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?
…
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.
…
Morning, meese. Friday …
It is 55 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 54. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast.
I have not felt so beaten down since the morning of November 9, 2016. America “elected” the worse possible person as president and he selected the worst possible person to be the deciding vote on the highest court in the land. The Republican Party “regulars” pushed Trump over the finish line for this very reason and it will not be enough to vote Republicans out, we have to remind everyone what happened yesterday and deny them any chance to ever be in a position of power again. In 1991, both Republicans and Democrats treated Anita Hill like terribly and put an awful man on the court. The Democratic Party fixed their problem and the Republican Party’s problem got worse. It is no wonder that some Republican governors are asking the Senate to reject the nomination of Kavanaugh – the blue tide is going to sweep the Republicans out of office in the states and the House and then turn into a blue flame to burn down the Republican Senate, if not in 2018 then in 2020 when they have to defend 20 seats. #ExpectUs
See all y’all later.
Friday Meeses
53 and raining here in Saugerties NY- going up to 65.
Thankfully we will have a lovely weekend for the Garlic Festival.
Can’t even begin to discuss my anger at the people who didn’t vote for Hillary.
Those people still supporting Republicans can burn in hell as far as I’m concerned.
Good morning, Moosekind. When I took the dog out as dawn was about to arrive, I saw the moon for the first time in ages. It looked fuzzy at the bottom right quadrant, so of course it’s past the full. The air felt positively autumnal, 54 F., so I was glad of the raincoat over my dressing-gown. There were pools of water lying around from the heavy rains of yesterday, but the sky has already begun to clear and temps. are expected to rise to 73 F.
And speaking of yesterday, I was never so strongly reminded of Germaine Greer’s statement in the 1970s: “Most women have no idea how much men hate them.” “They” are meeting at 9:30 this morning to confirm that shrieking, lachrymose piece of ordure as a Supreme Court Justice. In November we will remember 27 September, that’s all I can say, and when we take both houses we can impeach and indict that creep.
It is remarkable how men have a “few minutes of fun” and quickly forget it, while women’s lives are SHATTERED. Think about that, if it’s not too painful. Women are forever at a disadvantage. (Resolve: I will not go into a rant about requiring girls to learn martial arts through all 12 years of high school.)
Feel absolutely wrung out and disinclined to pay any more attention to the debacle on the hill. Jennifer Wexton, Democratic candidate to unseat The Woman Comstock, will be here this afternoon, so I’m going to see her at 2 p.m. My daughter is presumably in Fairfax, not far from here, so I’ll see her at some point today.
Wishing all a recovery day today.
“Most women have no idea how much men hate them” – I hope they are getting reminded after today. I am so angry at the media and the cable news presentation including left-wing “heroes” on MSNBC. They did not have to focus on Kavanaugh and erase Dr. Ford. Fie on them and their houses!
Meeting with your soon-to-be Congressmember Jennifer Wexton will be the best balm – we have to focus on the future, a future without Republicans in charge of us. What keeps me going is that in January 2019, Democrats will have the House speakership and the 2nd spot in the line of presidential succession. That is our firewall.
I got up, got dressed & went in to work….and turned around & came home. Pretty sure I have a cold. Going to nap till the grocery store opens, buy some cold medicine, and I guess nap some more. Nose is a water faucet, and I’m sneezing my head off. Anyway, I’ll check back in later. At least I figured out how to copy my diary over here, except for the header picture.
I fixed the header picture for you. I’m not sure what problem you might have been having but it uploaded into our media library just fine after I downloaded it from your DK diary. Of course, now I need an eye rinse from the “orange splatterings” of the wreck list on the sidebar. :)
thank you! I hope people like it, I tried to make it all warm & fuzzy.
Remember this:
Storing a few tweets here.
Got offline yesterday after I checked in here – stayed offline until evening. I can handle the ambient anger, can’t handle the pain. Locking down my own anger, my own feelings of “serves you right” at survivors who could have but didn’t vote for Hillary. Got more candles going, Channeling more Healing Energy – freely given to all who freely accept it.
Just got molasses spice muffins out of the oven. House smells good and I’m hoping having the oven on will warm it up some. 57 and hazy at the moment – although the haze cleared off for a few brief moments so I could see the moon (so I sent Love to everyone who will accept it from the nourishing, nurturing, protecting, Grandmother Moon) while I was putting out birdfood. Need to get my act together and make some more soup. Gonna donate blood today. Life Affirming things. Again, Healing Energy to everybody, shaped to your need be it physical or otherwise. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 58 and sunny in Bellingham. I’m feeling tired and discouraged this morning. I’ve been resigned to K being placed on the SCOTUS, but seeing and hearing Dr. Ford yesterday and talking with my kids and trying to help them with their upset feelings made for a long worry filled night.
Take care everyone.
{{{princesspat}}} – your love/caring, your gardening, your goodness – all help us get through these dark times. Healing Energy. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Couldn’t manage much of any presence anywhere yesterday except on twitter. A meh today here of clouds with a temp of 67 at Costa Mesa. I am angrier and even more disgusted than I was election nite 2016. The Republicans have broken this country and they are going to pay for doing that.
Late to the party…yesterday’s slow work day has been replaced by today’s insanity. Does anyone have some roller skates I can borrow for days like today? At least the weather is gorgeous; 48 when I got up with a bright, sunny high of 66 today.
I don’t even have words for what’s about to happen with SCOTUS. It seems like seating the abusive drunk is a foregone conclusion, and I alternate between anger, despair, and quite frankly, vengeful fantasies (e.g. if I ever had reason to be in the same place as yes-voting senator, I want to stand up and loudly yell, “OMG, that person over there is a sexual abuse enabler. Please, everyone, step away…you’re not safe.”) I want these old white men to be pariahs, but sadly, I don’t think any of them are capable of shame. I guess it’s a good thing for my mental health that I’m swamped with work today.
I faxed my yes-voting Senator – Ron Freaking Johnson – and made sure his office at least had it on record that some Wisconsinites think that Kavanaugh’s judicial temperament is suspect. It still pains me that his seat will not be up for re-election until 2022; when the dust settled on Election Night 2016, I was not sure what hurt more – that Wisconsin’s electoral votes had gone to the yam or that the ignorant people here had re-elected one of the stupidest men in the Senate for another 6 years. He says he won’t run again (and he is independently wealthy by marriage) so there is no way to hold his feet to the fire on anything. Plus he is convinced he is the smartest man in the room which makes it even worse. Thank goodness we have Tammy Baldwin who seems to be comfortably ahead in her re-election bid.
Good morning, meeses! Saturday …
It is 37 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 55. Sunny this morning with clouds and a possibility of rain in the afternoon and evening.
The news rollercoaster is making me nauseous but the end result of yesterday’s dramas – a week delay in the final Kavanaugh vote – was about as good of an outcome as one could expect. That gives investigators time to piece together the events of July 1 from the calendar Kava-kegger helpfully provided and maybe nail him for some of his lies. There is still no guarantee that Republican Senators won’t give him a pass for his lies on Thursday but it gives our endangered Senators cover for their votes and maybe gives Murkowski and Collins a reason to vote no. My money is still on Kavanaugh’s family convincing him that his confirmation – which won’t end the investigations but simply stretch them out into 2019, 2020, and 2021 – is not worth it. He will cry, hug his dog Checkers and then return to his $250,000 a year lifetime job – with Beltway Cocktail Party Privileges! – on the DC Circuit, the second most important court in the land. Amy Coney Barrett will sail through the nomination process and my SCOTUS fantasy, DoReMI, is that since she is somewhat unformed as a judge, she is swayed by the brilliant arguments of Sotomayor and Ginsburg and becomes this generation’s Souter.
I am going to ignore the news today and focus on end of month projects. The Democratic Party Weekly Address is by Senator Patty Murray and I will post Fighting Back later today or tomorrow morning when there is a transcript.
See all y’all later!
Had Sotomayor on my mind this morning
I have been thinking about Justice Sotomayor often these days – the “wise Latina” who was savaged by the fratboys of the Senate, the same ones who are now so outraged that their guy is being attacked “simply” for being a drunken lout with anger management problems and rich white boy entitlement issues. When she was elevated to the Supreme Court, I envisioned a future court with more wise women – and men – and it is heartbreaking to see what has happened to it. We Democrats need to get over our infatuation with the court and fall in love with the hard work of getting and keeping legislative majorities and creating legislation that endures. Supreme Court rulings that can be overturned when a short-fingered vulgarian has the ability to select the worst people in the entire world to sit on it are not victories. Non-reviewable legislation locking in our rights by statute is what we need to focus on. Case in point: while people were sitting around content to have Roe v Wade protections, they left statutes in place in the states that will criminalize abortion should Roe be overturned. New York State, for crying out loud, is one of those states! We need to rebuild our democracy from the ground up, take back the states, take power away from the executive that belongs to Congress and dig in for the long haul. Representative democracy is hard – there are no shortcuts.
Well said, Jan! The state legislatures should be our focus from now on. Virginia, now purple, seems to be turning more and more blue. Where I live, it’s already blue.
I have never forgotten the words of the campaign operative who drilled us in canvassing for Hillary two years ago:
And it was true. HRC carried Virginia by five points, despite all the gun-totin’, Gawd-fearin’, abortion-hatin’ Down State people. All the young people are leaving those counties because there are no jobs. One day Down State will also be blue—or pink, at the very least.
This pisses me off
For chrissake! Why did they hate her so much—because she’s alive while black?
May their god damn them all to hell.
That poor woman, I hope she moves on into a successful career in some other sphere. I’m surprised and disheartened—I thought better of Vermonters.
Good morning, Moosekind! This morning, when I took the dog out before daylight I saw the gibbous moon and it was a wonderful experience. How agreeable to see clear skies again! The current temp. in Ashburn is 55 F., going up to 72 F. later. And it’s going to be sunny all day.
Well, yesterday’s turn of events was very surprising. Does anyone watch network TV dramas nowadays? The real-life drama playing out is exhausting enough. Anyway, it buys us some time. I agree that if Coathanger isn’t confirmed, the new justice will be Amy Barrett. She’s awful: the best thing that can be said for her is that she’s probably not a rapist.
I added half a cup of large, sweet blueberries to a small box of bran muffin mix, so six muffins are baking right now. Dearly just made the coffee. With all this going on, it’s too late to join the Walking Club at 8:15, so I’ll just walk over to the gym after breakfast. Have an appointment for a haircut at 11 and we’re going out to dinner at a friend’s house at 5, so there’s a lot to do today.
Haven’t seen Daughter since she arrived in this area yesterday, but she is dealing very efficiently with the crisis that brought her up here from Austin. Today she is arranging for her mother-in-law to be moved from the hospital to Sunrise Assisted Living. The handyman is coming to move some furniture to the garage so Daughter and the realtor can stage the 12-room house with the goal of listing it next week. I’ve given her the name of a company that swoops in to evaluate the household goods, sell those that can be sold, and dispose of the ones that can’t to Goodwill.
It’s situations like this that make me glad we moved to this Home for the Aged. We’ve already downsized and sold the house and I have a long-term care policy. If I were to need Assisted Living, all it would take is one phone call from AP to Elder Son, who has power of attorney. My children’s lives wouldn’t be disrupted on my account.
So that’s how things stand on my little patch at the moment. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and Beyond!
I was pleased to see yesterday that VA-10 is now being abandoned by the Republican Congressional Committee’s ad buying arm. Did Jennifer Wexler look like she had an extra bounce in her step? :)
She looked very happy—and her smile became even wider when she saw the extremely large turnout in the Great Oaks auditorium! I won’t say that all 200 seats were filled, but there were a LOT of people there. When she first came to AP years ago to ask for votes for state senator, the Dems filled one table in the Banquet Room. Last time she came to the Banquet Room, it was standing room only, with 12 tables filled.
This is most encouraging. I understand from the Old Timers here, AP was mostly conservative when residents first started arriving. Glad I’m with the “new wave.”
It is good to have a “getting old” plan and one that makes it easier for children to properly care for their parents’ final days. If you don’t set it up, they will have to do it for you and will always worry that it was not what you wanted. A friend whose parents died some years ago had to deal with an odd request that none of their belongings would ever be in a garage or estate sale! The request was found in a will and who knows when it was put there or what precipitated it. Needless to say, that put a crimp on some of the plans to empty the house and put it up for sale. A frank conversation while they were alive would have been better but people of that generation don’t like to talk about those things.
I have instructions about some things but a lot of gaps probably because I really can’t die or become incapacitated right now – I have too many things that need my attention! I know it would be a mess and I hope that what I have put to paper will be enough to get a competent attorney started on the right path. I plan to get more specific when I have some quiet time this winter.
Morning, Meesefolk; 39 now with a sunny high of 61 today…I like this weather!
Working today until about 3, but most of the Saturday folks came in yesterday so it should be slow. That’s fine with me. I’ll use the downtime to source materials for The House of Dreams Come True. I provided Kiddo and SIL with a full “curtain plot” for every window in the house, outlining what could be used, repurposed, and/or made. For two people who routinely declare they don’t care about curtains, they sure had opinions. ???? The appraisal was done yesterday, and they should have the report on Monday; assuming that doesn’t create any issues, I’ll be starting to actually order what I need Monday night.
Going to a Renee Fleming concert at the opera house in Detroit with Peregrinekate tonight. Spending time with PK+Renee Fleming=Win. A day filled with Good Things to all…
Good morning meese. Currently 55 with a projected high of 74 here. Definitely appreciate the cooler weather.
I haven’t been online much the past few days for a couple of different reasons but wanted to check in at least once (also so that bfitz can be reassured).
{{{basket}}} – and thank you so much for that because you know I do worry about you – especially when you go “radio silent” – Hope your day goes well and things start to settle down. moar {{{HUGS}}}
You’re not the only one…!
Still dealing with the cold. I feel weak & I’m breathing carefully to avoid coughing. But I don’t have any fever, so that’s good. I registered to go to the Beto O’Rourke thing with Willie Nelson, but there’s no chance of that happening. Just going to sit.
{{{ad}}} Lots of Healing Energy – vitamin C every couple of hours (divided doses work best to boost your immune system) and soup, something like hot and sour works just dandy. Too bad you have to miss the Beto-Willie thing, but definitely take care of yourself. moar Healing Energy, moar {{{HUGS}}}
I found a recipe for a lemon & ginger root thing, after Joy Reid’s show, I’ll go to Wheatsville & get the ingredients. Maybe some soup, too – they always have vegetarian soups.
Oh good. I’m glad you’ve found something to help (& lemon/ginger most certainly should) and soup is always good. Soothing as well as nutritious and hydrating. I miss Wheatsville. I was a member back in the 1970s. And they were so helpful with Momma that last year. I’m glad you go there. The essence of Wheatsville is good and Healing. moar {{{HUGS}}}
58 at the moment heading for 75. Got 14 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 319.6 – be a push to make 350, but possible. We shall see what we shall see. Hoping kavanope drops out and it takes a bit to get the replacement chosen and confirmed – the longer we can push this crap out, the more lives saved. We’ve got Bikes, Blues and Barbecue this weekend, actually most of the week culminating today. Says something that the Josh Mahony office and the Dem Party HQ office are going to be closed today for “safety” – the party Chair doesn’t “want anybody to get hurt” – which I hadn’t even thought of. So I won’t be staffing today and will be dealing with my end of month financial stuff instead. Healing Energy to everybody everywhere. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
68, cloudy and still morning in Bellingham. I slept late and the morning got busy so I’m catching my breath. Family phone calls are done, RonK’s home from Costco, and the squirrel traps are gone, yay! Now we have to patch the hole they chewed in the roof. Our son will do that, but it’s steep so he has to nail a roof ladder in place so he will be safe. I’ll be glad when our squirrel saga is over!
The grand girls will be here for an overnight so we’re cooking their favorites and choosing a movie to watch. I haven’t seen them since school started so it will be good to be with them.
Hope it’s a good day for all.
Still hanging in there. Still at work in the college library in Costa Mesa with a temperature of 72. Still extremely pissed over how the Republicans are behaving. They have no decency… or honor.