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!
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Leaving work early today because Goodwill has a discount on Tuesdays for people over 55. I’m going to go to the big one, and look for a microwave. Leaving early because the big store is on a highway that’s notoriously gridlocked during rush hour. It’s been weird not having one. And I just looked up about getting re-vaccinated for measles, and it’s covered on my health insurance, so now I just have to find a place & do it. I keep hoping they’ll have a clinic at work like they do for the flu shots.
Just Say Yes from the concert I was at — just a happy, goofy, dance-y song.
Good hunting, anotherdemocrat!
Yikes, do we really have to be revaccinated? I don’t know that I ever was, because I think I actually had the measles. I know I had chicken pox, so I opted to get the shingles vac or whatever it is.
Anyone born before 1957 and who did NOT get measles may be at risk. There is also something related to 1968 and a vaccination around that time not being the right one. I am almost sure I had measles but I need to check with my mother. If she can’t remember, I will go to my doctor and get a titre to see if I am immunized and if not, get the MMR. I know I got chicken pox but I am just not sure about measles.
There is no reported danger to getting the MMR even if you have had measles. Since it’s often more expensive to get a titre than to get the immunization, don’t be surprised if a doctor recommends just getting the shot. I’m “fortunate;” I had the measles in 2nd grade and was out of school for two weeks. It was the sickest I’ve ever been in my life…I can’t imagine being a parent and not doing everything in my power to help my child avoid the misery of measles. (I also distinctly remember that I knew I had the measles even before the rash appeared because I was reading Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, and when Polly got the measles, it described her eyes hurting. I experienced the same light sensitivity and took to my bedroom with the blind pulled. When my mother came upstairs late that morning to see why I was taking so long to complete my Saturday chores, I was a rashy, miserable mess.)
I communicated with my mother yesterday and she said I had the measles but not the mumps. If the mumps start becoming an issue, I will go get the MMR.
I know that titres are more expensive – I just have an aversion to putting things into my bloodstream if I don’t have to. I am not anti-vax – I get the flu shot and my daughter was kept up to date on all her shots, it is just a “my body is a temple” thing. :)
Daily Kamala ;)
Good morning meese, 53 with high of 72. I think I have my repertoire ready for the contest; now to start memorizing. My theme song is probably going to be Potato Head Blues. ???? (this year’s theme is food and drink; other candidates included Life Is Like A Bowl Of Cherries and I Want A Big Butter And Egg Man)
{{{basket}}} Have fun practicing/rehearsing. ???????????? {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, Meesefolk; 39 this morning going up to 52. The weather widget says cloudy; my eyes say glare and more glare. Lions, lambs, showers, flowers…all those childhood sayings seem more mythical than real, at least compared to when I was younger. I can’t tell if this says something about climate change or my impatience with lingering winter-esque weather. If I were a betting person, I’d put my money on the latter, because lack of spring makes me grumpy. Obviously…!
For the time being, I’m getting my spring vicariously from the Kiddo. She’s been sending me photos daily as things pop up in her gardens with identification requests. It’s been fun, although clearly my attempts at teaching her about plants when she was a little kid didn’t take. As a result, one of my best friends and I are going down for a weekend in May with the plan to identify all of the trees in the woodland part of her yard. We’re also taking down a few shrubs to plant; my friend still has a wholesale account at the farm where I used to work, so it makes sense to load the car with shrubs for the Kiddo.
Time to go read the Kamala post by Bobby; good day to and for all.
Good morning DoReMI. Sorry to hear you’re feeling grumpy. I hope the weekend visit to Kiddo will lift your spirits.
Happy Beltane (or possibly Beltane Eve – I’m not sure which since I don’t celebrate it until around the 4th) – I don’t have a Maypole handy and am not planning on leaping any fires tonight but it’s lovely to have weather that allows windows to be open for the cats. Not so nice that now the weather is warmer the new kitties want outside and are noisy about it. But they calm down after a bit – I just ignore them as long as noisy is all they do about it. We generated just over 10 KWHs yesterday bringing the m-t-d to 467 – if we can do the same today (which is iffy) we’ll have done the “best April ever” for this system although admittedly not by much. If the sun decides to come out and give us some serious generation…well, it would be a lovely Beltane present. ????????????✨ ????????????
My friend’s husband apparently decided messing with my car was “mess” enough and holed up in his bedroom (she’s heard him in there but hasn’t actually talked to him since the vague threat of yesterday). She’s very caring and is still working on reaching his doctor and trying to straighten out his meds. I’d have given him the Order of the Boot and let him fend for himself after yesterday’s performance – but then I have some history and his behavior pushed some buttons for me. One more “we don’t have a health care system in America, we have a for-profit medical industry” example. (Yeah, Aji hasn’t heard anything yet/still. And I’m not even going to start with the other folks I know who are either dead or in dire straits because of incompetent uncaring medical “professionals” who’ve ignored or misdiagnosed/mistreated their health issues.) Prayers & invocations all around. Sometimes miracles do happen.
So. I’m no longer working. Funding for the old position ran out so even if the new person doesn’t work out I won’t be back. Well – dire situations maybe a few hours – but we’re going to put a whole lot of hope into the new person working out. My friend cannot continue to carry the work of 1-1/2 jobs – she’s been doing it for 18 months now and she’s burned out. She’s have walked if she didn’t need the money. sigh. I definitely understand that. There were times with the previous Chair I almost walked – daily – and only the need for the paycheck kept me there. The only thing not working means for me now is that I don’t have as much money to help folks in crisis. Not that I ever could help them enough to get them out of the holes, just enough to meet the immediate crisis. sigh. Anyway no longer working means I can visit Bobby’s diary in the morning instead of having to wait until I get home – because I’m already home. ???????????? So I’m heading that way after I read DoReMi’s diary here. Need some coffee though. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 42 and sunny in Bellingham. I was very relieved to finally get my daughters car towed to the dealer yesterday, and even more so when the parts dept got the code to program a new key. It should be ready to drive today, and then we’ll do the car swap. Given this experience I highly recommend keeping a spare car key in one’s purse or pocket.
I hope to be in the garden today. tRump angst visited me in the night again so I’m hoping some garden therapy will be an antidote. Best wishes to all.
Wow, this is a cool thing my friend is doing
http://as.virginia.edu/news/democracy-initiative-launch-two-new-labs
I think Stacey’s policy passions make her better suited to the executive rather than being just another vote in the U.S. Senate. If she doesn’t end up as someone’s VP, she will run for governor again in 2022 – not that far away for a young person!
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday, May 1st …
It is 43 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 54. Showers this morning and showers tonight. Peeking ahead I see that the 60s will return over the weekend. At this time of the year, I am mainly happy that there is no snow.
The Mueller – Barr controversy shows that Republicans who are not electeds and who have a long track record of actual public service, not service to a party or an ideology, will not roll over for tRump. The Mueller letter challenging the Barr letter – and Barr’s subsequent perjury – are what happens when someone refuses to be slimed by the tRump presidency. Everything Trump Touches Dies – and Robert Mueller appears to have said “Hands Off.”
See all y’all later!
It’s Mayday Meese!
50 and raining here in NYS going up to 58
Puerto Rico
Dee, thanks for the picture of the hawthorn blossom! I’ll never forget when I smelled that heavenly scent on an evening in Yorkshire, when the family friend I was staying with took me to a pub on the Helmsley-Harome Road. When I asked what the scent was, my friend replied, “Oh, that’ll be the may.”
It is to be hoped that Nemesis, that frightful goddess, will one day punish Thing as horribly as he’s punished Puerto Rico. And his minions as well.
Possible thunderstorms pretty much every day for the next week. Wow. Yet another shooting yesterday — and it barely made the news. We are becoming desensitized to the violence. On our way to Clockwork Orange world. Ok, time for some comfort music: U2’s Mercy.
Love has come again
I am gone again
Love is the end of history
The enemy of misery
Love has come again
I am gone again
Love is justice, a charity
Love brings with it a clarity
Love has come again
I’m alive again
Alive…
Good Woden’s Day morning, Moosekind and happy May Day! (Just in case you woke up this morning with Communist sympathies.)
This morning, hoping to follow an old Pagan tradition, I went out to the courtyard hoping to scoop up a handful of May Day dew to rub on my face and eyelids (for good vision). (Naturally, I was extremely careful as to which patch of grass I chose.) Guess what, it was as dry as a bone. Duh.
It’s very cloudy here in NoVa, with a current temp. of 57 F. It’s supposed to go up to 78 F. later, and we may have thunderstorms if the clouds give way to sunlight later today. In fact we’re in for a cloudy, thunderstormy week.
Getting sick of this keto diet. Weight loss is very slow when you’re too weak and lethargic to exercise. Received a free “keto cookbook” through the mail yesterday and after reading it I kinda feel I’d rather be banished to a lonely island off the coast of Australia. I don’t think I’m interested in a lifelong regime that includes NO GRAIN of any kind, no vegetables that aren’t green, NO FRUIT, and of course, no sugar. No dairy, even. I shudder to think of what my cholesterol is like after 10 days on this thing. Might switch to the grapefruit diet this weekend.
On top of this, I have two sets of interview notes to turn into articles for the quarterly paper AND the publisher wants me to proof my book galleys in .mobi instead of .epub, so I have to do the work all over again! GRRR!
I’ll be out most of the day visiting my friend 30 miles away. I’m bringing the dreaded keto lunch of grilled chicken, salad, chopped pecans, and dried cranberries (all of which will fall to her portion).
Anotherdemocrat, did you find a microwave at Goodwill yesterday? I want to come back and read DoReMI’s and Jan’s posts tonight. Bfitz, I trust you avoided the tornadoes near Fayetteville? Wonder whether you lost electricity?
As I remarked on another blog, I wonder whether the snippy letter that Mueller wrote to the Barr-barian began, “O, Accursed of Allah! Thy father was a camel-driver, thy mother a slave…”
A good day to all!
Yes – I am the proud owner of a $19 microwave. The door sticks a little, but so what.
Daily Kamala :
Bright Blesses, Meeses. Raining and still so dark the pv system hasn’t come out of night mode and thinks it’s still April. Between all the bands of rain yesterday we got 8.8 KWHs generated just enough to push the month’s total to “best April so far” by a whole .4 KWHs at 476.5 – so a W00T!! for that. Not a great start for May of course. Last year we generated highest May for the system at 515.5 KWHs so that’s our “meet or beat” target for the month. Murf’s on my lap at the moment. He ate all this breakfast all by himself this morning which is good. Charlie and Cloud are sleeping and the Twins are playing in the other room. I’ll have to go back to just calling them the Twins as Rennie finally managed to get his collar off (Freddie’s came off the day after I put it on him) and I can’t tell them apart.
Evil Ones being evil – about the only good thing I can think of is that they are being so open about it they are exposing evils they’ve been quietly perpetrating for years. In some cases decades. In some – like how they’re dealing with Native children seeking asylum – for centuries. They are rampaging through everywhere bursting white folk’s bubbles and laughing at us for being shocked and horrified. It’s good our bubbles are bursting – when we don’t just go find another bubble or set up housekeeping in denial. BIPOC aren’t surprised of course. They’ve always known – something about being the target of evil does that. They also aren’t surprised at the wypipo who just blow another bubble to live in (or live in denial). They’ve lived with that kind of reaction/behavior for centuries, too.
No word/results or anything for anybody. Still. Aji’s got a doctor’s appointment tomorrow so maybe she can get things moving again. I hope. If she needs surgery, she’s needed it for over a year. More evidence of the evils in our medical industry that wouldn’t know care if it jumped on their toes. Presupposing they’re human enough to have toes. Which I’m beginning to doubt. Prayers/invocations all around – & hoping this Beltane brings the life/healing/abundance it promises. Meanwhile I need some coffee and to check in at Bobby’s diary. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, Meesfolk; 46 when I rolled very reluctantly out of bed with a rainy high of 68. It must have been pouring all night, because every field I passed on my way in to work was flooded. Fortunately, most of the farmers haven’t planted yet; it will be interesting to see what is planted in those fields that have been using soy as part of the rotation. A lot of the small farms in our area have kept to a traditional soy-corn rotation, but with soy no longer being profitable, I have no idea what they’ll use instead. Maybe black beans? Michigan is a huge producer of black beans, but they require well-drained soil. What I saw this morning makes me wonder if the fields in this area meet that criteria. Yes, these are indeed the sorts of things I contemplate during my drive into work!
I haven’t yet had time to turn to see what’s happening with the Low Barr testimony. For some reason, anything related to Barr amps my anxiety up to levels that literally make me sick. I’ve only rarely had this reaction to Individual One, so I’m not sure what it is about Barr that does this to me. I don’t want to spend the day eating antacid tablets like they’re candy, so I’ll probably ration my exposure to the hearing to just watching Rachel tonight. My kitchen cabinets are due for a good scrubdown, so I can have Rachel on and work off the anxiety through scrubbing my cupboards. It’s weird…but it works.
Good day to and for all!
I think tonight is the night Rache’s interview with Hillary airs, so you don’t want to miss that!
The problem with Barr is that he is the Attorney General of the United States and is authorized to do anything he wants with the full power of the Justice Department behind him. He answers to no one because the Republican Party refuses to hold him or his boss accountable. So if he wants to defy court orders or Congressional subpoenas or refuse to investigate Erik Prince, he is free to do so. The problem with a two-party system of government is that when one of the parties essentially puts their own political survival over the survival of the country, there is no recourse for the party out of power. THAT is why what Barr is doing is so troubling and why we have every reason to feel anxious. :(
{{{DoReMI}}} – do what you need to do to keep your tummy OK (even if actually happy is not possible right now). You only have one, you know. Healing Energy & moar {{{HUGS}}}
52 and partly sunny in Bellingham. AG Barr is blah, blahing on my tv…..heavy propaganda and lying along with blaming. Nicole Wallace just said, “BB is out right lying” Hope it matters to some voters some where!
I think I’ve finally slept enough to have some energy today so I hope to be in the garden. I’ve got my car back so I can visit my favorite garden shops for inspiration.
Best wishes to all on this spring day.
I recovered from doing months worth of yard work in 1 weekend. My asthma kicked up and I had to go the chiropractor because my lower back hurt. On the other hand there are no weeds or fallen leaves in the back yard. This fire drill occurred because we have a new renter moving in tonite.
Good morning, meeses! Thursday …
It is 41 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 55. Showers this morning, possible sunny breaks in the afternoon, fog in the evening.
Today, House Democrats will have to decide how to handle an Attorney General who essentially declared that he was immune from Congressional oversight. “Why should I give you those?”, Barr’s reply to Senator Blumenthal, pretty well sums up the Trump Administrations’s position. While I would love to celebrate how our Democratic Senators “eviscerated” Barr (and they mainly did a good job), he is still left in charge of the nation’s law enforcement and his “Justice” Department is where the contempt referrals from Congress will go to die. A constitutional democracy requires a buy-in from all the parties because there is no way to force one co-equal branch to respect the authority of another one; when one of the branches just says no to oversight, there is no recourse.
What was stunning to me was Bob Barr belittling Robert Mueller in such personal terms. He is the perfect Attorney General for Herr Twitler.
See all y’all later!
Thursday Meese. 52 going up to 60 with rain here in NYS.
Am going to enjoy Bobby’s Kamala 2020 post today – chock full of fun takes on Kamala slicing and dicing Barr.
Puerto Rico
I am looking forward to the Kamala hot-takes! Hillary was on Rachel Maddow’s show last night and I have a few clips from that to look at as well.
Rain this morning, maybe severe storms this afternoon — just in time for rush hour. And storms again tomorrow. If you missed Rachel Maddow’s interview with Hillary, here’s a link to a twitter thread that has it in chunks. It was awesome. Kills me that we could have had her in the White House instead of a whole administration of grifters.
Okay. Music. Here’s Chasing Cars from the show I was at. Even if you’re not a fan, forward to about 3:55 — his smile when we sang for him. It was totally magical.
{{{ad}}} Thank you for the link – I can’t handle much of anything except in short chunks any longer. The evil ones make me sick and Hillary makes me cry – but this was handle-able. moar {{{HUGS}}}
glad you liked it! Also, do look at the music video, even just those last few seconds, his smile when the audience sings to him is just wonderful to see.
That is indeed a wonderful smile. :) {{{HUGS}}}