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, 27 and sunny in Bellingham. I finally finished one of my sewing projects yesterday so today I’ll tie a bow on the box and mail it…..one down, two more to go! I love the creativity of Christmas sewing, but meeting the inevitable due date seems to be getting more difficult. Hope I remember the feeling next year when I start getting itchy to make things :)
Best wishes to all.
G’afternoon Meeses. The high was 43, it’s 38 now with a windchill of 34 and dropping. Very overcast today – less than 1/3 KWH generated the entire morning. Yesterday was great though – got just over 8 KWHs which is the highest for the month (and quite possibly will be the high for the month, considering) and brought the m-t-d to 28. Not on track and not going to make any progress today (and probably do nothing but get more behind until at least Sunday). We shall see what we shall see.
Welp, Daddy Bush has been buried with full honors. Including MSM slams at Dems for one thing or another with their special emphasis on trashing Hillary. Hopefully now we can get back to trying to make things better – or at least slow down the rush to make things worse. Short-sighted greed has been the hallmark of wypipo for the last 500 years or so and they/we just keep getting worse. Politically speaking there’s nothing more short sighted (or greedy) than the Rs’ attempts at subverting the election results legislatively. We shall keep on keepin’ on until we can clear the field of these effers and make some serious progress. We have to keep that serious progress in mind – push the ball so far down the field that when the Rs get it again they’re too far away from their goal to be able to push it through.
Now back to my household stuff – I’ve grilled breakfast sausages (enough so basket can have 2 with his breakfasts while he’s here – I only eat 1 per day ????) and run the washer. Need to hang the clothes on the wooden racks in front of the fire (and tend the fire dodging clothes racks and cats on the hearth). Healing Energy to everybody shaped to the need/s. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning meese. I’m taking a half day from work as I didn’t sleep well at all last night. 53 with high of 57 today. Still lots to do…
Foster kitty came out to play though last night!
{{{basket}}} – Healing Energy to you – hope your day goes well and you sleep better tonight. Wonderful that Foster kitty came out to play. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, meeses! Friday …
It is 16 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 19. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
Today is Friday news dump day and everyone is waiting for the Manafort sentencing memo. Will tRump pardon his former campaign manager who, in the end, refused to cooperate with the Mueller investigation? I suspect we shall soon find out. He is expected to name former Bush II attorney general William Barr as his next AG, a move widely hailed by “mainstream” Republicans as a very good choice because “traditional/steady/old hand.” Except for the part where he is a Uranium One truther and thinks that Hillary Clinton should be locked up! What on earth are they putting into the water used by Republicans? They are all a bunch of demented conspiracy theorists.
North Carolina election fraud is so bad that even Kris Kobach thinks something is wrong! Except, of course, he calls it “voter fraud” because it suits his purposes to have that be the narrative – we can expect that whatever happens it will be referred to in future scare ads to the uneducated as an example that voting should be curtailed because “fraud is rampant” even though this fraud was done by white Republicans and was fraud against the voters, not by them. Nancy Pelosi in her presser yesterday reminded people that the full House has control over who gets seated and they can deny Harris the fruits of his crimes in January if North Carolina doesn’t resolve the issue by then and call a special election to fill the seat.
Is anyone else already sick of the 2020 presidential race? I know the media is pumped up because there is nothing exciting – to them – about planning the 116th Congress, our committee chairmanships and memberships, and the bills that the new Congress will advance and vote on. I shall ignore them for a while and maybe mute some of my more noisy follows on Twitter. I think there is plenty of time to address the issue of what the berned ones are trying to do and I also think he will tank on his own. A survey came out recently showing that Sanders’ only constituency is the 18-34 vote and he is in last place in that category behind Biden (at 35%) and Anyone Else (at 33%). He gets 5% of the 65 and older vote – the bedrock voters in any election. His “use by date” has passed and I just hope his fans give up soon and get out of my timeline.
Fridays are busy days as I try to get a good To-Do list for weekend quiet time work and wrap up projects promised for the vague “this week”, so I best get to it.
See all y’all later!
I was blocked last night by some probably well-known guy – JohnAgvignone – when I replied to his statement that beating trump was the one and only issue & anything else is “political masturbation” by saying the only issue is restoring the checks and balances of the system and anything else is looking for a political Messiah to save us. (Well, he did respond first by saying no wonder I didn’t have any influence and I should get a cat.) The MSM has done it’s propaganda well. We seem to have multiple generations who believe only the office of president is important and the Holy Messiah of the moment is the only one who can “save” us. (They also seem to believe Dems are carbon copies of each other – their response when I say I want Kamala Harris in the Senate is always some version of “CA’s a blue state, we won’t lose the seat.”) sigh.
I like Kamala Harris in the Senate but I see no reason why she shouldn’t seek the Oval Office if she chooses to. She checks most of the boxes I have for a president and I think our leaders should be inspiring. Barack Obama was good in the Senate also but he was excellent in the Oval Office!
I don’t know that particular Twitter person but I generally stay away from the rowdy people – I prefer to read and observe and avoid things that could get me kicked off the site or embroiled in a dustup that would make me unhappy to open my Twitter feed. There is a certain group for whom the presidency is the end all be all and it is quite often people who live in the bluest of blue states and don’t have to worry about Republicans destroying their state and denying people fair elections. We have to start in the states because in my mind the party fell into disrepair when Rahm and Axelrod dumped Howard Dean and the 50-state strategy (that got their guy elected!) and let the DNC languish. If the national organization’s focus on the states had been allowed to flourish, we may not have lost statehouses, including Wisconsin, in 2010 and been gerrymandered out of relevance in 2011.
I am still not sure I see the national party on the right track – their giving a non-Democrat the power to screw up our nominating process steps on my last nerve – but there are now other organizations focused on the states including Eric Holder and Barack Obama’s group.
If Kamala Harris wishes to run, that’s her decision and I will of course support her. But if a President Harris doesn’t have the Senate, she’ll appoint no judges. If she doesn’t have the House with the Senate none of the spending she might wish to do will come to her desk. She’s an excellent investigator but that’s not what the president does. She’s proposed some excellent legislation but that also is not what the president does. All she’ll be able to do is veto the most egregious stuff that’s sent to her. The one very good category of stuff she would be able to do – as long as she was in office and only as long as she was in office – is revamp the administrative depts like DHS and FEMA.
And yeah, the Dem Party went off track when they ditched the 50-state strategy and while they are headed back in the right direction they won’t actually be on track as long as they let non-Dems screw up the nominating process.
Friday Meese
32 here in Saugerties NY going up to 34
PR
So actually three Democratic Senators and one whateverthehellheis. :)
I have high hopes for the incoming House Democratic Majority having some meaningful hearings on Puerto Rico and maybe refer some of these fraudsters for prosecution.
It’s supposed to rain a lot today, and the high temperature is now. Yesterday was surprisingly not crazy busy — I got no complaints about us being closed Wednesday. My weekend, on the other hand… I’m going to have to cook on Saturday, because Sunday has: workout, church (which is Lessons & Carols, our big Christmas thing — taken from an English service, it’s beautiful), Dem club executive committee meeting, Dem club holiday party, and I’d really like to go back to church for the evening service — it’s gorgeous with the candles & stuff, and we have community leaders in to do the readings, but that sounds like an insane day already. Brain is still playing Wild Horses to me. I should start listening to my Christmas mix in the car, it’s not like it’s a long season.
Lessons and Carols is/are gorgeous – and yes, it’s time to start listening to the Xmas music you want to hear. The season may (does) start too early but it has a very definite end. ???? That sounds like a very nice if busy Sunday. {{{HUGS}}}
although Christmastide continues on past the 25th, so I keep on with the songs for a while
Very true – that’s what’s nice about the “traditional” Xtian calendars rather than the fundie, New Thought, & corporate/mercantile calendars. I was 1st introduced to the concept by RC neighbors when I was a kid but it didn’t stick until I did my decade as an RC back in the 1980s. Of course the more pagan of the traditions still hold a place in my heart. ????
Friday morning’s trumpian bowel movement – took 57 minutes. Try more prunes next time!!
He has been briefed on what is in the report (it would have been given to his acting attorney general who would pass it on) so it must be particularly devastating.
Good Freya’s Day morning, Moosekind! For once we have a beautiful morning, with the woods backlit against the rising sun, a pale blue sky, and from the bedroom window I saw the pool of water shining among the trees. The current temperature in Ashburn is 36 F., going up to 39 F.
Many years ago, when I was an office manager in the early 80’s, I wrote “December 7, 1941” on the office blackboard just to the left of the entry door. When our youngest employee, a 17-year-old file clerk, came in after high school classes, I indicated the blackboard and asked, “Why is this day famous in history, Heidi?” She looked at it for a moment, then said, “That was the day they threw the tea in the harbor?” “Wrong century, wrong war, kiddo,” I said after recovering my power of speech. So much for education!
Awaiting the news dump with interest. Have had bad news regarding the husbands of two of my cousins. One of them will not be all right, but I’m hoping the other will.
Hope we get our car back today. The enormous truck (big enough to transport four adults and a beagle boy) is quite expensive!
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
Good morning, meese. It’s 40 (feels like 38) with a high of 58 today. Good preparation for my trip next week? Maybe! According to reports from Our Moose in Fayetteville, though, the weather is so unpredictable that it could range from snow in the teens to Seattle-type weather (low to mid 40s/50s). I guess I’ll have to start looking for my winter pullovers and jackets.
Trying to get my body clock adjusted to waking up and staying up early instead of going back to sleep and then waking up late (around 10-ish), rushing to work and generally messing things up. Foster kitty has a name: Noname :) He’s still hiding under the bed occasionally, but is very interested in the window sill and loves to rub against my legs and hands. I’ll have to keep him separate from Belle for a while yet, as he needs to be checked for FLV/FIV.
Hope everyone has a good day!
Hope Noname is going to become more and more adjusted until he’s as friendly as Belle! Who will look after the kitties while you’re away, basket?
My cat sitter will be coming twice a day to feed and look after them. She’s the one who put me in touch with the lady who was originally fostering Noname (but she couldn’t keep him as she already had 3 cats)
Oh my gosh, I’m such an idiot! LOL!!! When you tweeted his name and its pronunciation last night, I spent untold minutes wondering what language it was and what it meant. Thank goodness I didn’t get around to asking you and showing all of Twitter World what a dunce I can be. Don’t mind me; I’m just going to be giggling for the rest of the day about my taking the obvious and making it complicated…:D
It’s not really a word or name in Japanese either, but the vet tech and I were just having some fun. :) He needs a name for his rabies certificate and also for their records; since we don’t know when he was born or exactly how old he is, his “birth” date is 12/4/2015
Also, you are not an idiot. :D ❤
Thank you, but in this case, I’ll own it. And since it’s leaving me in a state of giggling when I think about it, it’s not the worst thing in the world to claim! (I won’t be telling my family though, because then I’d never hear the end of it. It would become another item in the long list of Silly Things Mum Has Said or Done.)
{{{basket}}} – definitely unpredictable weather so absolutely bring winter pullovers and jackets. Being on vacation probably isn’t going to help you reset your body clock. Noname is making himself at home. Get him checked as soon as you can (although I’d have thought they’d have checked him before they fostered him out in the first place). See you soon. Healing Energy and moar {{{HUGS}}}
an example of why John Scalzi is among my favorite authors:
Good morning, Meesefolk; 21 when I got up this morning with a high of 28. It was snowing earlier, but it was just the slow, lazy, meandering snowfall that brings to mind cottonwoods in the spring. So lovely, and made lovelier because there won’t be enough to shovel.
I see by the unhinged rage-tweeting that Jan shared that Individual 1 is doing his best to muddy the waters and provide talking points for the conspiracy theorists, aka his base. I’m not going to be waiting for the report with bated breath; I did that with the sentencing recommendation for Flynn and almost wore out my F5 key in the process. I do hope there’s enough unredacted information to see where this is headed. At this point, I want to see Kushner and Pence in trouble almost as much (and sometimes even more) than Il Dunce. Take out the underlings, and the fall of the Gropefather is only a matter of time.
Time to get back to work…good day to and for all!
It’s 33 heading for 39 and cloudy again today. Our predicted OMG snow for this evening and tomorrow have apparently evaporated or gone to a difference time-space continuum or something. We’re now slated for rollercoastering through the 30s for the next 48 hours which of course means cloudy. Got just over 1-1/3 KWH yesterday and the m-t-d is 29. At this rate hitting 100 is iffy – and that’s bad since I use at least 150 KWHs per month. But we shall see what we shall see.
The number of supposedly educated and intelligent people out there insisting we focus on the presidency 24/7 and every damned year whether or not there is a presidential election coming up or not is getting legion. The dismissing of even Congressional importance, much less state and local offices, is downright scary as far as the future of this nation as a relatively free country is concerned. I love Kamala Harris and if she runs for president I will of course support her to the best of my ability. But everything wonderful she is doing in the Senate that’s bringing out the Kamala for president routines is showing nothing about her ability as an executive and a whole lot about how wonderful she is in the Senate. Where I’d like her to be for another 30 years. Or so. All of the passionate fights about X, Y or Z for president are based on the good things they are doing where they are. And they are damned important things they are doing where they are. I’d like to see them finish what they’ve started rather than take them from where they are doing wonderful things and putting them into a term-limited office that can only accomplish good things with the assistance of a strong Congress they’d otherwise be a part of. (Wish we had a “charismatic” term-limited out governor to run for president. I like executive experience for executive office when given the choice.)
Anyway, I’m at work. And we’re not sure how long this is going to go on. The person they were about to offer the job to emailed that she has a medical issue come up, canceled the final interview, and said she assumed that takes her out of the running for the position. We’ve emailed her back and said no it didn’t and please contact us to reschedule. So far, no contact. But she really was the best “fit” – the 2nd choice is far down the line and the folks in the dept really don’t want to go through another year like this one of high stress trying to help somebody fit in who obviously wasn’t really interested in fitting in – and then have to go through this all over again another 10 months down the pike. So. Healing Energy to everybody everywhere shaped to the need. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, meeses! Saturday …
It is 14 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 28. Mainly sunny skies are in the forecast.
The Mueller and SDNY news from yesterday afternoon was spun by the White House into a nothingburger before the pixels were even dry! You wonder at which point people realize that a normal person does not have that many criminals working for them and with them and that tRump’s “best people” are part of a criminal enterprise that he ran (and still runs). Maybe never. I do know that the incoming Democratic House majority needs to proceed carefully. We have two years to make our case that we are the party that knows how to govern and if we get bogged down in dead end impeachment procedures we will have wasted our 2018 wave. The Senate will not remove him. Period. There is only one way Trump leaves: someone close to him has to convince him to resign, a package of pardons is given to him and his children and he leaves before he can damage what’s left of the government. Impeaching Trump for no purpose other than to say he was impeached (it is meaningless) would be reckless. Pass the protect our honest elections bill, pass the green infrastructure plan, pass bills re-invigorating the CFPB and the EPA, pass DACA, do oversight of the cabinet secretaries and their departments – that is what people voted for.
The nazi who killed Heather Heyer was convicted of first-degree murder. Good. I am sure the president* is beside himself that “fine people” are being held responsible for the hate crimes he inspires. It is good that the conviction was in state court or he would probably pardon him as a hero!
See all y’all later!
Saturday Meese
17 degrees here in the Catskills of NY going up to 33.
So much news it is overwhelming. Hoping that it will lead to Trump Klan members getting put on trial.
PR
I saw that Chef José Andrés was tweeting that tourists should vacation in Puerto Rico, that the resorts are ready for them. I hope they do – their economy could use a boost!
Good morning, Meese, looks like a partly cloudy Saturday outside at 7:30 a.m. It’s 22 F. in Ashburn at the moment—I did wonder about that when I saw frost sparkling on the grass in the courtyard an hour ago—going up to 37 F.
Yesterday was busy. Wish we could have a quiet day at home but that won’t happen until tomorrow.
This, from Jan’s comment yesterday:
Emphatically agree with that. Also followed the Kamala Harris discusson. I like her, and if she runs for POTUS another Democratic senator would be elected in blue California. What bugs me is the automatic assumption that a white male would be the right person for the Oval Office. I’m tired of my gender being dismissed as of no importance. Have waited a lifetime for a qualified woman president, so after electing a supremely unqualified white male criminal, I think electing one is the least the country could do to atone.
Wishing all a good day at the Pond!
I think the thing most disrespectful is the “she’s a cop!” stuff that the berners are pushing about Kamala Harris. She is not a “cop”, she was an Attorney General, responsible for enforcing laws – sure – but also for making sure that enforcement respects the rights of people. The California OAG is also responsible for consumer protection, civil rights, environmental and health rights. The Attorney General manages 4,500 people and oversees multiple projects and departments. One of our best presidents ever, Barack Obama, came from the Senate but before that he was an Illinois State Senator and a law professor, hardly a beefy resume. What he brought to the presidency was his intellect and his sense of decency, attributes that should not be short-changed. If we had any term-limited Democratic governors who were not total jokes (the NoLabels governor of Colorado and the anti-choice Montana governor come to mind in the joke category), maybe we could get someone from the executive side of things but we don’t. Right now looking around, Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington would be great – maybe some of the new Democratic governors in Michigan and New Mexico will form an excellent bench for 2028 and beyond. Maybe the gubernatorial candidates who did not win this time, Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum, would be good but you probably need a place to launch from.
I am with you, Diana. Someone will need to make a very good case for it to NOT be a woman in 2020 before I get off the Kamala Harris bandwagon. I don’t see any other women running who could win.
I love sleeping in on Saturdays. Watching Up — the show on MSNBC before Joy Reid. Good balance of smart & fun. Today: groceries & cooking because tomorrow is insanely packed. We had really heavy rain yesterday, but it’s supposed to clear out. But tomorrow morning for my workout, it’ll be in the 30s. Boo.
Welp, it’s 28 windchill 15, we may or may not get snow today, and it’s so dark the PV system hasn’t come out of night mode yet. Happy Saturday. We only generated 2 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 31. Definitely not on track for 180 but we shall see what we shall see.
Can’t do much but hold the Good Thought politically speaking. We’ve got the House back and that’s wonderful. We don’t have anything else. Holding on and keep building is where we are. Miracles are not going to happen but things will get better. Hopefully enough better we get the whole Congress and WH in 2020 so we can actually make those changes. Maybe with a Senate Majority Leader who can manage to run with all the progressive legislation Speaker Pelosi sends. All of the rules giving minorities the ability to block things that were in place in 2009-10 aren’t there any longer so it will be a matter – IF we have the Senate – of keeping Dems together. One more time and place where we shall see what we shall see. Meanwhile I need to tidy up the house a bit before tomorrow’s “decorate the tree at grandma’s” – living with cats means there’s always tidying to do. LOL. Healing Energy to everybody shaped to the need. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 37, cloudy and still dark in Bellingham. It was a push, and a big relief, to get my daughter’s Christmas boxes wrapped and in the mail yesterday. Once that’s done the rest seems more manageable. I’ve still got a lot to do though…being the family Santa with no elves is an endless task!
Time to find some tea. RonK was out and about with his camera yesterday and forgot we were out of milk so no coffee for me until he goes to the store. Needless to say it had best be soon!
Best wishes to all on this December day.
Good morning meese, 36 with high of 59 today. Hopefully it’ll get warmer; I have to take Belle to the vet this morning for another (hopefully last) antibiotic shot and to have her ears checked. Noname is chilling out eating his kibble at the moment. I really do need to start packing…! ????
Wishing everyone a good day and weekend.
Good/Healing Thoughts for the kittehs – and you, of course. Yeah, you’d best start packing. I doubt I have anything that would fit you other than my SCA cape. And even that’s iffy. ????{{{HUGS}}}
I’ve decided to skip my workout tomorrow morning. Tomorrow’s schedule was insane: up at 6:30, leave house by 7:15, workout 7:30-9something, dash home, leave for church by 10:30; church till 12:15 or so — Lessons & Carols will run late, executive committee meeting as soon after church as I can get there, Holiday party at 2…… and as much as I want to, there’s no way I can go to the evening version of Lessons & Carols at 7pm. It’s really lovely, with the candles all lit…. but it’s too much.
And I think I’m calling in sick at work on Monday. I’m too tired to cook today, can’t cook tomorrow…. again, there’s too much to do & not enough me.