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 (usually Saturday night with a Sunday date). 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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– Page One of Comments is HERE!
– Page Two of Comments is HERE!
Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …
Morning low of 19 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 41. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Sunday Meese
Getting April showers a day early – 54 going up to 56 here in NYS.
NY Daily News Editorial Board:
Where is he getting the $91 billion number from?
Maybe from what PR requested – as a total of all needs
Sunday sermon up ;)
I need to check to see whether I’ve donated to her lately.
Is it an amendment or an article? I say invoke #25 NOW.
Up, watching MSNBC. There’s a speaker at church this morning — Brian McLaren, his latest book is about how people are building religion based on love. He’s speaking during Sunday School, then preaching at 11; I’m going to go to both. Still getting over yesterday’s double whammy of sadness: the economic hit and Minerva’s birthday. And it’s cold! Waiting for the tow truck yesterday — took them an hour — I changed from shorts & sandals to real shoes & a sweatshirt. And this morning it’s in the 40s. So going for comfort music again. This is from Snow Patrol’s album released last year, but in that tie, it’s become serious comfort for me: Life On Earth.
Good morning, Moosekind! Breakfast has been cooked and eaten. The sky this morning is gray on top and white on the bottom: the overcast is composed of bunchy, ripply clouds that look like a comforter that hasn’t been straightened over the bed. The current temperature is 56 F., going up to 66 F., with rain in the forecast. It’s going to be an onion-soup-for-lunch day.
Haven’t quite assessed all the news, been too busy. I do need to finish cleaning the bathrooms before the race starts at 11.
I’m having trouble with the last line of the Epilogue:
1) (Current) And in time Nick became a competent, if not brilliant horseman.
“Horseman” sounds so old-fashioned. Would No. 2 be better?
2) After Brooke’s parents gave them two mounts for a wedding present, Nick learned to ride well enough to accompany Brooke on her gallops over the hills.
I have to wrap up the book project TODAY! I’m getting so tired of reading through it for errors I could scream. I might have to print it out and do that, though.
Wishing all a nice, peaceful Sunday with no bad news.
{{{Diana}}} – I’m old-fashioned myself but I think your second is better. It conveys more information. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Thanks, bfitz!
Good morning, 42 and sunny in Bellingham. I enjoyed a nice afternoon with my son yesterday, just visiting and planting the spring flowers together. There’s still a lot of winter burned plants to prune, but that will happen one area at a time and for now it’s nice to see pansies in the pots.
My grand kids are on spring break now so we’ll be spending a few days at a resort near the Canadian border. It’s on a wonderful beach so rain or shine we’ll be outdoors together, at the pool, playing board games, and of course enjoying various mobile devices :) Three kids eat a lot, so I’m going shopping today for snacks, drinks, and breakfast food. I really want some easy time with the kids, so my hope is we’ll just relax together.
Best wishes to all as we begin a new week.
Running late this morning, obviously, but I’ve gotten everything but vacuuming the bathrooms done. Including baking cocoa peanut butter muffin bread for breakfasts and coffee breaks. Of the latter I’m taking one now to check in everywhere. Yesterday we only got 4.7 KWHs for the entire day. Today we’ve already gotten 3 – and the m-t-d at the moment is 363.7 so with this lovely sunny if chilly (temps in the low 30s and feel lower) day we will probably get to 370 and may even get to 380. Which would be a nice way to round out March. Which decided to go out like a lamb sort of – blessed sunshine and not the snow predicted earlier in the week but not warm by anybody’s imagination (although not cold by a bunch of folks’ current situation).
So far I haven’t let any of the cats outside since Murf joined us a week ago yesterday. I’m trying to keep my resolve up on that. In my youth and younger womanhood I always had outdoor-indoor cats, mostly untended by vets too. As I’ve learned more about what can hurt cats – and have managed a step or two up in income v. outgo level so I can actually afford to have indoor-only cats – I’ve tried to keep the guys inside. But all but Murf really want to go outside periodically. And Murf is starting to feel better enough he’s periodically leaving the wool blanket on my bed to check out the windows. We shall see what we shall see. As with everything else. Like Aji’s biopsy results, Dx, and treatment. Or whether several folks I’m worried about managing to not become homeless.
Anyway, I need to go boost Aji’s stuff and read Dee’s diary/boost Dee’s stuff that I haven’t already. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Monday Meese
34 degrees here in Saugerties NY going up to 45.
This is due to happen in September – needs to be addressed now.
I do not understand why the media do not call out Thing’s obvious lies!
Because if they aren’t called out they aren’t obvious lies – at least as far as Rs are concerned. & the media put twitler in the WH, as ordered by their 5 RW-corporate owners.
Good morning, meeses! Monday …
It is 30 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 50. The forecast calls for mixed precipitation including wet snow with a rerun tomorrow. April – coming in like a big pain in the ass!
I may skip the Internets today. Between people with April Fools “jokes” (which are never funny) and the “but he is a kindly old man, let him grope and fondle!” stories which are getting on my last nerve, it seems like a good day to close tabs and make a big dent in my to-do list. For what it is worth, old men grabbing women should never have been okay – that the excuse is that the person doing it is “from a different time” is just a reminder that the he should stay in those older times and leave the future to people who respect women: their reproductive rights, their right to personal space, and their right to seek – and get – any job they want.
See all y’all later!
p.s. For people who still experience issues logging in, the problem appears to have been related to a version of the software used to run the web site at the hosting firm. I am still not sure why it started failing but if it fails for you, it is likely related to the bookmark you are using to get to the site. Delete that bookmark and rebuild it, taking care not to use the “https” (we are “http”). That should get you in. See the link in the Welcomings Post if you need one. If that does not work, post the link you are using to get to the site so that I can pass that along to our hosting site’s tech support.
Brrrr! Ok, in most of the country, 43 wouldn’t be cold, but it’s April, this is Texas & I’d gotten used to sandals. This morning, I wore a heavy sweatshirt, hat, gloves & wool socks. Trying to be positive about the cold snap, because in a couple of months, this will be a fond memory. There really comes a point in our 6 month long summer when I forget what cold feels like. I updated my android phone & I wish I could undo it. My time display is gone — yes, I checked “settings” to see if it’s still set for that. And you can’t just shrink an app & close it, if you tap the corner, it opens back up again, you have to “close all”. Definitely first world problems, but why do all updates make things worse? Here’s happy, bouncy Heal Me from Snow Patrol.
Android updates scare the heck out of me and it is incredibly annoying that you can only defer them for so long, then they say “tough, I’m wrecking your phone!” I usually delay the first one until I can get a full backup including screen shots of my home screens which I have just so. Then I manually request the update, making sure I am plugged into power. The last several have been uneventful but earlier ones ate up so much memory that I needed a new phone (planned obsolescence?).
Good morning, Moosekind! It’s partly cloudy in Ashburn with a current temp. of 37 F., going for a high of a miserable 47 F. at 3 p.m. I hate these dips backward into winter. All the rain that was supposed to start in the wee hours yesterday morning and become especially heavy from 10 a.m. to noon failed to materialize. Instead we had hazy blue skies and weak sunlight. I wonder how meteorologists keep their jobs when they keep getting it so wrong?
Did you see the tweet of the woman throwing her cat through the window to discourage a curious wild moose who was outside, trying to look in? If I knew how to copy and paste a tweet here, I would do it.
I’m still reading through the mss. At least I’ve done the Acknowledgments page, the author bio, and decided on the dedication.
I can’t believe that pièce de merde wants to close the southern border, thereby causing Son of the Great Depression! Gosh, he’s just going to be so busy—killing the ACA, killing Social and Medicare, and closing down the border! When will he have time to golf? Will we have a country left in 2020?
Now that I’ve cheered you up, it’s time to get cracking on the workload. Jan, thank you for everything you’ve done re getting the Moose to rights. I’ll visit “Welcomings” to get the link to bookmark.
Wishing all a good day.
Welp, Happy New Month which happens to be April. Interesting that the 2nd quarter & only the 2nd quarter of our Xtian/colonial calendar is/became all girls names. Of course the calendar adjustments over the centuries that shifted equinox/Ostara to March 20th/21st is what makes it weird. With a calendar that had Ostara on April 1st it’s still interesting but maybe not as weird. ???????????????????????? Anyway it’s 35, feels colder and heading for upper 40s. The bird water was liquid at 6:30 a.m. so the hard freeze didn’t happen. YEA!!! It’s sunny at the moment although the forecast says it’s gonna cloud up. I hope not. Yesterday we got the highest production of the year so far – 22.9 KWHs – and wrapped up March with 383.4 so not bad at all. This morning of course we’re starting a new month so have diddly for both day and month – not quite a third of a kilowatt yet. The 476 KWHs we got in April 2016 is our goal. Anything over 400 is good.
Being a new day, month, and quarter I’m hoping some of the things that have been on hold resolve themselves. That’s ranging from Aji’s health stuff through my various friends in danger of homelessness to my much smaller issue of how much longer I’m working. (One of the two “finalists” is having her 2nd interview today.) As to politics, I know who I’m supporting for president and it would take a heck of a lot to change my mind so I’m not paying a lot of attention to the sturm und drang – just boost Aji and Dee’s tweets plus whatever takes my eye the 3 or 4 times I visit my TL. Meanwhile I am at work and need to get to it. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 40 and sunny in Bellingham. So when yesterday’s list slides into today’s it gets busy! Our spring break holiday with the grand kids begins tomorrow and I’m not ready to go. But I will be…. master procrastinator that I am :)
Best wishes to all.
Good morning, Meesefolk; 21 when I got up with a high of 43, so a big “meh” although it’s sunny enough to keep my mood relatively sunny too. And this weekend’s snow (more than a dusting, less than measurable) should melt, so yay for that.
This weekend I devoted myself to adventures in hooking, and as long as success is measured in terms of what doesn’t work, it was a highly successful first attempt. I’m not sure why at this point in my life I’m trying to take up a new hobby, particularly since I could spend the rest of my life sewing and still not use up my stash. But I adore the seat pads that my grandmother hooked (which I still have AND use), so I thought I’d give it a try. So far I’ve learned that patterns on burlap won’t work with the type of punch needle I have, so my next attempt will be using a linen-like fabric with a pre-printed pattern. I just want to get to the point where I can make a few scatter rugs and some seat pads, so I hope the learning curve won’t be too steep.
Good day to and for all!
Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …
It is 43 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 48. The forecast calls for rain all day.
There is an important election in Wisconsin today where we can hold a liberal-leaning Supreme Court seat (the justice is retiring) that will set us up for a possible takeover in 2020. The right-winger that the Republicans put up is so awful that even the WMC, Wisconsin’s version of the Chamber of Commerce, won’t touch him – the Realtors Association endorsed him and unendorsed him because of his extreme anti-LGBT positions. He was Scott Walker’s attorney and, in post-Walker Wisconsin, the Republicans are slow to learn the lessons of 2018 where we swept every statewide office – people despise Walker, his political party, and their politics of hate. I hope the turnout is high – Madison has a competitive mayoral race so that should help around here but judicial elections don’t generate the passion that they should.
The Biden apologia has me muting people who I normally consider safe to follow – it is the Al Franken issue on steroids. That Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) said “my 13-year-old daughter didn’t mind Biden grabbing her” is EXACTLY what is wrong with this – how does he really know and what does it teach young women to hear that their fathers will speak for them and decide that the creepy old guy touching you is “just fine” because he is daddy’s friend? This piece (“It doesn’t matter what Joe Biden meant to do”) summed it up:
It is the height of privilege to claim that you are “just being yourself” and that everyone has to accept it.
Busy day here – I have hard deadlines to meet and a morning appointment which will cut into my schedule.
See all y’all later!
Another article discussed the discomfort this is causing in a Senate that has a lot of women in it:
Tuesday Meese
24 degrees here (brrrrrrrrrr) going up to 52
Glad to see Senators standing up for Puerto Rico
Another cold morning, but warm up starts this afternoon. Maybe the last day till fall for hat, gloves, sweatshirt. So many bad things in the news. Going to listen to the Great Dictator speech at the beginning of Head Full of Dreams.
Good morning, Meese! It’s 35 F. here in Ashburn at the moment, going up to 50 F. later. That’s still too cold. It’s sunny, though, and will be dry today—or so they say.
Still trying to get the book wrapped up. It’s amazing about all the little things a person can find when going through the mss. for the umpteenth time. I do think I’ll be able to contact the publisher after lunch today. Not looking forward to formatting the headings.
The April Fool’s issue of the weekly publication came out yesterday. They used only two of my offerings and cut them down to the point where they weren’t even funny. Oh, well, I have a website to which I can upload whatever I please, so that’s okay.
Feeling uncomfortable with the amount of attention Buttigieg is getting. I wish I knew why I find him so utterly unappealing. Is it his tone-deafness to women and people of color, or is there something additional? I just can’t put my finger on it. I do wonder at the extreme egotism of white males. It would never occur to me to run for president just because I’m alive, and English-speaking, and things like that.
Exercise class at 11, so must get on with my day! Hope everyone will have a nice, undisturbing Tuesday.
The headlines were excitedly amplifying his fund raising totals while they brushed aside the $12 million that Kamala had brought in. They really really want a white male and it is going to have to be our job to shut down the DC press. I am really sad to see how the Bro-Bamas, Axelrod and Favreau, have seemingly made it their life’s goal to insure that a woman not get the nomination. Boo, hiss!
Black Kos – discussion of this went onto the rec list – and stayed there – I’m amazed
It’s 40 but feels like 35, heading for mid 60s, and sunny today in Fay., AR. I may be able to walk home today which would be nice. Even in yesterday’s cloudiness we got 11.3 KWHs – oh, what a difference the time of year makes – which of course is the m-t-d at the moment. If the sun holds out I expect to get at least close to 20 today and maybe better since we got almost 23 on Sunday. This is very good. Of course we’re also close to the best we’ll get with that. Once the trees leaf out the system will be shaded part of the day.
I grew up around men who hug. It was considered just them being caring. Momma’s “talk” with me dealt with hugs that lasted too long (over about 3 seconds, pat-pat-pat on the back) or weren’t just hugs but touching other parts of the body. I used to do a lot of hugging myself without considering whether or not the recipient even wanted it much less whether they’d be freaked out by it. It took being firmly pushed away with a sharp “don’t touch me” before I started to get it. And it took decades – and knowing abused folks, mostly but not all women, who were willing to talk about it – before it really started to sink in. #MeToo is where it finally (I hope) came together – it doesn’t matter what the person doing the touching intends, what matters is how the person being touched feels about it. And that means whether I like/d somebody or not I am not defending the touchers. Period.
I’m at work and need coffee but I’ll get over to DoReMi’s Tuesday post as soon as I can. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
This is really the gist of it: “it doesn’t matter what the person doing the touching intends, what matters is how the person being touched feels about it.”
Women – and especially girls – won’t say anything when they are in a low-power situation or if others (their parents!) say it is fine. It is extremely unfair to put anyone in that situation. Nancy Pelosi stepped in and put it pretty clearly that he needs to stop doing it and he needs to apologize for his behaviour, without adding the “if anyone was offended.” She also says it is not disqualifying – which is probably true. But it does highlight how old school Biden is and should make everyone wonder if we want old school or if we want something different.
Good morning, Meesefolk; 37 when I got up (late) this morning with a cloudy high of 52. The clouds keep the day in “meh” territory, and it looks like we won’t move beyond that until Saturday. But a sunny, warm Saturday? I’ll take that!
I’ve been watching the emergence of fanboys and fangirls for Mayor Pete with interest. I know this partially a function of my own bias, but I’m seeing an awful lot of squeeing over surface/superficial stuff and very little interest in doing deeper dives. I have a number of friends who were Bernie supporters, and they’re quickly becoming Mayor Pete fans. When I’ve tried to point out that South Bend is roughly the same population as Flint and with far less diversity or that his mayoral elections have garnered him less than 20,000 votes or that his claim to be a data nerd and policy geek are exactly the characteristics for which they derided Hillary, I’m assured it’s different. Between internalized misogyny and Whiteness politics, I think I need new friends.
Good day to and for all!
It seems like being the mayor of an all-white city is the new sign of presidential timber. Burlington VT is even whiter and less diverse (I assume that Notre Dame at least has some international students to add the look of diversity) and that is Bernie’s claim of “I know how to run things.” People seem to overlook Stanford grad, Rhodes Scholar, one-time mayor of Newark New Jersey Cory Booker in that discussion. I wonder why!
Wednesday Meese. 35 here in NYS going up to 62.
Congratulations to the citizens of Chicago
Puerto Rico
Also too Madison WI – Mayor-elect Rhodes-Conway is not black but she is a “first”: