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 (dated 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, 37, cloudy and still very dark in Bellingham. Spending the day is bed was apparently what I needed to do because I’m awake now with an odd feeling of energy. I want to pack Christmas away, but our grandson will be here this weekend for a visit so I’ll honor his mom’s request for some more time visiting by the tree.
I’ve got enough laundry to do to stay busy today, and I hope to write a few short notes in our Christmas cards. Seems like we never get to it prior to Christmas.
Best wishes to all.
Good morning, Meesefolk; 36 with a high of 39 today and 100% chance of showers according to my weather widget. My widget also tells me that the next sunny day will be Sunday. I’m not sure I needed to know that, because now I have Expectations!
Like princesspat, I’m feeling more energetic today, although I wish I was at home with this burst rather than at work. I have a bunch of small, but time-consuming, projects I want to accomplish over the weekend, so I hope I’m still feeling as fresh by Saturday. The projects are of the moving puzzle variety: I want to clean and restore another bookcase I’ll be taking to the Kiddo, but that means moving the books it currently holds, which means packing some dishes also headed to Kiddo but temporarily on my built-in shelving, which have to be washed first, etc. etc. etc.
I, too, have been avoiding the nonsensical tweets of Individual 1, but I couldn’t avoid the DHS response to yet another death of a child while imprisoned and neglected by our government. There is special circle of hell waiting just for Kirstjen Nielsen; Joy Reid (filling in for Rachel) last night pointed out that the DHS response could have been written by someone at Faux News, because it was so loaded with blame, a sense of victimhood, and lying talking points. It prompted me to make another contribution to RAICES, because at this point, it seems like the only thing I can do.
Good day to and for all!
Good morning, 43 with a high of 55. Lots of nerves today waiting to hear if my roommate be approved. In the meantime, I’m off to work and to mail some holiday cards.
{{{basket}}} – Holding the Good Thought and holding you in my heart. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Friday Meese
37 and raining here in Saugerties
This made me smile
Black voters
To your last tweet, the answer is yes. To your second to last tweet (“Word to the unwise: Black voters will reject any 2020 Democratic candidate who trashes Obama to appease the far left”), I concur. Not everyone who voted for Bernie Sanders in 2016 was anti-Obama – many just wanted Sanders instead of Hillary and did not realize that Sanders hated President Obama and has nothing but contempt for the Democratic base. If he wants to find out just how many were in each group, he should continue his Obama-bashing. I had unsettled sleep last night thinking about a Sanders third-party run that re*-elects Trump. I am not sure who would be positioned to advise him against that (he only listens to Jane and Zogby) but a guy who found nothing wrong with his fans trashing the Democratic nominee and creating fertile ground for a Trump electoral college win is unlikely to be convinced to subsume his ginormous ego to save our country from a second Trump term.
I was just reading yesterday’s comments and came across that New York Times story about Black Democrats. I noticed that they changed the headline from:
to
I am sure that they got enormous pushback on the “outsize.” In my dictionary, “outsize” means “larger than one should expect.” Only someone not paying attention – or from the editorially suspect New York Times – would consider the influence of Black voters “outsized”. Black voters are the moral core of our party and one of the largest reliable voting blocs. The headline edit “a Force in Democratic Politics” is much better.
Good morning, meeses! Friday …
It is 46 degrees in Madison with an expected afternoon high of 34. The temperature will be dropping and followed by ice pellets and snow! I am glad I don’t have to go anywhere today.
The government will be shut down until the Democrats can open it next week. I am not sure who is advising Individual 1 (thanks, DoReMI, this name works well!) but the optics of having the Democrats come in and open the government and the parks and cut paychecks for people in the Coast Guard and Border Security does not seem like a winner. I know he is convinced that all government workers are Democrats and that only Democrats benefit from government programs but he could not be more wrong. I have no idea how this will turn out: the Democrats will pass the no wall CR (probably the same one the Senate had sent it in order to avoid controversy) and send it to the Senate and the Senate will be in the same boat as the Paul Ryan House was in – do they pass a bill that they know their president does not want and risk a veto? Or do they find some way to convince him that the border wall is in there somewhere? I am pretty sure that the newly constituted Senate with two more Republicans and trumpian hardliners replacing basic terrible Republicans is not going to want to start off the new Congress and new year with a veto override.
I wonder if Individual 1 also realizes that government by tweet is getting old and that the only people paying attention to his shutdown tweets now are his fans and reporters. The American people are already set – the shutdown is Trump’s and they want it to end.
See all y’all later!
Cold front is here — 40ish degrees, , feels cold after yesterday’s barely-need-a-sweater morning & high of 71. Yesterday was awful at work, there were only 4 of us answering the phones — 3, because 1 was doing the voice mail from the long weekend. There were only 2 of us to split the e-mail — and we had to keep taking calls. And 2 people left before 4. It was exhausting. I got in a walk after work — slower pace because it was dark, but I did a little over a mile.
Here’s Life On Earth, seems fitting for today, with all the mess — the shutdown, the Russia mess, and it’s barely a blip in the news that Trump gave away the location of a Seal team….
This shouldn’t need to be so f*cking hard
This is life on earth
It’s just life on earth
It doesn’t need to be the end of you, or me
This is life on earth
It’s just life on earth
I love the video — some of it shot at the European Space Administration — spacemen & babies
Kudos to Brainwrap
Wow! How cool would it be to be called “great” by Paul Krugman! I am sure that Charles will be difficult to live with on Twitter for a while. :) Kidding aside, he does great work and is the go-to guy on health insurance information.
I saw that yesterday. And smiled. It’s good when people have done that much work get recognized publicly.
I know Charles “IRL” (Michiganders unite!), and he’s every bit of who he is on Twitter. We’ve bonded more over his viewing of the Marvel movies with his son than health insurance issues, but he’s been a huge help and support as Kiddo and SIL have had to contend with the health/insurance issues of SILs mom and her right-wing-based resistance to anything touched by Democrats. He is indeed a good guy.
Diana, you asked which news aggregator I used and I will share it here along with the way I use it – everyone probably uses it a little differently.
The site is called Memeorandum – Political Web. It pulls stories from lots of different news sites and blogs. When you open it, it shows a 2/3rds column on the left with news stories in indented categories (they choose one story to be the left margin and then related stories are indented under it). Also included with each story is the key word “Discussion” where you can see where that particular article is being discussed. You can scroll down and see the stories, usually yesterday and today. The 1/3rd cut right margin is called New Item Finder and is a list with new stories on top and older ones on the bottom. At the very bottom is a link named “Extend Timeline” and it gives you a longer list. At the top, if you stay on the page for a while, you will see “n new item(s)” where it shows you that new items have been added to the timeline since you last refreshed the screen so you know there are new stories but it allows you to finish scanning the page. At the very bottom is another section split into two 1/2th width columns with “More Items” and “Earlier Items”.
I am not sure exactly how it chooses stories or sites but it has a variety of different sources. BE AWARE that it also includes right-wing news sites and blogs so you will not want to click on everything you see; you will be able to tell which ones are not worth a click when you see a headline like “Libtards hate the troops” or “What’s wrong with being a birther?” I find the headlines and the preview blurbs on those quite instructive and certainly enough for me to get a sense of what the right-wing talking points are without having to read any of it.
Anyway, I open it in the morning and scan for interesting stories or news items. Some I will open in tabs to read later, others I will use to get a sense of what is in the news. I leave the tab open and visit it again right before I am ready to shut down for the day and expand the timeline to see what’s new. Anything interesting in there, I usually put to Pocket to read later when I settle in on my couch after lunch. A lot of the stories are already old by the time I can get to them and that is okay – saved me a read!!
Thanks, Jan, would like to try this. I’ll give it a go!
Welp, it’s 25 windchill 17 and maybe going up to 40 in Fayetteville, AR. The cloud cover is starting to move off thanks in part to the rather brisk west wind that will be a north wind shortly. Yesterday we got 5.67 KWHs and the m-t-d is 147.9 – if the day is as sunny as projected we might get to 155 by end of day which would be nice. While 180 for the month isn’t possible, 175 still is so holding the Good Thought.
Holding the Good Thought, Channeling Healing Energy for a bunch of folks – I’d say right now but it’s kind of normal. Too many people I know & care about living too close to the edge – and periodically going over it – for it not to be. And of course in general things aren’t going to get better until we get the Deplorables out of power. They will unfortunately always exist. They will always be evil and cause trouble on an individual basis. But if we can get them out of power, if we “change policy and allocation of resources” they won’t be able to do that damage across the board, across the nation, around the world. So it’s our duty, as hamstrung as we are by the berner/3rd party version of Deplorables, to get them out of power and make those changes in policy and resource allocation. And as our families, parents/grandparents did in the 1930s & 40s, we shall do it.
I’m donating blood today. Or at least trying to. I never count it done until it is. I wasn’t feeling well and missed the last one. Being a “baby quad” donor I do as many as I can. It’s a good way to end the year – the gift of life to some little bitty who came into the world facing a health issue already. Healing Energy to everybody everywhere shaped to the need. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 38 and raining in Bellingham. It’s good I’ve had two days for resting because the next few days will be busy with more family fun. I’m going an early matinee showing of Mary Poppins Returns with my grand girls today, then home to get ready for a weekend visit with Ryan and his mom and dad.
Finn (their dog) does better without having the whole house to patrol so that means strategic gates need to be in place, and every one will be happier if we have some good food. Our tree is close to it’s due date but removing the old water has made the living room smell better :) So I remain wearily grateful and will try to keep a smile in place!
Best wishes to all.
Have fun with the family. Child gates are wonderful for dogs (& human toddlers of course) – they don’t work with cats though. LOL. Healing Energy & {{{HUGS}}}
43 feels like 37. Chilly wind, and movers are coming tomorrow morning so I need to board the cats and get utilities and insurance transferred (already did SMUD) as well as cleaning out the walk-in closet so it’s not too distracting.
{{{basket}}} – Healing & Moving Energy – Holding the Good Thought on the whole situation. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Good afternoon, Meesefolk; does this place have a bar? Because I could do with a stiff drink; it’s even in the 50s here, so I could sit out on the patio (although if the bar and patio are virtual, we might as well have virtual temperatures in the 70s too).
Today has been a nightmare from the minute I walked into work: the router was down, which meant our phone lines were out. I called the service provider’s number on my cell phone, after doing a hard restart to no avail, and got the message that I could expect to be answered in 125 minutes. That wasn’t worth eating up my cell battery for, but fortunately, things were up and running after about an hour. One of my printers wasn’t working, and it just happened to be the one that is connected with our payroll system. I did everything I could think of to fix the problem…also to no avail. I ended up handwriting the payroll checks (yay for working for a small company!) and then decided to swap out the printer cable, which did the trick. So at least I was able to print out paystubs. Then one of my [previously] favorite clients inexplicably went on a rant about “illegals” not paying taxes. We went from talking about estate planning to that somehow, and I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I asked what taxes he was talking about, because no one was exempt from paying sales taxes. And if someone is working with faked papers that their employer has accepted, they are certainly paying FICA, Medicare, and state/federal taxes, with no hope of ever collecting Social Security. If “they” were getting paid cash for more than casual labor, then wasn’t it the employer who was in the wrong, and wasn’t it the employer who should be held responsible for defrauding the government? All of this had to be done in the sweetest tone, with that wide-eyed look of innocence that is oh-so fake, because I’m not supposed to have political discussions with clients. Damn it, white people…do better!
And now it’s time to get back to work, because I’ve spent far too much time today doing things that aren’t really related to my actual work. Good day to and for all!
{{{DoReMI}}} – Have a virtual Irish coffee, on me. You did good if you managed the wide-eyed innocent routine responding to the Deplorable – I’ve never managed not to lose my temper. I’ve lost a few jobs that way back in the day. Healing Energy and more {{{HUGS}}}
What an IT nightmare! It is more than a little worrisome that so much of our infrastructure relies on a stable Internet connection. I was reading about an outage in Idaho and Washington that affected 911 service (busy signals!) for hours due to an Internet “network element”. We don’t have to worry about Russian hacking into and downing our online systems – our own incompetence and lack of redundancy will do us in.
I suspect that the printer cable itself was not the issue but that the “unplugging printer cable, reconnecting printer cable” forced the connected computers and devices to reestablish communication. I have never see a printer cable just fail without something physical involved – people rolling their desk chairs over them and breaking the little wires that make up the cable or subjecting them to heat or moisture.
I thought it was odd about the cables too, but after unplugging everything for five minutes with still nothing working, I was desperately trying anything.
When I left work, I discovered I had a flat tire. It was one of those kinds of days…????
Saturday Meese.
44 and cloudy here in Saugerties NY going up to 45.
Disturbing
Denise, I grieve for women every day. We are all living under oppressive patriarchy but the poor are bearing the worst of it. I don’t know why these murderous men can’t be taught to control themselves. I also don’t know why we don’t teach women to defend themselves.
Of course the overriding cause, I’m sure, is the sense of powerlessness people (men) feel over their circumstances, and this in turn leads them to inflict violence on people with even less power, who are, of course, female. Patriarchal religion bears a great deal of responsibility for this, in teaching that women are inherently evil and largely responsible for humankind’s banishment from Eden (Eve and the snake, Pandora opening the box).
Patriarchal culture tells men they are superior, in control, can handle anything – and if they can’t it’s a woman’s fault. “In Adam’s fall we sinned all” – but it was Eve’s fault. I think Native women have more murders per capita – but not by their own menfolk. That’s a flat-out betrayal. Bad enough that the monsters are after you. Worse when the monsters turn out to be loved ones – and ones who’ve promised to love and take care of you.
Good morning, meeses! Saturday …
It is 21 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 25. Cloudy skies are in the forecast. We had some snow yesterday and the weather people are keeping an eye on a system that may bring us snow on New Years Eve.
I have been catching a glimpse of how the White House will be treating Speaker Pelosi and I know that I will need to draw on all my reserves to keep from screaming at my computer screen. The glaring disrespect that men in power have for women – especially older women – is truly disgusting. I am glad for her steady hand and steely resolve because I know I would not be able to work with those people without wanting to throw something at them.
The news will be easy to follow for the next few days as we will be drowned in 2018 retrospectives. No thank you, 2018 can just curl up and disappear quietly. The lessons we learned are the important thing and are not attached to the year but are part of our present and what we bring to the future.
The Democratic Party Weekly Address was by Joe Neguse, Representative-elect from Colorado’s CD02. That is the seat that Jared Polis, the governor-elect of Colorado, is vacating. The topic is H.R. 1 the omnibus bill that the House will roll out:
I wonder if the bill will have to be renamed H.R. 2 because H.R. 1 will likely be the bill passed to re-open the government. That will mess up their branding!! :)
I have three days to finish projects promised for “this year.” The first step will be peeling back the layers of papers on the desktop where I toss the notes with things that need to be done. It got buried when I had to travel unexpectedly this past week and some new hard deadline end of year projects that were added. I am hoping to catch up this weekend because some of my clients will have Monday, 12/31 off but not as many as had Monday, 12/24 off so I can’t count on that day being quiet.
See all y’all later!
Good Saturn’s Day morning, Meese, and a fair morning it is after yesterday’s heavy rain. A whole gaggle of Canada geese just flapped by on their way to breakfast at a hill in the soggy countryside. Currently it’s 43 F., going up to the low 50s today.
When I look back on this past week I realize that I’ve had child care responsibilities for most of it! However, although Miss Pink Cheeks begged to stay with us this weekend rather than accompany her family to Ocean City, MD, I told her no. Grandpa needs rest and quiet.
He was at the doctor’s office from 10 to 4 on Thursday, undergoing all kinds of tests. He didn’t get any food or water all day, which exacerbated the situation. The doctor said he had congestive heart failure (gulp!) and prescribed various meds, which Dearly Beloved took. He did feel better yesterday morning. I left for most of the day with Miss PC, and together we looked after Mr. Preschooler, who as usual wanted to scare us. The doctor wants him back next week. He also told Dearly yesterday that he wasn’t sure whether it was congestive heart failure or emphysema. Uh…he’s a doctor and he doesn’t know?
Thanks for the good wishes for Dearly’s health, Meese, much appreciated! I think the second trip to London in two months brought this on, although cold weather never agrees with him anyway. As bfitz remarked, the foundations for this bronchial business were laid in the damp air raid shelter during the war.
Anyway, we are going to have a nice, relaxing weekend during which I refuse to do any housework other than cooking. Chapters 14 and 15 are dying to be written, while as for Chapter 16, I’ll have to do some research. I know very little about Kama Sutra high jinks, but I’m sure the Intertubes will help me find out!
Wishing everyone at the Pond a good, productive or nonproductive day, as the case may be.
I hope rest works to ease your husband’s discomfort – it is alarming to have the doctor guess at the cause! I know people who have been diagnosed with congestive heart failure and who have lived many years after that. I think it is a catch-all for “you are getting old and some of your breathing/pumping parts are showing signs of wear and tear.”
That’s scary about DB’s health – and yeah, the foundations were laid going on for 8 decades ago. Congestive heart failure is pretty much a catchall for “there’s fluid in there” – it’s descriptive and not really diagnostic. I knew an elderly Italian gentleman some years back (FIL of a neighbor – he moved in with them when his wife died – why, yes, he was an immigrant) who was diagnosed with that and kept going another 10 years in reasonable health for his age. He said the secret is red wine – “4 oz a day, no more” – but maybe that’s only for Italians. (He’s the one who when his grandson came back from a visit to Italy saying he was told his family was “Mafioso” said “Not any more.” Shocked the heck out of his son as well as his grandsons.) Anyway, Lots and Lots of Healing Energy. {{{HUGS}}}
That’s interesting, bfitz! Years ago we watched a TV show called “the French effect,” which related how French people live to be 100 because they drink red wine every day. I begged Dearly, who until then was a beer man, to start drinking a glass of red wine every night with dinner. It must have worked, because here he is at 88, still driving, running errands, walking the dog, etc., etc.
Slept in — sort of, because my allergies really picked up, I took benadryl with dinner, before bed & around midnight. Still sneezing my head off & water faucet nose. Watching the news, eating breakfast. This afternoon, I’m having lunch with an old friend who’s here from Oregon visiting family. And I’m gonna try to get in a walk, if I can stop sneezing long enough.
Slow start on this very chilly day – 24 heading for 37 although with the wind from the north I doubt the windchill will get out of the 20s. It didn’t yesterday. ‘Spozed to be sunny but it hasn’t gotten there yet. Although a couple of hours ago when I stepped outside to fill the bird-feeding station a small patch opened up for the nurturing Momma Moon to peek through – allowing me to send Love and Healing Energy out and about by way of Her. Yesterday was a good generation day. We got 8.086 KWHs and the m-t-d is 156. We’ve got 3 production days left so we shall see what we shall see. I’m definitely using more electricity than I did when I was working full time. Generation for the year is 4.19 MWHs, more than the last 2, and yet it’s gonna be a squeaker as to whether or not I’ll have to buy electricity from SWEPCO next month or the month after. sigh. I need to figure out how to deal with that. I don’t think I can afford to add any more panels. I’ll think of something. I hope.
Ignoring as much as I can of what’s going on. Come Wednesday Nancy picks up the gavel again and we shall see what we shall see in how much she manages to do under these circumstances. One thing solid and sure – all spending bills originate in the House. Meanwhile I’ve got the stock pot going and will make soup tomorrow or Monday. Food prep, floors and laundry always need to be dealt with. And Channeling Healing Energy to everybody everywhere shaped to the need. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 52 and cloudy in Bellingham. We all stumbled into the theatre yesterday morning and left smiling. The new Mary Poppins movie has mixed reviews, apparently written by grumpy writers, but we all enjoyed every moment. It’s fun to see classic animation blended with CGI imagery and talented human performers…..movie magic!
I came home to a messy house and lots of laundry. No magic in that, just a few hours of real work. RonK will go to the grocery store this morning and then we’ll be ready for the grand kids to play board games, visiting, and yet another family dinner. Lucky me!
Best wishes to all.
46 and sunny (but a bit chilly). Just need to power through the next few days and then I can get a bit of rest hopefully. Movers are coming some time this afternoon, my roommate aitchdee needs to sign some more documents that were missed the first time, and I’m about to go and board Belle and Noname for the weekend.
{{{basket}}} & also {{{aitchdee}}} – sending Energy to deal with the moving or anything else you need it. moar {{{HUGS}}}