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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– Page One of Comments are HERE!
– Page Two of Comments are HERE!
Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …
Morning low of 12 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 23. Partly cloudy skies are in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
There you go.
Glad to hear she will remain on the air. CNN may lurch to the left due to all the Trump attacks. We shall see.
I’m so upset with MSNBC for screwing this up. I hope the hosts I watch come up with another “mature” progressive woman to have on frequently.
Christmas Eve and it is 35 degrees here in the Catskills.
This morning at DKos I’ll be talking about Moko Jumbies – the amazing stilt walkers of the Caribbean – celebrations in the USVI and the Caribbean diaspora.
The hurricanes and Donald Trump won’t stop the spirit of the people.
The Festival
I saw that the governor of Puerto Rico regretted his sucking up to the Orange Orshole by complimenting the federal response and paper towel throwing. He was shafted by FEMA and then finally killed off by the tax scam. When will people realize that they are dealing with a sociopath and act accordingly? The mayor of San Juan had it right – tell the truth, deal with the incoming tweets and encourage decent people to take up your cause. You are better off with Trump as an enemy because he has no loyalty to his “friends” – plus, you will be in good company.
Yup. Not a Rossello fan – however he is used to being in the “hat in hand beg at the Big House” position.
Post up
{{{Denise}}} – I can finally say “retweeted” :) – Good for the “folks” – don’t give the bastids the satisfaction of stopping the celebrations. Whatever deity, whatever holy day, however you celebrate it – rejoice in the returning of the Light by whatever name.
Found on the Internets …
Austin is cold but clear. It might freeze tomorrow, I’ll have to pay attention and bring in the basil if it does. Getting ready for church, no AMJoy today. Got tea steeping, yesterday I went to the grocery store & got some good food. Maybe this afternoon I’ll tackle the shoe shelf situation. Christmas music: Linus & Lucy
Good morning, Moosekind! It’s gray today after a truly spectacular gold-washed sunrise. Current temp. in NoVa is 40 F., going up to 44 F. later. We have a TON of things to do!
Dearly Beloved and I took Miss Pink Cheeks and her brother Mr. Preschooler out to breakfast so Santa Claus could secretly wrap presents in the house where they live. (Santa Claus has four hands, BTW.) Anyway, at Virginia Kitchen we had gingerbread pancakes with blackberry jam all round, and then went to Trader Joe’s to visit the Treasure Chest. The kids retrieved one “wollypop” each from it.
I’m not wrapping much this year, mainly plopping the gifts into bags and then covering them with tissue. I’ve still pumpkin bread, hard sauce, and mince pies to bake, so I’d better get on it.
Wishing all a good day!
for some odd reason the temps rose overnight from the at-dark 29 to the 2 am 34 before they started down again – a true blessing though as the ice is now off my solar panels. Overcast so not generating much but already have more than the slightly under 1/2 a KWH I got yesterday (due to snow on the panels) and almost to the .69 KWH I got Friday (due to heavy clouds and rain). Not sure what the month will end up with. The current m-t-d is 127.6 but we’ve still got over a full week left.
Checked twitter & saw tweet celebrating what DK has done this year. I “liked” it mostly since it was Denise’ tweet- and then cried. I was a part of that. Until they exiled me.
Got my housework done – except for the rest of the laundry, of course . It’s not dry yet. Made cranberry pecan muffins with some family celebration leftovers. Except for the days of (Thanksgiving, family decorate the tree celebration, last day at work, and tomorrow) I’ve been eating and I’ll be eating soups made of celebratory leftovers probably until Imbolc. LOL. I need to start either eating a larger muffin each day (make 12 muffins of the batch instead of 16) or work on “down-sizing” my muffin recipe. I’d been bringing enough muffins to work for both my co-worker and me at coffee break. :)
Need to tend the fire the clothes are in front of – but Cloud is also in front of it and I didn’t want to disturb his sleep. He’s a pretty gormless kitteh but he’s smart enough to move when I open the woodstove door. Then I’ll go read Denise’s dark and see what else is in my DK stream, check back at Twitter for what my friends have tweeted out so I can like, comment, or RT as the situation indicates (at least the top 2 or 3 screenloads – heh). Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Oh, bfitz, I’m sorry you cried. We’ll never understand what happened, but I can tell you I’m staying away from that place much more now. You were so loved and appreciated on that site and your “family” love and appreciate you still.
Haven’t been on Squirrel all week but it’s before Christmas, so simply don’t have time!
{{{Diana}}} – the diary talked about how the folks at DK started working on the Special Elections before anybody else gave them a thought much less a chance. And I was part of that – I posted the campaign websites of every Dem candidate I could find for every special election I could find – did a couple of diaries where I posted the list and links to the websites of every Dem running in the VA House of Delegates race and the NJ legislature race as well. It also talked about community, supporting each other, helping those in need, comforting those in pain. You know how much of that I was doing. Everything that diary talked about I was doing – I was putting something like 40 hours a week of my spare time into doing. Until 11:30 am CST on 11/6/17. Ironically it happened while I was in a diary written by the person who wrote this one.
I figured you were busy when I didn’t see you over there. I’m general over at Squirrel most evenings now. Visiting, posting music clips – last night I asked for help on posting my first “from me not replying to somebody else” tweet. LOL. Moose in the morning and Squirrel at night. double LOL. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Sweetie, I’ll see you here and on Squirrel after this day is over. :)
you are so deeply missed at DK: Missing Bfitz: Filling the Silence
{{{anotherdemocrat}}} – and I miss them so much – the ones I can’t reach, because they’re not on Moose or Squirrel. Mostly I can keep a lid on it – check in a couple of times a day, send an email or two when I think it will do some good, accept it when there’s nothing I can do. It was just seeing that diary celebrating DK for the stuff I used to do and they’ve banned me from doing. This will pass, too. And I will visit, re-visit the supportive diaries to remind myself that I have friends even though I am in exile. Thank you for the link. moar {{{HUGS}}}
What a great story!
Wonderful!
Feel like doing a Bubbanomics here:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Sitting here listening to lovely harmony from Mark Weems and Julee Glaub as the snow falls
Time for me to put the turkey in the oven
Merry Christmas!
The snow is falling still so we have a rare white Christmas here in Saugerties – it’s 31 degrees.
I’m a jazz fan – so found a way to have uninterrupted musical jazz Christmas – thanks to you tube
Had no idea they could do this – 10 hours of music!
Have a good day y’all
10 hours, amazing! Thank you for the gift – I love jazz. And I especially love Christmas music without the lyrics. Some of the songs are beautiful but I can do without the religiousity. One time I went to a Unitarian church’s advertised Winter Solstice celebration. The music was beautiful the ceremony itself was very pagan, lots of lights and children singing – then the minister gave a homily on Jesus being born to save the world. JHC (literally)! They have 364 days to celebrate their religion, they can’t carve out one day to only celebrate the return of the light? I was disappointed, to say the least.
We got an unexpected 2 inches of snow yesterday so we will have a white Christmas Day as well.
Just realized it has a few “commercials” but can skip – I’m busy running back and forth to the kitchen and like having the music on
Good morning, meeses! Monday …
It is 12 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 10 but it will feel like -11. Tonight it will be 13 below with 35 below wind chills.
Today, I will take a pass on the news and take advantage of the extra day of peace and quiet (with no client emails and phone calls) and will catch up on my Inbox and work on setting up my “last week of 2017” to-do list. I have most of the work organized but I need to make one last pass at prioritization. This will be a challenging week to work, though, because my daughter will be home from school so my time will not be completely mine. Although I can pretty much count on the time from 4am to 8am to be quiet – teenagers don’t willingly get up early. :)
Merry Christmas to those who celebrate the day!
See all y’all later!
Good morning, Meese, and merry Christmas, happy Kwanzaa, blessed Winter Solstice, happy Diwali, and happy Hanukkah! There’s more than one reason for the season, as those here know.
Snatching a quick minute to say hello but must dress hastily and start doing the vegetables. The guests will be here in four hours! Yikes! And we still have to set up the tables!
I love everything about Christmas except the amount of work women have to do.
Cold but sunny here in NoVa—36 F. now, going up to 39 F. There’s a high wind warning today. It’s already blown off one of the shutters from the lower level of our house. I’m paranoid in case the electricity goes off. Dearly Beloved tried to start the generator the other day, just to see how it was doing, and it’s not turning over! He thinks new spark plugs may be needed. I’ve heated up the plum pudding and am seriously considering cooking everything early just in case the electricity does go off.
Must fly, fly, fly to carry on the good work elsewhere—later!
Have a joyous well fed day Lady D
Thank you, Sis! The only thing I forgot to do was to set out the yellow vegetable dish—carrots, rutabaga, and parsnips diced and roasted in olive oil. Last year I forgot to set out the cranberry sauce for the turkey. Think I’m getting too old for this! :)
It is cold here for us — froze in some of the suburbs. Merry Christmas, everyone! They showed this video on the morning news, Christmas in Austin:
https://youtu.be/cxyiC2Lungo
<3 this
<blockquoteclass=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”>
People are asking me if Muslims can say Merry Christmas?
Well, if you’re that worried, just remember that Muslims gave the world Algebra, so here's a "halal" way to say Merry Christmas to our Christian friends :) pic.twitter.com/zS3npku5gK
— QasimRashid, Esq. (@MuslimIQ) December 25, 2017
Devoutely hoping that everybody’s winter holy days bring them joy. No matter what they call them, with or without a deity attached, all faiths have holy days this time of year. Even those of no faith at all recognize the solstice as a day different from the rest even if they don’t “celebrate” it, they appreciate what it means – the returning of the light. So I wish you safe and warm and well-rested and well-fed – enjoy.
23 here with clouds to the west and sun to the east. I hope the clouds keep heading west – maybe go dump some snow where Aji lives (about 710 miles due west of here) since they need it. I need the sunshine. :) got 5.5 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 132.6 – over 150 is definitely possible, over 170 is a maybe (but would be nice).
Spent a chunk of yesterday restacking my wood pile which fell over Friday when a bunch of melting ice hit it. I am not very good at stacking wood but the folks I paid to stack it were apparently worse. So I guess it’s just as well I can’t afford to hire people to stack my wood any longer – takes the temptation away from me. I’ll just do what I did yesterday. Sort and stack for 15 minutes or until my fingers go numb, come inside to warm my hands, go back out to sort and stack until my fingers go numb again – repeat until the wood is stacked or I run out of room to stack it.
Need to start getting my act together before heading over to my son’s house. I’m bringing the ham so dinner can’t start without me. :) Although we probably won’t eat until 2 or even 3 because it always seems to turn out that way. We did all the presents and stuff on the 18th when my younger son and family were here so it’s just dinner and visiting. But I’m rather fond of visiting so that is a gift in itself. My sons and grandsons have busy lives and I don’t see them that often. Just the time with them is the best gift of all. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Eeek!!
Yikes…..the words, “in the eye of the beholder” take new meaning!
Good morning, 29 and cloudy in Bellingham. It’s calm and quiet upstairs this morning, but the main floor is Christmas chaos. We had fun last night with dinner and gifts and then went to bed hoping Santa and a helpful elf would arrive and clean up the mess! And yes Diana, that would be a lady elf ’cause women to indeed work too hard in December :)
Merry Christmas!
Oh, that’s beautiful, princesspat! Hope the lady elf did her thing. :)
Good morning, meese! Tuesday …
It is -6 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of +3. The current wind chill is 20 below. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
I don’t know if The Sun is a reputable London newspaper but they are reporting that May’s government is putting pressure on the Royals to not invite Barack Obama to Prince Harry’s wedding because it would be a “snub” to the Orange Orshole and would “infuriate” him. The literal piece of garbage in the Oval Office is not welcome anywhere that decent people gather. I hope Harry doesn’t yield to the pressure.
Now begins a week of avoiding 2017 retrospectives. I hate them, they are lazy and I particularly want to forget this past year, not rehash every bit of ugliness. And it gives the dishonest press a chance to add their two cents about how it was the Year of the Conservative and how successful the Republicans were because they passed one bill at the end of the year, a bill that we have been very successful in painting as a gift to lobbyists and the hoarding class and which, because of the mess it will create by being literally handwritten, we will repeal when we get back in power in 2021. I wonder how much of the modest cut that working class people will get next year will be offset by higher health insurance costs? Newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and right-wing pundits are upset that the “middle-class tax cut” is not being celebrated. Well, I think it is because people know what the real cost is – the $1.5 trillion deficit that Paul Ryan admits that he wants to pay for by killing off the elderly, the infirm, and anyone not lucky enough to be born Paul Ryan. Most people see through the lies.
I have errands to run this morning so I need to try to get a few projects arranged before I have to leave. I did not make the progress I had hoped to make because I found my couch more inviting than my work desk. :)
See all y’all later!
Jan, work or no work, glad you were able to get some rest.
Good morning, Moosekind! It’s OVER, thank goodness. All the stress of “Will we be able to get everything done,” the cleaning, the cooking, and so forth.
Our dinner did go off quite well, although with four desserts—daughter-in-law’s chocolate mousse (to die for, BTW), her mom’s fruit salad, our dear friend’s mince pies, and my own Christmas pudding—we were all kind of stuffed. Daughter-in-law’s parents are Jewish, so when they came to our house for Christmas last year, it was their first. They enjoyed it so much, they planned their winter cruise to end well before Christmas so they could come to dinner this year!
Have to tell you all about a nice thing that happened last Friday. I was standing in line at the Honeybaked Ham store, ready to pay for my quarter-ham, when suddenly a woman outside the rope line spoke to me. “Have you got a coupon for your ham?” she asked. “No,” I said. “Well, here, take this one.” She handed me a sheet of paper containing several coupons, including a $3 off coupon for the quarter-pound ham. “That’s so nice of you!” I said, thrilled. “Thank you very much.” “Merry Christmas,” she said, and left the store. Wasn’t that nice of her?
That’s what I like about Christmas, the feeling in the air, the smiles, the little courtesies. Although I’m not Christian, I’ve never minded hearing “Merry Christmas.” It seems like a benediction, a little snowflake of good will landing lightly on one’s shoulders. I’d never force anyone to say it, however.
Cold and dark here at 6 a.m. Going downstairs to make the early morning tea. Later!
Tuesday Meese. It’s 18 degrees here in Saugerties NY with strong winds. They say our high will be 25 – wind chill makes it much colder. I’m not going outside.
I won’t have to cook – have lots of leftovers from yesterday.
On twitter – the irony it burns
Marcus Johnson tweeted, responding to JG
Puerto Rico
Ha! That last quote on Twitter says it all!
OMG, the desperate situation in Puerto Rico. If I were an electrician I’d go over and help. I did contribute to a fund organized by a couple of priestesses I know: one of them lives in San Juan, and has some electricity from a small generator. With the funds she bought all kinds of supplies and drove them up to women in the mountains, who were cut off from the other types of aid. Saw the photos on the Internet yesterday.
One of the women asked, “Are you from a church?” “No,” N. replied, “I’m a Witch.” “Then God bless all Witches,” the woman said. Love it!