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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70 and the high for the day – gonna hang here for a couple of more hours then start dropping. Clouds already have moved in & the barometric shifts I felt in my joints before I even got up. Winter again even if only for a few days. Yesterday 22 KWHs won’t be repeated today. Be lucky if we get 10. But the m-t-d is 164.4 so we’re doing OK – I use 150-180 per month when I’m not running A/C so I’m about covered for use this month.
Still focusing more on RTing Denise’s Puerto Rico stuff, fundraising for Fineena ($190 to go on the $200 match that will wrap this up for her) and pushing out the Patreon link for Aji than on what’s going on politically. Except for a still-ongoing discussion of constitution & Dem party rules – not part of the gish-gallop but still political.
Yesterday’s beautiful day was also full of dust, pollen, and grass – my eyes are giving me hell (which is why I’m still “checking in” over an hour after I logged on) & my joints aren’t happy with the weather change. sigh. Need to visit the Villages, finish my “twitter work” and get offline while I can still eye. Also coffee. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, meese! Saturday …
It is 32 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 32. There is light freezing rain and high winds and that is the forecast for the rest of the day. Last night a front moved in, guaranteeing a miserable weekend, weather-wise. I am glad I have no plans that will take me out of my warm house!
Poor tRump! He hoped to change the subject from his multitude of scandals and crimes – and the Comey book – by shooting off some missiles. This morning’s headline aggregator shows 20 stories, only three of which involve the bombings and one of those was a statement from Prime Minister May! When you create a political environment that feasts on the 10 minute news cycle, and the shocking and salacious rises to the top of the news stack, it should come as no surprise that a missile strike in a country half a world away will not make a dent in the news. So much for wagging the dog – the dog got distracted by a rabbit running past.
As a soothing balm, I am going to continue reading the “Paul Ryan is a terrible person” stories I have saved up – I have not yet gotten my fill – and read my local news which is covering how no one with high name recognition is interested in running in Wisconsin CD-01. The 2018 mid-terms will be a bloodbath and it will be throwing good money after bad to jump in that race. A few of the people who considered it would have to give up their cushy Wisconsin legislature seats, nicely gerrymandered for the foreseeable future.
See all y’all later!
Yup – my US news headlines were about lewd tapes and DNC guy payoff to Playboy Bunny – had to look for the bombing story
Starting to shift on my other aggregator – Comey Cohen still in the top 10
us news headlines were not topped by Syria –
Towards the bottom of the aggregation there was a cluster of stories about the “decision” to bomb and they were more about how Mattis reined in Trump and Bolton. There will be no joy in Trumpville this morning. Although he is unlikely to know about the negative stories because the shows he watches on cable TV will be filled with people proclaiming him the Great and Glorious Leader.
Saturday Meese and 45 here in NY going up to 62.
Heading over to my local Sears store in a few hours, which is closing in a few days, to grab a few sales. My local mall is emptying – we lost Macy’s and Penny’s and Filene’s and several big sporting goods stores over the last few years.
PR
Our malls are having a difficult time holding the anchor stores. Boston Store, which has had a large presence in Wisconsin, is closing most of their stores – both Madison stores, I think. The mall that is closest to us on the east side of Madison is struggling (the one on the west side where there are more rich people is doing okay). Lots of malls have been bulldozed over the past 20 years – they get a reputation for gangs and crime, no one wants to go there any longer, then the shops close, then the outlot restaurants close then the cities have a monstrous empty building and parking lots to deal with. In most cases it is easier to just flatten it all and hope someone will buy the land and put something there. I remember years ago after a terrible murder was committed in the outlot of a mall on Milwaukee’s north side, people stopped going to the mall (even though the crime turned out to be a man killing his wife and trying to blame it on a black youth – that never happens, right?) and within a year it was empty. I was taken aback that flattening the mall was the solution. Now it is pretty commonplace – one extremely large mall near where my family lives in KC was flattened and after a dozen years being empty it is being turned into an office park. That was suburban, though. The urban malls flattened usually just remain weeds.
Back in the 1970s, all suburban kids wanted to do was cruise the malls. Now, all they want is to do Snapchat, Instagram, or whatever.
I find malls depressing, because having to traipse through aisles and aisles of things I don’t want gets on my nerves. Will have to visit one soon, though, because I need some clothes.
A lot of us shop on line nowadays, but when it comes to personal garments, one still has to try them on.
Human beings are inherently lazy – also known as serious conservers of personal energy. The malls put “Main Street” out of business because all the shops were in one location. One that was indoors so protected from the weather. I remember when it started, one of the ads had a jingle I still remember:
So now we have online shopping – from the comfort of our own homes, no going anywhere – and the malls are going down. Which may actually allow a renaissance of single stores/small shops again for the things you really want to try out or try on before buying. And that would be very, very good for small businesses – and the entire economy since small business is what actually drives it.
Good Saturday morning, Moosekind! Sunny and mild today and that’s a good thing, because we have a lot to do. Current temperature in Ashburn is 62 F., going up to 83 F. Yesterday we pulled the covers off the screened porch furniture and sat out there! How ’bout that!
Today we are going to sell the truck. Sigh. Oddly, I mind more about the truck than I do about the house. I knew we’d be leaving the house one day and had time to prepare for it. The truck is like a member of the family, so many people have used it for one thing or another. Sons, nephew, neighbors…it’s done yeoman work.
A great step forward happened yesterday. As it happened, the custom interiors woman was in Cherry Blossom Square (the building that connects to the one we’re in), so when I put in a request, she came to our flat. She took some measurements and said she’d consult the company engineer and get back to me. I want a room divider bookcase, as there is only a half-wall between the den and the living room. (Unlike most Americans, who seem to adore huge open spaces, we like rooms with doors that shut. It’s quieter that way.) Anyway, she’s going to get back to us Tuesday with an estimate.
Someday, perhaps, I’ll write about how moving to “a home for the aged,” as my Aussie sister-in-law puts it, is a complete lifestyle change. No more flowers, candles, or tablecloths—because our flat is too small for a table. No more simply opening a door and letting the dog run out to the backyard. No more cooking and baking. Afternoon tea has been reduced to a cuppa, because we have to eat dinner so early that we can’t have cake or cookies with our tea, and there’s no more Miss Pink Cheeks to eagerly ask what there is for tea today.
Having to do without Miss PC is the worst thing. Luckily we can Facetime with her, her brother, and her cousin in Arlington.
Got to get started on my day! Hope everyone will have a peaceful Saturday, unlike the unfortunate citizens of Syria.
BTW, Jan and Denise, what are news aggregators? Can I get one?
Rather than have to weed through dozens of news sites, I use the “memeorandum” aggregator. I have it as one of my “Open FireFox with” links and so it comes up – with other sites I want to make sure I look at – when I open the browser. Here is the link: memeorandum. It includes news stories and also commentary so you have to be careful not to click on Brietbart or one of the right-wing sites. It updates throughout the day and you can expand and contract the list on the right to see more or less (and to see the newly added items).
Here is a delightful little Twitter thread:
Oh, this thread is so lovely, so calming. Thank you, I didn’t know I needed it, but I did.
Wow, it is a lot colder than yesterday — 50s & the wind is howling down the chimney & around the corners of the building. Yes, I know most of y’all have snow on the ground, but yesterday morning was 73. This is…..wow. I need to get some exercise. And this weekend is 20% off at my grocery co-op. And I’ve got to do my taxes. Yes, I was supposed to do them yesterday, but I got an e-mail that they wanted my eulogy ahead of time (the funeral is next Saturday) to make sure they work together & there’s not repetition of stories. So I’ll do my taxes this weekend instead.
Morning all! We’re in Day One of a four-day front moving through which promises rain, cold, ice, and more rain. Since tomorrow is going to be a long, and likely tense, day at the convention, I am devoting today to indulging myself. I have cinnamon buns in the oven, The Hubby and I are going to watch our Thor Ragnarok dvd later (Marvel movies are my guilty pleasure), and I suspect there is a nap in my future. Tomorrow will bring what it brings, but today is going to be all about comfort and coziness.
{{{DoReMI}}} – Holding the Good Thought about tomorrow for you. And oh, how I wish I could eat cinnamon buns! Yeast things just don’t work well with GF flours. You have to play all kinds of games, adding this and that, to find what the yeast will actually eat and it’s only worth it for big batches of stuff. Being there’s only one of me even a small batch of muffins lasts me a week and 1/2 recipe of my grandmother’s oatmeal cookies (I think they’d be called “cookie bites” today – they’re so much smaller than what’s now considered normal) last me 3 weeks. Enjoy your comfort and coziness.
35 windchill 26 – welcome to winter again (OK not exactly, but close) – going back and forth on the sunniness – got 6.5 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 173 with this morning’s generation. 400 is still possible but it’s gonna take some doing.
Holding the Good Thought for the people of Syria. Nobody should be expendable pawns in a 3- or 4-way power game. Evil Ones doing evil – and this is one situation goddess above and below only knows how to make better. Even getting back Congress and the helm of our Ship of State isn’t likely to help this one much at the state it’s in. “In despair I bowed my head, there is no peace on earth I said, for hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men.” But there are still more good people than evil ones and somehow we will find the path out of darkness. It’s the kids who have the time and the curiosity to find new pathways. This generation of kids are looking – they’ve found a couple of them domestically and are steadfastly marching down them. We shall see how far that spreads.
My fundraiser concerns are always with me. Fineena needs $50 more to finish up hers – the full $2600 for the oral surgery scheduled Monday. Maureen’s covered for the moment. Aji’s patreon is stuck at 6 patrons/25% of her goal. Which is nuts as she’s so good – she can add a few lines to a photograph and make it tell you the “thousand words” story she wants you to hear. Anyway, here’s the link again to share out should anyone be around to see it.
https://www.patreon.com/AjiWings/posts?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=creatorshare2
Yesterday’s walk before the front moved in brought its unfortunate load of allergens to my eyeballs – I’ve been having trouble seeing – especially reading stuff online – since then. Which means things that normally take me 30 minutes to do are taking me more like 90. sigh. There’s an eyedrop somebody at another site recommended I’m going to see if I can get today – be nice if it works. Meanwhile, I’ve got some online stuff I need to do then brave the cutting wind for a PetSmart run. I get most of my critter stuff at Tractor Supply but they don’t carry the one kibble I mix with the Taste of the Wild – the latter is better for them (also more expensive of course) but they won’t eat it alone. Goofy cats. :) Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
47, mostly cloudy and still morning in Bellingham. My new normal of long naps around the clock means morning is when ever it happens :) I’m finally awake enough to decide my day is underway, ready or not.
Our son will be here soon to resume working on the deer fence around the vegi garden, I’m tending a very slow W 10 update on his old computer, I have a spring faux floral arrangement underway for the back porch and so it goes.
Best Saturday wishes to all.