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 is HERE!
– Page Two of Comments is HERE!
So all y’all got warmer, we got colder — I’m going to have to cover my plants, it’s supposed to freeze this weekend. I haven’t changed the timer on my heater so when I woke up, it was 65 in my apartment (my “away” setting, I have it warm up to 68 at 5). Watching the most beautiful discussion about immigration — the whole table on Stephanie Ruhle’s show talking about how their ancestors came with nothing and built this country; a woman whose parents are from Haiti…. So I’m posting this song today:
There’s a promise at the heart of every good dream
It’s a call to action not to fantasy
The end of the dream
The start of what’s real
Let it be unity
Let it be community
For refugees like you and me
A country to receive us
Will you be my sanctuary
Refujesus
9 at the moment, windchill -9, also sunny at the moment, heading for 31. Got 3.7 KWHs yesterday, m-t-d is 67.5 – hope we get another day like Wednesday’s 8.1 – I’d really like to get over 200 for the month. Temps started dropping yesterday at noon, the ice knife wind showed up earlier.
I spent 2 hours before the temps dropped schlepping a rick (32 sq ft) of firewood from 110 yards away in a 2′ long garden wagon and stacking it on and next to my carport. Called that my “workout” for the day. I’m trying to get a daily routine going to get at least a couple of 15-20 minute sets on the treadmill – my walk from (not usually to) work was 40 minutes. I haven’t even been doing this last year – weather and other things interfered – but I was in better shape and felt better when I was doing it so trying to replicate it inside where it’s warm but not too warm and dry. Can’t do more than 20 minutes at a time on the treadmill without a coughing fit. Which segueways into today I’m visiting the nearest doctor on my in-network list to see if I like him enough to have him be my PCP. Not gonna say trust because I don’t trust doctors but he needs to be somebody who will at least pretend to listen when I have an issue. My friend goes to him and says he’s OK – which makes him not only close but also the only doctor for whom I have something that passes for a recommendation. So while I’m there and talking about celiac and chronic sinusitis, I’ll mention the tight chest cough when I’m on the treadmill. See what happens.
I suppose I didn’t react with shocked indignation over mad king donald’s comment because I’ve never expected better from him. I don’t want to dare him or anything but I doubt there’s anything he could say or do that would shock me. Appall me, yes – he’s appalled me for decades and he’s only gotten more appalling with age and access to power. But not shock. Same goes for Tom Cotton, by the way. He is now and always has been appalling. So he doesn’t shock me. Angers? Oh yes. They both keep the kettle at a boil. But not shock.
So I’m off to find something good to do where I can make my little bit of difference. Online first then phones – and we shall see if I find something while I’m out of the house as well. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 37 and cloudy in Bellingham. Apparently I needed to nap the day away yesterday, because that’s about all I managed to do. Recovering from this dreadful flue and trying to manage tRump angst took all the energy I could muster.
Jeff Bezos donates $33 million to scholarship fund for ‘dreamers’
Good for Bezos. Now we just need to keep the DREAMers in the country! I hope the Democrats shut the government down and that the shitgibbon’s state of the confederacy speech has to be cancelled.
Good morning, meeses! Saturday …
We have no degrees – zero, zilch, nada – in Madison with an expected daytime high of 9. Sunny skies are in the forecast. Winds will keep the wind chills below zero all day.
Yesterday was a perfect example of what NOT to pay attention to. It does not matter that two adults had consensual sex and one of them, the married one, felt the need to pay the other to keep it quiet. It is not a scandal and reporting it sooner would certainly not have changed a single right-wing evangelical’s vote in the 2016 election. They chose to ignore the things they preach about because, really, their vote had nothing to do with decency but everything to do with staying rich and keeping women and minorities down. Only decent people are disgusted and most of us voted for Democrats.
What we should keep focusing on – and I can’t help but believe that Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal released this story to take our eyes off the shithole story – is that the party in charge of our immigration policies wants to keep people out of our country simply because they are Not White. And if the Democratic Party won’t dig in their heels on the immigration fight after the shitgibbon bared his ass, I am not sure where their line will be drawn.
See all y’all later!
Saturday Meese and it’s a hot 34 degrees here in Saugerties and raining mixed with sleet.
Glad to see Haitians pushing back
Great video! I have heard so many eloquent votes speaking out for Haiti and Haitians and Haitian-Americans. Trump and his base won’t hear them – they are deaf to everything but their own butthurt – but decent people will and they will reject his hateful rhetoric and his hateful political party.
Good morning, Moosekind. It’s overcast and windy here in NoVa, with a current temp. of 31 F., and more or less staying there all day.
We’re planning a quiet day today, with more Swedish Death Cleaning or downsizing, whatever the current term is. Trying to decide which photo albums (we have dozens) to keep is so daunting we’re just going to divide them between each son and tell them, “Keep it or toss it, whichever you want.”
Still exhausted from the onslaught of political news emanating from ThingWorld. Is that guy EVER going to shut up? Will nothing and no one ever get him to resign or be arrested?
Wishing all a peaceful Saturday.
I’m taking my stack of photo albums and digitizing them – that way I can toss the stack and still have the pics.
Good idea. We were going to do the same thing but picking out the ones we wanted really hamstrung our first efforts to downsize. Good luck with yours! :)
Brrrr! It froze overnight, glad I brought my basil in. It wasn’t a hard freeze, so I didn’t cover my plants. I’ll do that today. Tuesday they’re talking about “wintry mix”. POTUS gets worse & worse. And the stuff about Chris Matthews, ugh. Not that it was at all surprising. Went to the gym yesterday because the cedar pollen is just too much. Did 12 rounds of running for 30 seconds, walk 90 seconds, using the elliptical machine on manual. That’s the week 1 workout from my learn to run program. Happy Saturday y’all.
16 at the moment heading for 31 and partly cloudy but clearing off. No precipitation in the forecast on my 10-day outlook widget. So hopefully the days will keep clearing off and I get good electricity production. Yesterday it did and I got 8.4 KWHs the current high for the month and year as we head back towards the summer solstice. The m-t-d is currently 75.9 – making 200 for the month is still definitely possible which is good.
While I am most unhappy about the Evil Ones being evil – glad to see the push back on that “shithole” comment and the recognition that it is nothing but racism (what took them so long?) – but I don’t give a rat’s patootie about consensual sex between mentally competent adults and never have. (Hope those young women stashed that money back for retirement. The profession they were in is not known for longevity.) I mostly stayed off twitter (as twitter – had a DM discussion with Aji & Denise which I enjoyed and thank them again for the information) because of the OMGHOF on the sex thing. The Rs don’t care. This is nothing new, just named some names. If the R’s cared Hillary would be in the White House. So as much as I really hate the idea of a shutdown because of all the people that will hurt, if we’ve gotta do it to block some of the Evil, then we gotta do it. I at least have almost a month’s equivalent to my Social Security check in savings and will be getting my unused vacation paid out from the state next week. That doesn’t count what I’ve got stashed in Cref because that’s not as liquid. But the folks who are living from Social Security Retirement or Disability check to check…it’s gonna be bad. The folks who are eating because of SNAP or have winter fuel assistance or, or, or – it’s gonna be bad.
The doctor I saw yesterday at least has a sense of humor – I told him I didn’t trust doctors and he laughed and said he didn’t either – so I guess I’ll keep him for my PCP. At least he paid attention enough to note that I’m sensitive to all drugs – if I have to have them at all, use “half-doses” of the ones least likely to cause reactions/have side effects. Since it was my “welcome to Medicare” first visit they took blood and also did a chest x-ray (I told him about the cough I get on the treadmill or walking uphill). Won’t have the blood work results until next week. At first glance the chest x-ray looks clean but he’s sending it to the radiologist to be sure. Those results will be next week as well. We shall see what we shall see. He didn’t have any more suggestions than I’ve already tried for the chronic sinusitis. At least he paid attention to the fact that – since I’ve had this all my life – I’ve already tried all that. So. Gonna do a tour of the internet then go sit by the fire and warm my feet. :) Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Social Security checks are not impacted by a government shutdown – they are paid out of SSA funds. Other types of federal assistance are cut, though. In 2013 when Ted Cruz encouraged the Freedom Caca to shut down the government, the Obama Administration prioritized payments to keep the most vulnerable above water. I would not expect that this time around. :(
It’s not the funds they are paid out of that causes the problem with the Social Security checks. It’s the office closures – the people aren’t there to process the “payroll” – but yeah the money to pay them with is there. As to prioritizing anything for the most vulnerable – those are the ones people like Cruz want to hurt under the evil and very erroneous assumption that they’re all brown or black.
If I recall, from the last time, SSA offices will be closed so NEW applicants may have trouble signing up. The good news on that is that you have about a 2 month window to sign up in advance so if people were on top of this, they should have a check starting when they need it.
Good morning, 39 and cloudy in Bellingham. Being sick of being sick combined with being sick of tRumpism kept me awake in the night. I finally went to sleep around 5:00 am so now my day is slowly underway.
Time to find some coffee and the feeling of well being that I seem to have misplaced!
Take care everyone.