Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Apr. 16th through Apr. 22nd

April 15, 2017 JanF Community 132

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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58 Comments

  1. When I woke up it was 36 degrees with an expected high of 63, but more to the point, there’s sunshine! Since there’s [more] rain predicted over the next few days, I’m reveling in having more than glimpses of the sun. They hyacinths I have on either side of our side door are in full bloom and full aroma; it’s heavenly. I planted them years ago and always forget about them until they start appearing again in the spring…it’s definitely one of the best “welcome home” planting decisions I ever made.

    May I use this space to burble a bit? I”m so excited for my daughter, who received word yesterday that she got the job she applied for and viewed as a long-shot at best. It’s a 20% pay cut from her current job, and because she’s not fully-vested in her 401k, she’ll lose some of her current employers’ contribution. But she’s over the moon anyway. It’s listed as an “administrative assistant” position and is at the library of the college from which she graduated in 2010 (she hasn’t yet given notice at her current job while she waits for her background check to be finalized, hence my vagueness…but if you’re beset with curiosity, it’s the same college that claims Bill in Portland Maine as an alum and where Candidate Romney told students they should just ask their parents for money to start up their own businesses). It’s not really a traditional admin asst position, since she will be coordinating and organizing the Friends of the Library activities; training and supervising student assistants; and assisting with grant writing. I can’t think of a better place for my daughter to be than a library, and a collegiate library is pretty much her idea of heaven on earth. I’m busting with joy for her and while she can’t yet make the announcement, I needed to share the news somewhere!

    • {{{DoReMI}}} – HURRAH!!! Wonderful news for your daughter! (And this is exactly the right place to bring it.) moar {{{HUGS}}} and all the best to your daughter.

      • Thanks, bfitz! She’s well aware how blessed she is to be able to take this job, despite the pay cut. She had to do some number-crunching in advance, particularly since she still has outstanding payments to make on her October wedding. But she’s a disciplined budget-er and saver, so it’s all doable.

        I’m just so happy that she can be in an academic environment again. She was crushed when she had to withdraw from her Ph.D program due to her health, and her neurologist at the time told her that it was unlikely she’d ever be able to go back without risking not just her health, but her life. But this will be the best of both worlds; she’ll be able to take courses (tuition-free) if she desires, without being subject to the (for her) crushing demands of a degree program. When she withdrew from grad school, I pushed her to move back to OH rather than staying with us in MI, because I felt she’d still have some independence that way (even though I drove to OH every weekend for months on end to help her out). She slowly, but surely, established a new life for herself, but I know walking away from the “life of the mind” has continued to bother her. Now it’s as if the Universe decided their was a compromise to be found and made it available to her! Having witnessed the absolute crushing of her spirit brought on by her health issues, you can well imagine how much unbridled joy this brings me.

        • {{{DoReMI}}} – even happier for you and your daughter. And sometimes a cottage is more comfortable than a mansion. ;)

    • Congrats to your daughter from someone who has worked in libraries since 1975.

    • as a library worker — we like everyone who works in the library, from us front line people to our Public Awareness person to the grant people. We’re all library people; we all talk about books, we’re all family. So good for her!

    • That is WONDERFUL, DoReMI! So happy for you and your daughter!

      A library would be a dream place to work. Sorry about the pay cut, but careful attention to budgeting should help to solve that. It’s better to work in a place where you can fulfill your dream than to work in a better-paid position where you hate every day you’re there.

  2. Started the day in the low 50s heading for 80 and sunny so far. Already generating at 1 KWH which bodes well for today’s production. We reached 247 KWHs for the month last night and a good day can push that up to 265 or more. According to my data site, my system has kept something like 8.5 tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere in the 3 years since it went online end of April 2014. Since the first year was the 2.5K system, I’d say that’s not bad – the 4K system is probably averaging 3 tons a year.

    During the Obama years I didn’t worry about the news. It might be concerning but things would be OK. If President Obama needed us to do something, I’d get an email alert and I’d do my best. Now I don’t pay attention to the news because whatever isn’t “but Hillary told you that last year” will be scary but I can’t do anything about it so instead I concentrate on the community needs lists and the Resistance stuff in the Villages.

    Soloing today while the other staff person is at a seminar for staff people (building more cred for promoting her to my position when I leave). Need to get to it – we’re at the point in priority registration where all the required and most of the elective upper division classes are full and panic-stricken Juniors and will-be Juniors need manual overrides into anything we have enough room to override them into. Since I am soloing and can play music without the earphones (hurt my ears) may put on some Beethoven for energy :) Will check in at the Villages first of course. Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  3. It’s a lovely 83 degrees under a clear sunny sky here in Costa Mesa, CA.

    • {{{anotherdemocrat}}} – WooHoo! is right. And a “you go, girl!” as well. :)

  5. Good morning Meese

    Am glad to see what happened in GA – even though the Demmie Downers will whine – why didn’t he win..yadda yadda.
    Have writing to do – will pop back in later.

  6. Good Wednesday morning, Meese! We’ve awakened to blissful gray skies and showers. The streets are starting to dry a bit, though. I’m always deeply thankful for the days that I don’t have to water any plants.

    Feeling very pleased by the news from Georgia’s 6th, although the MSM are downplaying it as usual, framing it as a Democratic “loss.” I have ZERO respect for the MSM.

    Tired after my child-minding jobs. There’s not much physical work required; it’s the stress of being responsible for someone else’s kids that’s so tiring. We went to an “event” brunch yesterday morning and met some very nice people. It would only cost $90,000 a year to move into their retirement apartments. According to my calculations, if we sold our house to move there we’d have to commit suicide after four years as we’d have zero money by then.

    In the meantime we have another appointment at Gatsby Woods this afternoon. I keep wishing we could move there a year from now, when the new apartments are completed. After seeing what’s happened to my friends at the sister community in Springfield, Virginia, I’m really worried about the future. Despite the severe stress my friend is going through concerning her companion, at least she knows the companion is being looked after right there on campus. My friend S. does not drive, but because it’s a “continuing care” community, she can walk to see our friend P.

    P. does not know where she is and there are days that she does not recognize S. It seems likely she will move into what is delicately termed “memory care,” which is also on the campus, and to which S. can either walk or take the shuttle.

    Sorry to inflict these musings on the rest of you, but it’s very much on my mind these days! In other good news, a Democratic won big time in Prince William County, home to the obnoxious, Trump-mimicking Corey Stewart. Stewart was the one that shooed all the “undocumented” Latinos out of “his” county, but surprise, surprise—the documented also left, greatly to the detriment of the local shops. Prejudice doesn’t pay; bigotry is bad for business.

    Wishing all a good day at the Pond!

    • Do not move into the place that requires this: “we’d have to commit suicide after four years as we’d have zero money by then”!!!!

      It is a challenge to figure out where to live when you have the same fixed income but where expenses keep going up and circumstances change. I am 100% sure I do not want to own a house – I don’t want to be that little old lady shoveling snow or mowing a lawn. My challenge is that I don’t know what the future will bring. My daughter is only 17 but it is possible that she will eventually have a family – will they want a place for grandmotherly gatherings? Do I even want to do grandmotherly gatherings? I know that you and princesspat enjoy family visiting and being able to host is important. I personally will be happy to have a small place for me and a computer that is near things I can walk to.

      I hope you figure it all out before you need to make a move.

      • Thanks, Jan! Considering that we’re both still tired from preparing for and hosting the family gathering last week, that’s going to be less and less of a factor. Work on Elder Son’s kitchen and half-bath addition begins this week, so he will probably have enough room to host Thanksgiving. It’s an awful lot of work for us and I think it’s about time the younger generation started doing some of it, even if it’s on a potluck basis.

        Too right, we are not going to move into the golf-oriented $90,000 a year place. I’d like to live long enough to see Miss Pink Cheeks graduate from college, and she’s only eight now. :)

        • I was just reading yesterday that the average person retires with $12,000 in savings. Yikes!! That means that there are a lot of people on that bell curve who have exactly zero in savings. I don’t have much because I only drew a paycheck and benefits from corporate America for about 10 years before I struck off on my own. It is difficult to save when you are running a business that has revenue ebbs and flows. Most of my “wealth” is in my house which I should be able to sell for a profit (not true of my last house).

          I think my mother enjoyed hosting all the family gatherings over the years; she has been content for some time to have sons and daughters and their spouses host them now. But she has a lot of kids to take turns – my baby only has me! Maybe she will find a spouse or partner with a big family. We will only have a conflict if they also celebrate the pagan holidays. :)

          • Jan, being able to walk to places from where you live is highly important. There comes a day when one can’t or won’t drive any more. This happened to my mother when she was 80, after a bad accident with her car. (I told her not to put the name of THAT Goddess on her license plate, but she persisted.) Mother was laid up for three months out there in the suburbs.

            The one good thing she had going for her was that my sister and brother-in-law lived with her. They did the errands, shopping, and housework. I was still employed at the time so I wasn’t able to help out much.

            So, a smaller place to keep clean, a walkable neighborhood (provides fresh air and exercise, saves on gasoline), and near a university. Universities, as you already know, often have amenities that are available to non-students.

          • Thanks for sharing your thoughts Diana and Jan…..I keep wishing I had a road map for getting older, but apparently we need to figure it out as we go. Keeping the family home and hosting family celebrations is a big part of my life, but it’s getting increasingly harder to do. But change is hard too! Some days I’m at peace with my decisions and other days I wish we lived in a small level home and the garden was just a few pots on a deck! And the coffee pot wasn’t downstairs….where it is now :)

  7. So, good news & the usual Trump idiocy last night. Georgia 6 is a runoff, which was to be expected with so many candidates. The R candidate is just vile. When the Orange Shitgibbon said he was “sending an armada”……. yeah, not so much.

    This isn’t the song that my brain was playing, but A Sort of Homecoming is so pretty, lovely sweet intro.

  8. 60 at dawn heading for 80 on this bright, sunny day. Got 20 KWHs yesterday (month to date is 268) and hope to do the same today as rain is projected to move in tomorrow – or at least clouds – and through Saturday. And we certainly could use something to wash all the pollen off stuff.

    Would have been nice for a clean win in GA last night – but I’m hopeful for a rather depressing reason – Jon Ossoff is a very personable looking white male. If we’d been running a woman or person of color, our best and probably only chance would have been while the Rs had such a big field to split their vote. We still have a decent chance of pulling this one off as long as we GOTV. Wonderful to get the win in Prince William County, VA – the County Clerk deals with all early voting, is the county liaison with the Election Commission for all elections, and the county liaison with the state Secretary of State for things like issuing Marriage licenses. That slot is much more important than most folks think.

    Need to check in with the Villages then get to work. Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  9. Good morning, 52 and cloudy in Bellingham. I slept late and now I’ve got to hurry to get to the pool on time. The old pool was close to home and it was bigger so I could be more casual about being on time. I can’t stay in a corner out of the way of the next class now as space is tight so I need to be on time. Doing this 3 x’s a week is a hassle at times but I have to keep the muscles holding my creaky knees in place strong and warm water exercise is the best way for me to do that. So, ready or not, it’s time to find my suit and go.

  10. Good morning, Meeses! A grey, rainy day, but it’s supposed to get into the 70s, so it feels like an actual Spring day instead of like March is trying to assert control over April. Thank you to everyone for sharing in my daughter’s happiness (and mine) about her new job. She is soooo excited; I received multiple texts from her last night, which had me laughing at her enthusiasm. She currently is the only female in her office, and it finally hit her last night that she will have women co-workers. She also did some searching for soon-to-be-co-worker Twitter accounts, which is when I got another text in all caps saying, “Mum, they’re liberals!!!” (Her current office is filled with T****p voters; she was literally the only person who voted for Hillary at her workplace.) It will be several more weeks before she starts at the library, but she’s already confident that the environment will be a huge improvement over what she has now. And that’s a good thing.

    • Yeah, all the library people I know are liberals. There’s one angry, bitter Faux News fan her – but did I mention “angry, bitter”?? Everyone else here wears pink on days Planned Parenthood has a bill up in the lege so we can run over at lunch & keep an eye on it.

  11. Good afternoon, meeses! Wednesday …

    It is 55 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 59. It says rain is moving in.

    I got stuck on a project that needed my undivided attention and could not even check in. The news out of Georgia was what I expected – a runoff. It is too bad because the Republicans got their perfectly vile candidate and will be perfectly happy dumping untold dark money into that race to insure she wins. The next step is June 20th which is way too far away! How can anyone keep the intensity up for that long?

    We won’t have Jason Chaffetz to kick around any longer! I wonder if he saw the writing on the wall and does not want to be in the minority in the next Congress – payback would suck. Maybe he will decide to do his job and conduct Trump oversight before he departs at the end of 2018 now that he has nothing to lose. HAHAHAHAHA! I made myself laugh out loud.

    See all y’all later!

  12. It’s Thursday – 47 here in the Catskills going up to 65.

    Am tired – didn’t sleep well. Woke up several times and made the mistake of going onto twitter – which just pissed me off – and made sleep impossible.

    Almost feel like staying home – and going back to bed – but will drag my ass to school.
    I need moar coffee.

    • You know, it is one thing to think “Wow, the world is going to hell – people will flock to my ideology and lift me to power!” but it is another thing to brag that the dystopia you helped bring on is a freaking “silver lining”.

      And then to have Tom Perez elevate Sandersism to a place of prominence in the party such that I don’t even recognize the Democratic Party that I have supported for the past 8 years? What the HELL is he thinking, Dee?

  13. Good morning, meese! Thursday …

    It is 43 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 52. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    Today in Freaking Silver Linings™

    Cincinnati: “Maribel Trujillo Diaz, a mother of four who’d been living in Fairfield, has been deported back to Mexico”
    Kids: “I won’t be nagged to clean my room … yippee!”

    See all y’all later!

    • The whole “silver lining” of living under Trump and Company crap has me livid.

      • Atta Girl, Aphra Behn! But jsfv is the Messiah to the Extreme Left. The same racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, isolationist, Puritanical, authoritarians spouting “Revolution” in the 1960s love them some Bernie because he’s been spouting that same crap since the 1960s. Even as a teenager I didn’t buy it then and I damn-sure don’t buy it now – and I had a lot less to do with the real revolutions in the 1960s and 1970s than you did. {{{Denise}}}

        • Yes – The Cheeto Revolutionaries have been around for quite a while – Bernie gives them a platform on which to whine and emote. Few do anything except attend rallies and get online to posture and rant.

          • Tiresome of them. They make a lot of noise but don’t do anything helpful.

  14. Good morning, Meese! We’re having a little shower here in NoVa at the moment. Our current temp. is 55 F., going up to 78 F. later today.

    Still feeling so tired that I don’t quite know what to do with myself. Perhaps I’ll spend some time thinking about how this latest asteroid missed Earth by a quarter-mile. Feel as if I have more control over that than I do over what’s happening in our country.

    Going to change my plans for the rest of the week so I can stay home as much as possible. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and Beyond!

    • {{{Diana}}} – get some rest and take care of yourself. You have control over that.

    • {{{Denise}}} – Thanks for the headsup – I’ll add that to my special election list. there are 3 Dems running in the primary and I normally don’t do Dem v. Dem in the Village lists but I’ll put in a parenthetical that you like Alexis Frank with the link to her site.

  16. Warm, but not hot — highs in the 80s for the next couple of days. There’s a cold front over the weekend, lows down to the 50s (brrrr!). Up to $1,075 raised for the Ride — which doesn’t get me anywhere near the leaderboard. Which is actually good, in a jealous-making kind of way. Even the lowest person on the leaderboard has raised twice as much as me. So, yay! I am, however at the top of the social media board — so if you see any of my tweets of facebook posts, please share them, that will help me stay at the top of that.

    Some humor — if you’re watching this nuclear war hasn’t killed us yet (love Steven Colbert). And for music, I have to go with the Coldplay song again (because “you make me feel like I’m alive again” — necessary after the Colbert joke)

  17. A brisk 45 right now with an expected high of 63. We have severe thunderstorms in the forecast; one of my clients works for the electric company here, and she just told me that she was sent home early from work because they expect they will need her on a 12-hour (or more) shift later today. Her job is to dispatch crews when the power goes out, so it looks like they’re preparing for the worst.

    The only silver lining I’m seeing to Bernard’s silver lining is that my less politically-aware/involved friends are starting to see why I hold him in such contempt. I haven’t dug into the Harvard-Harris survey which finds him to be the “most popular politician”, but he’s certainly doing his best to undermine that all on his own…which, of course, is the Bernie way.

    • {{{DoReMI}}} – I’d love to know the sample size and composition and also the survey methods used to get that “most popular politician” – and really the question itself. When you consider that Hillary has been the “most admired” for over 20 years and is a politician…

      • http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/04/bernie-sanders-most-popular-politician-country-poll-says

        The link I provided has an internal link to the poll (it’s easier than using the link at the Harvard-Harris site). I think a lot of what it reflects is that Hillary is a team player, who didn’t engage in Dem-on-“Dem” disparagement during the primaries. There still hasn’t been widespread vetting of him, and at this point, it’s not likely to happen. Even if it did, he now has such a strong cadre of True Believers that our voices would be drowned (or bullied) out. I’m not sure what the solution is, except to keep voicing objections to current actions.

    • The Harvard-Harris survey is run by none other than Mark Freaking Penn. These awful old pols keep coming back like used toilet paper in a plugged toilet.

  18. 63 at dawn heading for 75 and overcast. The rain is supposed to start moving in this afternoon with the serious chances running from midnight tonight to midnight tomorrow night. Of course the clouds started moving in yesterday afternoon – got 16 KWHs instead of the 20 I was hoping for (month to date is 285 including the 1 KWH we’ve generated this morning) – and I doubt I’ll get another solid day of generation until Sunday.

    Unfortunately and all historical evidence to the contrary totally discounted, the Extreme Left (jsfv the current mouthpiece) believes that if things get really, really, really bad “the people” will rise up and overthrow the system in place and put them in power instead. It has never happened. Yes, people have risen up and overthrown the system in place at the time. No, the Extreme Left has never reaped any gain from it. When the “Revolution” is over, there’s always a 3rd Extreme Right group waiting in the wings for the “establishment’s” military back to be broken who steps in and takes over when it is. That is the danger of listening to jsfv. We Dems must remain “stronger together” to be able to win a peaceful revolution at the ballot box and get our country heading back towards the “Freedom and Justice for All” goals America stands for (as imperfectly as she’s always been in actuality on those). independents and 3rd-party people may or may not have good points from time to time – but destroying the party by ignoring the base, worse setting different parts of the base against each other, isn’t one of them.

    Bunch of different stuff going on at work. Taking a coffee break to check in. Will visit the Villages then get back to it. Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  19. Good morning, 49 and cloudy in Bellingham. I was in and out of sleep last night so today’s list feels overwhelming. But I’ve procrastinated all week so I’ve got to tend to biz regardless.

    I enjoyed listening to Elizabeth Warren on Rachel’s show last night. Her energy and commitment is a needed tonic to the tRump flue plaguing me!

    Elizabeth Warren Lays Out the Reasons Democrats Should Keep Fighting

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

  20. Morning, Meese!

    Forecast today: High of 61 (Now with added sunshine!)

    A bazillion thoughts about current events are clamoring for my comment, and I don’t know where to start – so my choice of action will be, just don’t. Instead, I’ll wish you all a good spring-like Friday and leave it at that.

    {{{{Meeses}}}}

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