaten, raped, and left for dead – and no, we won’t “get over it”. We’ll work it through. We’ll get back on our feet and start trying to make things better. But we won’t get over it. Meanwhile so many people need Healing Energy I can’t focus on any single person so am visualizing an aura of Healing Energy around the entire planet. Have to keep pushing myself out of the way so I can channel it. Thank Goddess for Pacelbel:
End of semester faculty meeting this morning. Need to try and get some work done while soloing the front desk. Heck, need to finish reading my emails to see what I need to do while soloing the front desk. Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Thanks bfitz……lovely peaceful music is most welcome this morning.
You are very welcome. That’s my go-to for calming when I start to freak out over things I cannot do anything about. When my breathing starts getting short and heading for panting/panic, I know it’s time to play this.
Hope Jan has a minute to resize it though. I’ve never figured out how. Actually, I just entered what I thought was the link to it. heh
If you just put in the link, it sizes to 560 wide which. If you want to control the size, you click Share and then look for the Embed link. If you copy that in, you can see the width and change it to the more compact “420” which is what I used in comments.
Or you can wait until Jan comes back online!! :)
I think the latter is the safer course. :) – and thanks.
Good morning, 32 and snowing in Bellingham. I’m enjoying the wintery scene outside my window, but am relieved to read rain and warmer temps are forecast for later today. The hill we live on is difficult to navigate when the snow freezes so I’ll stay cozy this morning and hope that doesn’t happen.
Yesterday’s dental appointment was no fun…..deep cleaning left my gums throbbing and the infection pocket they found means I go back next week for a root canal and a crown. Yuck!
But while I was out and about Ron decorated the tree, leaving just a few ornaments for me to put in place. It was nice to come home and seen that task done!
Chris Vance, at Crosscut……..
Reality check: Our democracy isn’t “rigged”
I’m still struggling with election angst and acceptance, hoping our democracy will survive.
Good morning, meese! Saturday …
It is 16 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 18. Sunny skies this morning giving way to flurries and then a winter storm could dump up to a foot of snow overnight into Sunday. I am thinking of getting my Solstice tree today – let’s see if I can banish my laziness.
This election is like a Grisham thriller:
“President with strong sense of duty towards our institutions and our country – and a concern about the look of partisan interference – won’t intervene when an FBI director goes rogue or when his CIA tells him that a foreign power is tilting the election to one candidate. The country’s worst nightmare is elected, progress on healthcare, the environment, working people’s wages, civil rights, justice will be halted and turned back, the New Deal and Great Society social safety nets, shredded – and dangerous men who owe allegiance to the foreign power – will have control of the world’s most powerful military. He instructs his intelligence agencies to investigate the foreign interference in the election”.
So how does that story end? You can’t overturn the results of an election and the fail-safe, the electoral college’s electors, will never believe anything bad said about their candidate because he has effectively demagogued away the truth. Stay tuned!
In other news, Social Security is now on the chopping block and not just future retirees (who can try to figure out a way to live to collect at age 69) but current retirees. Will it be a third rail again or are there enough Republicans immune to constituent concerns this time around? Stay tuned.
See all y’all later!
Good morning Meese.
Today is #HumanRightsDay
Human Rights Day
It is a good reminder that decent people can come together to respect human rights. We need to hang onto that spark of goodness and hope that it won’t be overwhelmed by the awfulness on the horizon.
Good morning! Sunny and 27 F. here in NoVa, 37 F. later today.
Got a few things done yesterday but not the most important ones. I need another photo for my Christmas newsletter. Nothing much on the agenda today except tea at Oatlands with Miss Pink Cheeks and her cousin, Mr. B. We like to take the kids out for afternoon tea a couple of times a year in view of their English and Irish backgrounds.
Wish I could get motivated to do more…perhaps tomorrow?
Hope everyone will have a good day!
I hope you can find your writing muse.
I am struggling with writing even though it can sometimes be healing. I have not completely assessed the injuries yet so it makes it difficult to focus on what needs to heal! I at least have gotten to the point where I can conceive ideas for posts – just can’t muster up the energy to do the research that needs to accompany them.
Jan, is our malaise owing to a disturbance in the force, as you sometimes say? (Love that expression, BTW.)
Is it because we worked hard to elect our candidate, but in the end it didn’t matter, so therefore nothing matters?
I’m trying to talk myself into mapping out a novella and a novel. I keep telling myself it will be fun to write these things, and nothing will take my mind off The Awfulness better than creating my own fictional worlds. To that end I’m rereading Eloise J. McGraw’s Techniques of Fiction Writing, still the best book I’ve ever read on the subject.
Hope you and I both get our mojo back…
I think that even if you were to sit in front of your computer and start in on a fictional piece, your mind would inevitably wander. The Vulgar Talking Yam being out there is a major distraction and there is no avoiding it – for me not even in sleep, my dreams have not moved past election night.
We did put a lot of energy into this election; heck, it lasted 15 months. You don’t just walk away and say “oh, well”. Even if it had been someone less awful (I am not sure who that would be, all Republicans seem pretty awful right now), I am not sure we could. Right now the likelihood that the election results were intentionally tilted by the actions, and inactions, of Comey have no power to provide comfort: “well, we won the popular vote” “well, Comey really screwed the pooch” “well, the captive press really fell for the Russian’s gambit” “well, cable news blew it by covering tRump like he was a reality TV star instead of freaking reality”. None of that helps. I literally don’t know what will make it feel better. Maybe nothing. Maybe it will be like the loss of a loved one, something you learn to live with but never get over. I am not even at the “learning to live with”, yet.
I know exactly what you mean, Jan.
Me, too. It’s one of the reasons I’m spending so much of my time on the community fundraisers.
Was up all night with sinus trouble. Slept fitfully, going to have to stock back up on Kleenex. Watching AMJoy — if you don’t have cable, get it at MSNBC’s website because she has great people on about this Russia thing.
anotherdemocrat, have you ever tried using a Neti pot? I use mine every morning. I couldn’t breathe without it. It might help your sinuses.
this is water faucet nose – just so runny, and even being woken up sneezing
I’ve never tried a neti pot… will think about it
Good morning, 34 and mostly cloudy in Bellingham. The snow is lingering, but has melted on the roads so driving will be safer today. Our son has a 4 wheel drive truck so we were relatively safe doing yesterday’s errands but cars were sliding around us so we came home early.
We decided to stop working in my sewing room for now and do the closet repair after Christmas so the room is clean, free of tools and put back together again. If I can find the energy we’ll install the new curtains today and decorate my sentimental tree featuring all the kids old stuffed animals and the ornaments they made in school. I’m glad to have the room back and feeling cozy again.
I woke up early worrying about the Russian involvement in our election and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it, so election angst continues to eat away on my peace of mind. I can’t just accept this mess and I can’t change it. How this will all end is beyond me……
https://storify.com/DemFromCT/john-schindler-with-a-look-at-donald-trump-s-war-w
Princesspat, hope you can enjoy the season by focusing on your own delightful patch of the country and put off thinking about The Awfulness until after Christmas. Speaking for myself, I don’t want anything to ruin this, our last “normal” Christmas for years.
THIS!! “I can’t just accept this mess and I can’t change it.” It is like the helpless feeling when you have a sick child and nothing will make her feel better.
Fascinating tweet storm. The intelligence community did try to warn people but, like all the stories that did not include “private email server”, they got buried on page A21. Anyone with real knowledge has exactly one week to convince 38 electors to change their votes and keep Trump and his team out of the White House and away from the levers of power.
I want to be informed so I keep reading, but the more I learn the more helpless I feel. Reading Harry Reid’s October letter has more meaning now, and yes, he was right. I wish President Obama were more free to act on this without fear of what Russian and the R’s response will do to our democracy.
President Obama believes in our institutions and their capacity to endure even in the most difficult of times. But maybe you can’t count on institutions designed in the 18th century to turn back cyber attacks that tap into still evolving communication methods. He will probably always second guess himself – I suspect that he had faith that the people he cajoled to vote would come out and vote – and that the intra-party attacks on our candidate that went on a little too long, in my opinion, would not suppress enthusiasm.
Now, here we are.
Scott Lemoix thinks President Obama was stuck and made the only decision he thought he could.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/12/thoughts-on-the-potential-russian-involvement-in-an-ultimately-illegitimate-election
That’s exactly the feeling. Like having a sick child you can’t help feel better.
I have know idea how to do what we need to do, but we need to break up that RW consortium (6 corporations) that own 90% of the media and influence most of the rest. (I’m looking at you, NPR.) Until then complaining about the media is targeting the servants while the masters sit back and laugh. They are doing what they’re paid to do. They are the propaganda arm of those RW corporations just as the R party is the political arm. Molly Ivins was warning about it over 20 years ago. (Her solution was public funding of elections so our reps would pass laws to break up the “media monopoly” – I always disagreed. Whether or not we ever get public financing of elections, it won’t happen until after that “media monopoly” is smashed.) As I said, I don’t know how to do it, but it’s Job One! as far as us ever getting any kind of long-term progress achieved.
Day started at 30 and sunny but it got over it. Still in the mid 30s but clouds moved in. Sigh. Need to get the Yule tree this weekend but hoping one of my grandsons will go with me. That’s been the “tradition” for the last 13 years – but this year I’ve got to get the tree early because our gathering is going to be after the few vendors usually sell out. sigh. If I don’t hear back from my grandson by tomorrow after I’ve done my household stuff, I’ll just have to do it by myself.
The Founders would have recognized all the players in this election. They wouldn’t have recognized the equipment used, but they very well understood the power of the Press which is why they tried to keep it free. They did make it illegal to be used as the government’s propaganda arm. They did not conceive of a time that had so loosened the requirements for incorporation to enable a small consortium of corporations to take over the Press and turn it into an anti-government propaganda machine. But they would have easily recognized the results thereof.
Got to haul in wood – and try to find someone to buy more from. What I have will last until maybe mid-January, maybe, and my wood guy from last year hurt his back. Par for the course. Anyway, need to get to GOS and check on my fundraisers. Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}