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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Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …
Morning low of 46 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 70. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Good Sunday Meese.
Nippy. 49 going up to 68 here in Saugerties. Next weekend is our famous Garlic Festival – we get about 40,000 visitors
Protestors brought the baby to Mar-A-Lago
I hope “big angry baby with fragile ego and tiny hands” trends all day. :)
A garlic festival, Sis? Lemme at it! There was (perhaps still is) a restaurant in San Fran called The Stinking Rose. Loved the meal we had there back in the ’90s, but did not sample the garlic ice cream.
I love garlic. Yum, yum, yummy. Have you ever roasted a big gob of unpeeled garlic, waited a bit, and then spread the soft, delicious contents on toasted Italian bread drizzled with olive oil? ‘Tis food for the Goddesses!
My little town is known for its garlic festival – it is a wonderful event – the food is awesome.
Well, it’s cooler here — but that’s by Texas standards. 70 going up to low 80s. Not time to break out the long sleeves yet, but getting there. Today: church and then I might gate-crash a fundraiser for Lloyd Doggett — just run by to give him a hug & a donation slip for the Walk. Yesterday on MSNBC one of the pundits made the point that support for Kavanaugh is about power. K, and the people who support him — their 1st instinct is to support the powerful. His rulings & dissents, his social life as revealed by those disgusting e-mails — all show that he is about power. Ugh. So today I pick a song that I really believe is about the Women’s March & the Resistance: Empress.
Glad it’s cooler – have fun gate-crashing the Lloyd Doggett fundraiser (if you decide to do it) – and definitely Holding the Good Thought on your own fundraiser. {{{HUGS}}}
Slightly warmer than yesterday – 59 but going up to 73 (supposedly) but still overcast. Got a smidge under 5 KWHs yesterday, still not quite what I use in a day, and the m-t-d is 258. Only got 8 production days left in the month so getting to 300 is gonna be iffy unless we get some sunshine. May or may not warm up so I don’t need a fire this evening. If we don’t get sunshine tomorrow I’ll have a fire anyway as I need to do laundry.
Happy still-more-or-less-within Mabon! Funny, the only thing I do different on the equinoxes and solstices is turn my mattress. ???? Everything else is a “do daily” and usually multiple times a day. I do have something new on my altar though. Aji highlighted it a couple of weeks back – it’s a carved off-white with brownish-red streaks stone bear with turquoise eye and a medicine bundle (she calls him Dude Bear and that seems to fit – he’s got all the power certain people pretend they have but don’t ????) – not Wings’ work but one of the Taos Pueblo artists. I needed some masculine energy for balance. Until I brought in Dude Bear everything there was feminine energy. (Which is strange come to think of it because I’ve got 2 of Wings’ pins – but one is Pueblo and the other is Warrior Woman.) Oh Goddess! does having the balance increase the Power! I can Channel more Healing Energy longer now (like 5 minutes instead of 2 – Channeling Energy takes energy). So if you can actually feel the Healing warmth surround you (presupposing you accept it – Freely Given must be Freely Accepted), thank Dude Bear. ????????????
Need to get some stuff done – and more coffee – before I head out to Dem HQ. Healing Energy to everybody, for your shaping. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Hope you have a good day, dear bfitz! Glad to know you have a Mabon altar. Yesterday, because of a very bad night on Fri.-Sat., I did not do a Mabon ritual. However, my poet friend Ben wrote a wonderful Mabon poem! Writing it took the place of a ritual for him and reading it took the place of a ritual for me. I’ll ask him whether I can share it here.
Good Sunday morning, Moosekind! It’s certainly not “Sun-day” here, as it’s raining hard and has been for some time. How autumnal! The current temp. in Ashburn is 56 cool degrees F., going up to 61 F.
Awoke this morning to rain and evidence that the Badly Behaved Beagle had upchucked during the night. The spots were marked by paper towels. Dearly Beloved is going to clean up the spots when he feels like it. One can either have dogs or a nice house: we chose dogs, and look what’s happened. Oh, well, in the universal scheme of things it is Very Small Beer.
Breakfast has been cooked and eaten and because of the rain I may make a yellow cake with chocolate icing for Dearly Beloved. However, in two hours’ time I need to go to Suzi Weinart’s book signing at Barnes & Noble and visit the new Trader Joe’s across the street afterwards. Suzi, who lives here and who has been extremely nice to me, writes the Garage Sale mysteries. I’m reading one now and will buy a book there for her to sign—not that I care all that much for a signed copy, but it’s for the optics.
Did I mention that yesterday we went to see Younger Son’s new house? They’re planning to move in on St. Crispin’s Day. (Why do my kids always move at Halloween? Is there something at work here?) There’s enough room downstairs for a flat for the aged grandparents, although the bedroom space lacks a window, which is quite against the fire code in Fairfax County.
Yesterday, to my bone-dissolving horror, Aunt Crabby on Twitter said the Rethugs have already sent a bill to the House about cutting Social, Medicare, Medicaid, and Goddess knows what else. Gotta pay for the billionaires’ tax cuts, y’know. It’s a relief to know that if we can no longer afford to live here we’ll at least have somewhere to go.
Will now get ready to go to the gym. I won’t go into details about how someone found a two-headed copperhead snake in a garden in Fairfax County yesterday. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
The Republicans, realizing that their tax cut bill was extremely unpopular, decided that it was unpopular because the tax cuts expired! So they put together a bill to make them permanent and they are covering that cost by significant cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Of course, it won’t pass the Senate but it sets up a show vote for House Republicans to demonstrate their fiscal soundness – “look! this bill pays for itself!!” It may possibly shore up their support among their diehard fans but it is difficult to believe it will start a “red wave” unless that is shorthand for Republican bloodbath.
Good morning, 56 and cloudy in Bellingham. I was expecting sunny skies today so I waited with my garden tasks. Oh well, I’ve lived in the PNW long enough to know I won’t shrink from getting wet in the rain so I’m going to do a few things outdoors regardless.
Best Sunday wishes to all.
My friend who moved from here to Portland says rain there like we treat heat. If you don’t do things because of it, you wouldn’t end up doing anything, ever.
Monday Meese.
50 degrees here in Saugerties NY.
Was up way too late reading all the breaking news, and reactions on twitter.
Need more coffee.
Back to my regular PR channel:
Sis, I read that PR is beginning to focus on solar arrays. Sunlight is a natural renewable resource for the island, so why not take advantage of it? Who knows, it might turn out to be more reliable than conventional energy.
Good morning, meeses! Monday …
It is 52 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 72. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
More shoes are dropping on the Kava-naught confirmation. It should come as no surprise that an attempted gang rape in high school would be an isolated incident. It comes from an attitude of privilege that women are there as “takings” for men in power. And that no amount of drunken debauchery is disqualifying for the chosen ones.
Today we are supposed to “walk out” and wear black. Since I work out of my home, this form of protest will not be very effective so I will watch for tweets I can retweet in solidarity.
Busy morning – this is the last week of September and the chances of getting promised 3rd quarter projects done is going from slim to none.
See all y’all later!
First Lady Michelle Obama in Nevada: Michelle Obama rallies supporters in Nevada, urges them to vote
There is a video of the entire speech at the link.
“Michelle…ma belle…”
Love her! Hope her audience will heed her words.
Good Monday morning, Meese. It’s still dark and rainy here in Ashburn. Yesterday it poured on and off, but mostly on. The current temp. is 57 F., going up to 64 F.
Busy morning ahead because we’re supposed to fly two weeks from today. I do hope we don’t have to delay our flight, because we’re taking Miss Pink Cheeks with us, and her family is moving on St. Crispin’s Day. Any delay would mean bumping up against that date.
Yesterday I watched in fascination as the bottom seemed to drop out of the Kava-naught confirmation. One woman after the other is coming forward. All these men with their patriarchal rich white guy privilege! “Women are things, go and grab yours right now.” I am absolutely revolted by what I’ve been reading. Why, oh, WHY isn’t kung fu required for ALL girls? Or karate, judo, aikido, or tae kwon do? Knowing how to disable an unarmed male would be far more beneficial than tennis, and would enable a young woman to survive to learn trigonometry, calculus, history, and whatever else. End of rant.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond, and a Very Bad Day to the Rethugs on the Hill.
Slept in, watching the news & making a grocery list. Got my club’s endorsement meeting tonight & there are already complaints about/signs of club packing. Sigh. And the Kavanaugh news — especially the Avenatti allegations. This is going to be really hard to listen to. Today’s song: The Blackout. When the lights go out, don’t you ever doubt, the light that we can really be.
I am ignoring Avenatti. He is an opportunist riding the Stormy Daniels lawsuit to fame and adulation from DupableDemocrats. He is going to leave his fans embarrassed – again – when all the shoes finish dropping.
I don’t know whether to hope his allegations are right – they are pretty horrifying & could take down more than Kavanaugh – or to join you in ignoring him.
I understand why people are rooting for him – he is the eyepoking guy who some feel is missing from our party’s leadership. But our party is not built on eyepoking, as satisfying as that might feel at times. Our party is built on decency and honor and kindness and generosity and our leaders are chosen because of the way they interact with those of us who are downtrodden and helpless or in need – not how many trophies they take. Avenatti reminds me of Alan Grayson – another guy who for some reason was slobbered over by liberals – a guy with low morals who was in it for himself and used the progressive blogosphere as his own personal ATM.
That said, the more who come forward, the better – as long as they are credible. It would not do us any good to have false accusations, the kind that might be attracted to an ambulance chasing lawyer. I want this over as soon as possible – it is affecting my sleep!
64 heading for 80 but overcast and drizzly – since I have enough underwear ???? I’m putting off laundry until Wednesday – it will still be overcast and drizzly but the high will be 66 so a fine day to have a fire. Got 8.4 KWHs yesterday which ain’t great but at least is more than I use in a day. m-t-d is 266 – we’ve got 7 production days left in the month so we shall see what we shall see.
I haven’t a clue as to whether or not we’ll be able to stop kavanaw – somebody or group of somebodies with a whole lot of power got him nominated and have kept him nominated no matter what’s turned up so far. Heck our best shot may be to indict him before he’s confirmed – or at least before he’s seated. Basically not only are the Rs evil but the kompromat Putin has on them must be pretty juicy. Mostly I hope kavanaw taking up all the social media doesn’t give cover for the “steal Social Security, give it to the Kochs et al” move the Rs are making right now. Rs are killing a lot of people right now but most of them are “of Color” – maybe some of those non-voters will step up when they realize they’re next. Meanwhile we can only take our lives one day at a time, do what our brains and hands find to do one day at a time, and trust that Good will overcome Evil one day at a time. Healing Energy to everybody shaped to the need. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 46 and looks like a bit of blue sky outside my window. Being outdoors was good for my mental health yesterday so I’m going to try to be in the garden this afternoon. I’m going to the pool this morning so I hope that doesn’t deplete my energy bank.
I’ve also got to find a pest control company because I think the squirrels on the roof have found their way into one of the attic dormers. We found the very small opening where the dormer meets the main roof and can close it, but I don’t want to trap any critters in the space. Old house (no) fun!
Best Monday wishes to all.
It was completely cloudy until a little while ago when the clouds started to break up. Currently it’s 72 in Costa Mesa. I went out did the first part of precinct walking for my precinct yesterday. According to the MiniVan app, I am now 5% done. It looks like I have about 400 houses in my precinct. The lady in charge of the precinct walking says I won’t make it to all of them but whatever I get done is a good thing. It’s the first time the local Democratic Party club (Canyons Dems) has done anything like this. These people are Dem flyers for the first time.
Good for you, Mvgal! I’ve got the Minivan app too but goodness knows when I’ll get to canvass. I’ve got so much family stuff going on right now my head is spinning! Perhaps after we come back I’ll be able to do something.
{{{Mvgal}}} – doing good. This is exactly what will bring Dems to the polls – precinct-level canvassing – so doing very good. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, meeses! Full Moon Tuesday …
It is 64 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 73 (it will feel like 84). A front is moving through that will bring rain and the higher temperatures but then we will enjoy multiple days in the low 60s, upper 50s – Fall weather!
More shoes dropping, more signs that the person the Republicans chose for the Supreme Court is a man of bad character. I was chuckling at the blurb on my New York Times morning email (I use it for the headlines and recap, I am behind a paywall) which talked about Kavanever and “allegations of sexual impropriety from his years in high school and college.” It started out as “allegations from his years in high school”! Tomorrow it will probably be “allegations from his years in high school and college and his time as a young law clerk for Judge Gropey Kozinski”. There is never one, especially if you are a member of the ruling class where the protections from your bad behaviours are built into the institutions. Betsy DeVos and her ideas that the government should support men accused of rape instead of their victims did not just pop up out of nowhere – it is embedded in the Republican mindset. We need to burn their entire party to the ground and spend the rest of our lives, if we have to, stomping out any embers that flare up.
See all y’all later!
Good Tuesday Meese – raining hard here – cold and damp 51 going up to 63.
I don’t think it is just Trump’s mind. I wonder how many folks here on the mainland even know a Puerto Rican. The lack of a national outcry is telling.
Most people don’t know a Puerto Rican – or think they don’t know any! I was surprised to find out that a woman at one of my clients’ sites was married to a Puerto Rican man (the topic came up last year after the storms when she shared her concern for relatives). Her last name is not Hispanic and he is not Latino; their children are as white as any other sun-starved Wisconsinite. As a nation we are not very well educated and not very curious about other people and places. It is what allows the hatemongers to plant their hatred of The Other – if people realized they were The Us the hate would fall on less fertile ground.
Good morning, Moosekind! Lawks, yet another dark, rainy morning. Still, we can’t complain, we’re not in the Carolinas. Something horrifying happened last weekend, though—a child was lying in a hammock in a backyard when a tree, roots loosened by all the rain we’ve had, fell on the child, killing her. What must her parents be going through?
Anyway, on this dark morning it’s 61 F., going up to 75 F., with lots of rain. Had a long telcon with m’daughter and son-in-law in Austin last night: the upshot is that m’daughter is setting out this morning with her baby (a one-year-old chihuahua) to drive to Virginia. They’re going to try to get his mother into Maple Grove here at Ashby Ponds. That’s the building devoted to skilled nursing and rehab, assisted living, and memory care. She can’t live by herself again.
We have a great deal to do this morning and afternoon, so I hope we get it all done. On Thursday, even though I expect m’daughter to arrive then, I am going to be glued to the telly if the hearing is televised. I want to see all those vile old men’s faces. Dr. Blasey’s new attorney isn’t letting the grass grow under his feet! He’s already sent a letter slamming the Judiciary Committee.
No wonder we can’t sleep. Had a bad night, so expect a draggy day. Wishing a nice day to all at the Pond!
Apparently the Republicans, knowing the optics of Dumkopf Kennedy and The Angry Octogenarians interrogating Dr. Ford, are planning on bringing in outside counsel to handle their advise and consent duties. I saw a rumor that it was going to be Lindsey Graham’s BFFF Kelly Ayotte, Republican Woman, doing the honors. It will not help to have a woman doing the interrogating – if the Fox interview with the Kavanaughts last night is any indication, Republican women are incapable of asking hard-hitting questions of the manly men of their party.
I am not going to watch it because I can’t stand to look at Oral Hack or hear his voice. I will probably follow it on Twitter.
Morning, Meesefolk; 63 and rainy with a high of 72 and more rain today. No post today; my whirlwind trip to OH yesterday to see the House of Dreams Come True resulted in 24+ straight hours without sleep, and by the time I got home, I couldn’t form a sentence, much less write anything. I will check-in again today with more detail and burble, but for those interested in the condensed version, all systems are go (and it’s better than the pictures suggested).
Yikes! Twenty-four hours without sleep can be difficult to recover from. Thanks for the heads up on the post – I try to watch for it so I can add the Featured Image for you; now I can stand down.
When (if?!) I recover, I may do one later in the week; most of what I intended to write for today is almost-fully composed in my head…or it was. If I can pull it out of the recesses of my addled brain, I’ll post later this week. All-nighters, whether intentional or not, are best left for the young, and that’s not me anymore!
{{{DoReMI}}} – definitely get some rest first – I look forward to the increased level of burbling. ???????????? Delighted all systems are GO & even better than the pictures. ???????????? moar ????????????
Good morning, 46 and partly cloudy in Bellingham. We do indeed have a squirrel family living on the roof and an official squirrel trapper is coming today to help them move to a new home. Apparently squirrel removal requires a fish and game license so pest control companies don’t deal with them. Repairing the very small opening with metal flashing won’t be difficult so that’s a relief. I was worried the dormer wall would need to be opened and that would be a big messy job.
tRump angst and squirrel worries interfered with my sleep last night so I’m both groggy and restless this morning. Time for coffee, and then a plan for my day.
Best wishes to all.
I had an awful night’s “sleep”, if you can even call it that. I took my usual sleep supplements, still woke up at least 5 or 6 times. Blech. The endorsement meeting was..…..we got stacked. Despite efforts to prevent it — like new members have to join 60 days ahead & actually attend 2 meetings. Anyway, counting votes was no fun, even with instant run off voting — which is more complicated in practice than in theory. I don’t think we actually endorsed the stacker, and we’ll have to address preventing it in the future. So, today’s song is Lights of Home. love this one so much
I’m so sorry to hear this; I’ve seen it happen more than once here, both at the local and statewide level. Ours has been the direct result of an influx of a certain segment of “Dems” who think the rules are “discriminatory,” but are more than willing to use them to create a “revolution.” Worth noting is that their definition of discrimination is not one that is ever going to be found in a dictionary. I hope your experience was different, but I suspect it’s something a lot of us will be contending with for quite awhile.
Well, we’ll see if the new members are real members or just joined for the endorsement at the October meeting, or if we have a post-election November meeting – we sometimes just skip that & blend it into the holiday party. I hope at least some of them are real.
{{{ad}}} – Healing Energy flowing to you in great streams and rivers. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Thank you! I don’t know why I couldn’t sleep. Wasn’t that upset by the meeting. Body just wouldn’t do that “calm down” thing that lets you drift off.