Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Jan. 29th through Feb. 4th

January 28, 2017 JanF Community 390

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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57 Comments

  1. Good morning, meese! Thursday …

    It is 10 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 16. Sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Groundhog Day! I am 100% certain that I do not want to repeat any day that has a Unified Republican Government headed by a vulgar talking yam. I understand that he is fighting with Australia. :::sigh:::

    The AARP was lurking and waiting until the House Hates Grannies Committee came out with their Affordable Care Act replacement. This should strike terror in the hearts of even gerrymandered Republicans; old folks are everywhere – and they vote!

    Topher Spiro @TopherSpiro
    NEWS: AARP slams the ACA “fix” bill the House GOP is marking up tomorrow, saying it will increase the premium of a 64-year old by $2,100.

    Okay, heading off to set up the inaugural Village diary. Here is the new link you can bookmark to get you directly to the list of diaries::

    It Takes A Village

    Give me about 20 minutes. We’ll do a headcount there and see who is still not able to log in, who wants to write. I am looking forward to reading!

    New people washed ashore overnight and I will get everyone added by 6am Eastern.

    See all y’all later!

    • I still can’t log in. I’ve gotten a couple of reset passwork links, but when I click on it/them I get the error message ‘invalid link’

      • I am going to change your password and try your login from one of my test machines. You realize, I hope, that you have to log in as “kathy from pa” with the spaces. I think the log in screen can be confusing because it seems to want you to reset the password and you really don’t want to.

  2. Good morning Meese.
    22 degrees here in Saugerties – Catskill mountains of NY.

    Headed to school today – thankfully will not have to drive in snow – it will be sunny.

    Had to laugh when I saw that Beyoncé’s announcement that she is having twins has garnered far more attention and love than the Orange Imposter.

    Those dratted black people (Obama and Fredrick Douglass) make life hard for the man in a muddle.

    • The Giant Toddler has spent his entire life trying to get positive attention. He thought the presidency would guarantee it because he saw how beloved President Barack Obama is! He will spend the rest of his ugly nasty existence trying and will not gain .000000001% of the love and respect that Barack Obama has. Even the people who voted for him despise him, they just wanted a Justice Gorsucks in the stolen Garland seat on the court. I hope the Democrats filibuster.

  3. Good morning, Moosekind! It’s a pale blue day here in NoVa, 38 F. now, going up to 45 F. later. This looks like being the Winter of No Snow.

    Feel HORRIBLE that DINO Mark Warner voted to confirm Tillerson! He’d better not vote for Gorsucks. When I voted for Senator Warner twice I thought I was voting for a Democrat. He’s a Rethug in disguise. Suspected this all along.

    In despair because we are now ruled by a cabal headed by president Bannon. However, the brave people of Northern France, aided by Britain, resisted the Nazis, who were backed up by armed violence in the form of the Gestapo and SS. We at least haven’t got to that point yet, although it’s coming.

    The thing that’s bugging me right now is how to meet with Congress critters when they refuse to hold townhalls, deliberately don’t answer their phones, and never empty their overfull voicemail? Should we flood them with hundreds and thousands and millions of postcards, like that famous scene in the first Harry Potter movie? Owls practically buried the house in Privet Lane with letters for Harry from Hogwarts.

    Wishing everyone as good a day as possible.

    • I’ve been trying to call my R rep’s local office all week; either get a message that the voicemail box is full or the phone rings and rings and rings with no answer. I think a billion postcards, delivered via owls is a good solution.

  4. Despite exhaustion from yesterday’s outing, I still slept badly. Sigh. Haven’t heard back from my coach on his opinion about trying again today. So, Trump is undermining our relationship with Australia…. great. Lawrence O’Donnell was pretty great about that last night. Still listening to Salome in my head, because “U2”. The bass line on this version makes me think Adam was having fun playing it.

    Was in the 80s yesterday, today won’t even get to 60.

  5. Like so many recently trying to join, us Hillary fans need a place to freely support her, her policies and the Democratic world view with which to fight the current political climate without being attacked.

    I’d ideally like to be able to write posts as well. Thank you.

    • {{{arabian}}} – welcome, so glad to see you. And would love to see your diaries again. (How’d the job interview go?) moar {{{HUGS}}}

  6. 30 heading for 40 today and socked in by fog at the moment. But I got just over 10 KWHs yesterday so the grid for February is heartening already. Car’s at the dealership. I don’t think they did anything last Tuesday besides find the temporary shutoff and bill me $45. But they saw how serious the issue is this morning – the alarm had already reset by the time the guy went to get “numbers” so when he opened the door… Hold the Good Thought.

    Will be double-posting as long as the Village exists at DK – but my energy will be with the Moose Village – that’s where most of our Village family will be. I do have DK community needs, Kos Katalogue, and Pootie diary duties. Unless I get bojo’d of course. I doubt that will happen which makes me feel a strange. I should be as much of a target as anyone in the Village. While I don’t write the diaries, I’ve r,r,t,c every single one of them and of course my name is on the community profile page as originator. But as long as community is important to Kos, I’ll be doing community there and here.

    Need to get some work done. Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses new and old. {{{HUGS}}}

  7. Good morning fellow Mooses. It’s a sunny but cold (for Southern California) 45 degrees here in Mission Viejo. Off to The Village! Once again thank you ???? Jan F for your hospitality.

  8. Good morning, 28 and mostly sunny in Bellingham. The morning sky is a classic PNW pinky blue outside my window. Makes me want to be outdoors but the cold air and my aching joints are suggesting I stay warm and just wistfully think about it!

    Yesterday was a busy work day…..the sewing room carpet went back to be resized and I made progress reducing the smelly odor in my front loading washing machine. I use the right detergent and I’m careful about leaving the door ajar when the machine is empty but the bad smell keeps happening anyway. Four cups of bleach and a hot wash, then 4 cups of vinegar and another hot wash, then two tabs of dishwasher detergent and yet another hot wash has reduced the odor but what a hassle.

    So my long list of possibilities will keep me busy again today, and I’ll try to stay annoyed with something I can fix. The tRump mess our country is in kept me awake again last night, grrrr!

    • I actually got a decent night’s sleep, for a change. When the only thing he is doing it angering our Australian friends, it seems less calamitous (they are unlikely to go to war with us!). I am more worried about the real people hurt by his immigration policies and his planned attacks on non-Christians and LGBT. It is fun to see that President Bannon is getting a lot of pushback. At some point, tRump will get angry about him getting so much attention. That will be fun to watch!

      What a disgusting man – ugly inside and out. It is like nastiness pushes through his flesh …

      • “…like the nastiness pushes through his flesh.” Apt description! Really, I couldn’t put words to it, but that’s it.

    • When I owned a front loader, I would take a paper towel and wipe out the water from under the rubber seal all around the door. Also, I made sure to clean the filter monthly (check you instruction booklet). I also used a washing machine cleaner.

  9. Good afternoon! Don’t have a lot of time this afternoon, but wanted to stop in and say Hello. I’ve found a workaround for now with the firewall at work, so I can comment during the day, yay. :-) It was nice and sunny earlier, cloudy now, but still in the 40s, above normal for this time of year. Mother Earth is unhappy, I fear.

  11. The Rude Pundit say “give them no quarter”;

    “We know that not only are Republicans cowards, but they’re liars and hypocrites who would dance on the corpses of dead children rather than admit their ideology has failed. They’d rather learn to breathe sand than lift their heads and walk upright because they’re gonna get to kick sick people off health insurance, discriminate against LGBT Americans, and force women into back alley abortions, the trifecta of quotidian cruelty they’re begging to inflict.”

    [The Rude Pundit: Democrats Should Resist, But Everything That Happens Is on Republicans]
    http://rudepundit.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/democrats-should-resist-but-everything.html?m=1

  12. Hello! I would like to join the community here. I really look forward to participating with like minded Dems and Villagers. I might want to write posts as well. Thanks so much.

    • You will get a an email from “wordpress at motleymoose.net” with a user name and password. Then you can log in (see this FAQ: How to Log in which describes the log in process). After you log in, you can change your password using the Dashboard. Note: if you choose “Lost your password?” from the log in screen and have not logged in yet, you may encounter problems.

      I will add you as a contributor.

      Watch for the email and welcome aboard!

    • You will get a an email from “wordpress at motleymoose.net” with a user name and password. Then you can log in (see this FAQ: How to Log in which describes the log in process). After you log in, you can change your password using the Dashboard. Note: if you choose “Lost your password?” from the log in screen and have not logged in yet, you may encounter problems.

      I will add you as an Author.

      Watch for the email and welcome aboard!

    • I am pretty sure that he can’t do that without an act of Congress but it looks good to his base. He is busily trying to put a floor under his approval rating – it is now at 40% and my guess is that it will find its natural leveling at about 36%, folks who voted for him in the primaries and Republicans who hate libruls more than they love their country.

      By the way, I have no problem with repealing the Johnson Amendment if churches who then choose to engage in political activity lose their tax exemption.

      • Same here on the Johnson Amendment – but if they’re going to participate in politics, we get their taxes.

    • Good Morning, Denise and fellow Meese!

      It’s warming up in Minneapolis, 8 degrees.

  15. Good morning, motley ones! Friday …

    It is 9 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 19. Sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Another day, another embarrassment to the United States and a further damaging of the office of the president. After the George W. Bush presidency, which began with a Supreme Court appointment after an election stolen by Florida officials, I thought we could never sink so low again. Nope! There is no floor to how awful Republican presidents can be.

    My advice to everyone is this: keep reminding everyone that this is a Republican president – not an outlier but the natural result of the devolution of the Republican Party. And our biggest fear should not be “what kind of insane comment will the Orange Sh*tgibbon make?” but “what is the Republican Congress planning to do?” Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell would love for us to forget that they are poised to repeal the Affordable Care Act, defund Planned Parenthood, destroy Medicare, privatize Social Security, take food stamps and Medicaid and family assistance away from our most vulnerable citizens – and repeal Dodd-Frank. Call your representatives, send postcards, show up at their offices (they hate that!) and don’t give up. I saw something that suggests that it only takes the activism of 3.5% of a population to successfully reject an authoritarian regime. Be the 3.5%!

    Lots of site maintenance to get to this morning. Bfitz, let me know the best way to communicate with the assembled villagers. I don’t want to disturb the political conversations but I need to pass on a few things. Some folks still can’t get logged in and we need to troubleshoot that. What would be easiest for me is to post comment updates in the 2/1 diary (the one I built) – would it be okay for folks to check there? Let me know.

    See all y’all later!

    • Hello, Janf!

      Exactly, this ‘what is the Republican Congress planning to do?”

      3.5% is a very heartening number. We can do that folks!

    • Hey Jan- You got that right – The Donald is the circus to make everybody not notice the Rs are stealing even the bread – we’re a castle besieged. If everybody runs to the east gate because of the noise, the Rs are going to march right in the west gate and take everything.

      By comment update do you mean an update to the post itself, like you did to show how to do a post by cloning? If so, yes that would probably be best. And if you can update somebody else’s post, then put a note at the bottom of Philly’s “A New Beginning” so that folks going in there know to look. And thank you so very much. I know this is a lot of work for you. {{{HUGS}}}

      • I think what I am going to do is put an update in the post itself so that people can reference it going forward – kind of a Moose Village instruction manual.

        I am also going to update the FAQ on “Getting Started” and “How to Log In”. I think folks are confused about their status. Many of them keep posting comments using the guest commenting box because they are not logged in. That means that the comments get hung up in the moderation queue and that would be very frustrating!

        I will post something in whatever the latest Village post is so that people know the status and to point them back to the 2/1 post. I have some projects to do this morning but should be able to get back into site maintenance mode again in about an hour.

        We will persevere! I am sorry we can’t turn on automatic registration but it is simply awful. Plus, if one of your tormenters wants to sign up, we have no way to block them. This is more work up front but well worth it.

        • Thanks for all the extra fussing and time you’re spending, JanF. Is there something we can do that would be helpful (shovel up Moose droppings or something)?

          • Ha! No – our moose are virtual and (thankfully!) don’t leave droppings!! :)

            What I could use is someone who can shuttle between the various diaries and scoop up people who are still having problems and send them here. I have been too busy to do more than just a cursory visit to the village posts and I am afraid of missing someone.

            Right now there are problems with “kathy from pa” and “broths” that I know of. If you see anyone else who is struggling, let me know.

            The best place to “ping” me is to hang a comment off my morning check in.

            Thanks!

  16. the link you set me to create a password doesn’t seem to work right. it only shows a log-in screen. I tried typing in the long string and got an error message

  17. Love the fun people are having with Trump’s “dress like a woman” thing. But really — we have a man I wouldn’t trust to run an Orange Julius franchise in charge of the country. It’s just too sad & scary. Playing my boys’ Big Girls Are Best in my head because it is a loud, happy song & I need the ego boos after this week. (yes, I know it’s about Ali, but it applies to me, so I’m taking it) New folks – there is always music playing in my head, just always. Sometimes I pick songs, but mostly I just let it play whatever it wants.

  18. Good morning, Meese, old and new! Overcast here in NoVa this morning. Current temp. is 31 F., going up to a whopping 37 F. today.

    Wish I knew someone who speaks perfect Spanish and would translate an English sentence into Spanish for me. I hate to rely on Google Translate. I asked on Facebook but no one responded.

    I’m doing a lot of anxiety eating, which has got to STOP. Head is spinning from wondering whether I need to call my senators and say “Block DeVos,” “Block Gorsuch,” or “Save our Social and Medicare.”

    Last year I read and enjoyed Russell Blake’s series of dystopian novels about the USA after disaster. The medium of exchange was gold and ammunition. Now I feel as if I’m living in that dystopia! Each day we seem to lose another of our civil rights.

    Hoping for a good day for all at the Pond and Beyond!

    • I hear you, Diana. Last night a group of us were discussing how we were coping. Most people are not watching or listening to the news – where it is blasted at us – and picking through news feeds to read what we need to know, from sources that don’t normalize what is happening. We need to keep pointing out that this is NOT normal and to not accept it. Most of us are still having trouble eating properly and sleeping.

      You don’t need to do Block Gorsuch yet – wait until the judicial committee hearing which will be at least a month away. We do need to focus on saving the ACA and Medicare and Medicaid. I am sad about the awful cabinet being put in place but I can’t expend a lot of energy on that – my focus is on stopping Sessions. His day to day decisions, deciding not to prosecute white supremacists, for example, will literally kill. And without honest elections, also in his bailiwick, we will never get power back.

      But that is me. Everyone will have different hot button issues.

    • {{{{Diana In NoVa}}}}

      All the things you mentioned are important; just pick one and go with it. Don’t worry about if it’s the right/most important one or not. They are all important.

  19. 17 degrees here in Rochester, NY.
    I was stressing out about Trump, but then looked out the window to see two “teenage” bucks locking antlers–at one point it looked like they were stuck! Seemed to end amicably.
    If I weren’t surrounded by nature, I would probably be a basket case by now. I fear for the mental health of everyone in the country under this T—p regime.

  20. From Arkansas on this morning’s Twitter:

    Sam Eifling @SamEifling

    My 80-percent-white hometown in Arkansas is flying a Black Lives Matter banner downtown. Your move, literally everywhere else.

    • AwRIGHT! “Old” Fayetteville (from the university area east about a mile and about a mile north and south of that line) is the blue spot in the bloody red state. But yeah, proud of the town I’ve lived in for 20+ years.

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