Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: May 26th through June 1st

May 25, 2019 JanF Community 98

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!
 

40 Comments

  1. Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …

    Morning low of 55 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 72. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. Sunday Meese.

    Memorial Day Weekend.

    60 degrees here in Saugerties NY, going up to 86. Feels like summer.

    Puerto Rican Mothers Against War
    “Mothers recalled that “although Puerto Rico has not declared war on any country, more than 200,000 Puerto Rican soldiers have served in American wars since the First World War””

  3. Good Sunday morning, Moosekind! It’s a lovely morning here in Ashburn, 65 F. at a few minutes past 7 a.m., going up to 87 F. later. We may have thunderstorms this afternoon. Last night I saw lightning flashing in the sky after we went to bed and earlier I thought I heard thunder, but there was no rain.

    Hurray, I was able to get into the Moose Pond with no trouble this morning! What a relief.

    Busy couple of days ahead. Turns out the articles I’m supposed to write are destined for the fall issue, so that takes a little of the pressure off. We have to take care of Younger Son’s dog today and tomorrow, which means a great deal of driving.

    The community where we live has built a nice new dog park, bigger than the old one, Dearly Beloved says. Weather permitting, I’ll see whether I can take the dog there this afternoon.

    Paying less attention to the news simply in order to preserve my sanity. I have hopes for Kamala’s candidacy, and still hope we can turn Virginia’s legislature blue this fall. Am cheered to see indications that Buttigieg’s star is beginning to fade. Hope he drops out. There are many more worthwhile things he can do with his time (such as attending to the people who elected him mayor of their town) rather than pursuing a marginal candidacy.

    We know Thing’s motivation for winning in 2020 is the hope of staying out of prison. Apparently there was an earthquake just before he landed in Japan. Too bad it didn’t swallow him up!

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.

    • I cleared the website cache yesterday evening so that may have helped.

      I saw a pundit claim that everyone should be kicked off the debate stage except Biden, Sanders, Warren, Harris, and Mayo Pete – based on polls with ginormous margins of error and really very little knowledge of any of the candidates at this point. That is nonsense; those may be the current candidates with a chance to win but Barack Obama was polling around 2% in 2007 so it is meaningless. I want to hear from all the candidates (except Tulsi Gabbard), I want all the candidates to make their cases and I want Gov. Inslee to have a chance to talk about climate change and Secretary Castro to talk about immigration. Listening to Democrats discuss Democratic Party values will do everyone a lot of good and the candidates left after the first couple of debates will be better for listening to them. Mayo Pete won’t last, he is polling 0% with African American voters and there is no path forward for a whites-only candidate.

  4. Slept in, watching the MSNBC morning show. Going to cook beans later, I don’t need to cook lunch for next week, I’ve got enough to take to work for 4 days. Using a raincheck ticket to finally see Endgame tomorrow. About a third of the people I follow on Twitter are fellow U2 & Snow Patrol fans, they all lost their minds last night, because of this: Bono joined them on stage & they sang One. Whenever people talk about Twitter being full of negativity, I wonder why they don’t follow some art or astronomy accounts, or find fans of the same music or authors. You can find good stuff if you want to. I wouldn’t know Harry & Amra (the people whose video I used) if not for twitter, and I’m so glad I do.

  6. We had un-forecast rain again over night. This time the emergency notification service decided I needed to be woken up at 2:30 am to be told there was a severe thunderstorm and tornado warning and I should take immediate action. As if I could do anything about either one besides go back to bed. OK, I closed the windows first. Not particularly happy about that either as 2 am is about when the temps start to drop. I have the windows open over night to cool the house down this time of year. It was 65 feels like 69 (100% humidity – again) when I logged on heading for mid 80s. It’s overcast at the moment but not heavily. I hope it clears off. A sunny day is good dropping the humidity as well as for electricity production. Yesterday we got 21.7 KWHs and the m-t-d is 413 – still on track for 500 or so. IF it clears off.

    Evil Ones being evil. And counting on our “the magic impeachment will save us” folks to give twitler his acquittal. When driven to it, that group admits we can’t remove him from office. So then they go off on impeachment will show him & the Rs they can’t get away with breaking the law – and never seem to get the point that an impeachment followed by acquittals shows them just how very many laws they can get away with breaking. sigh. So the rest of us support Nancy Pelosi who is quite capable of overseeing investigations on multiple fronts while pursuing the “For the People” agenda she was elected to do. And work on winning elections.

    basket will be here tomorrow afternoon or evening – it’s a long drive from Oxford, MS to Fayetteville, AR. I am soooo looking forward to seeing/visiting with him. The cherry tree looks gorgeous with the fruit – hopefully it still will tomorrow. And we can find enough sound fruit for him to eat straight from the tree. We’re thinking of visiting the Cherokee Heritage Center over in Tahlequah Tuesday then leaving for Sedalia on Wednesday. Gonna be fun. Meanwhile I still have some online things to visit. And more coffee. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  7. Good morning, 59 and partly sunny in Bellingham. Yesterday was dark and pouring rain so the sunshine is nice to see. We’re looking forward to a quiet day with some garden time and an easy dinner. I’ll watch the HBO documentary, The Last Watch, then it’s time for the characters on my tv and computer screens to move back into the books.

    Thanks to Goggle I found an oral history interview with members of my Nevada family. It’s always a bit unsettling to see photo’s of our family cemetery online, but memories fade so it’s good to know some of the history is preserved. I’m going to read and remember for awhile today.

    Best wishes to all.

  8. Good afternoon meese, a quick check in while I’m eating brunch before getting ready for the semi-finals of the World Championship Old-time Piano Playing Contest. The YouTube live stream starts at 1 pm Central and I’m playing at position 10.

    https://youtu.be/mPW2lq8Ynbk

  9. Good morning, meeses! Monday …

    It is 57 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 63. Rain and thunderstorms are in the forecast. I hope everyone celebrated their holiday weekend yesterday (sunny skies and upper 70s) because today will not be a good day to crank up the grill.

    The European Union election votes were tallied yesterday and the far-right did not take over as was widely feared but traditional parties did not do well. I don’t understand all the ins and outs but I was glad to see both the Tories and Labour do poorly in Great Britain. If the best those parties can do is Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, they deserve to be supplanted by new parties.

    A headline this morning “Bernie Sanders no longer the front runner, turns to Vermont” did my heart good. When there were only three candidates, and one was running for vice president, it was easy to come in second. This year there are plenty of good candidates to choose from if you lean leftier than most. No one has to settle for a crabby finger-jabbing old man as the vessel to register their discontent with the status quo.

    I am going to take advantage of an extra quiet-time day to get caught up on projects. Friday is the last day of May and I am not ready; projects I promised for June (that I made back in February when June seemed very far away) are looming. I had even hoped to have them done early – silly me!

    See all y’all later!

    • Good Moon Day morning, Moosekind! (Howzzat for a lot of “oo’s”?) Right now it’s sunny, breezy, and 75 F. in Ashburn, going up to 82 F. later.

      It’s past 10 a.m. We got up, had early morning tea, got dressed, and headed out to take care of Younger Son’s dog 10 miles away. Was pleased to see that he was in better spirits this morning: he’d eaten all his food, plus the dog biscuits I’d left lying about and drunk half his water. He went out for the usual reasons but came back in quickly. He then settled down to work on his rawhide chew bone. I was very happy about this because yesterday the poor thing was terribly depressed. We’ll visit this afternoon and tomorrow morning and thankfully, the family will return tomorrow afternoon.

      Had granola with blueberries and almond milk this morning. Uh, almond milk is so thick. Not sure I’m going to care for this. Granola is on the breakfast menu only twice a week, so I’m not sure how long it’ll take me to use up the almond milk at this rate. Wonder whether one can cook with it.

      Bfitz, hope you aren’t anywhere near the Arkansas River or Fort Smith! Read that there will be flooding in that area today.

      I have to make a blueberry cake to take over to Elder Son’s house. It’s a nice cake to take on picnics in the summer because there’s no gooey icing to melt on the cake. One simply sprinkles confectioner’s sugar on the top after the cake has cooled.

      Hoping to get started on the marketing videos today. So far my new book has garnered only one review. Wish there were more.

      Wishing all a good holiday today!

      • {{{Diana}}} – you can bake with almond milk. Just replace the regular milk in your recipe. Your blueberry cake sounds great. As to the granola, you don’t have to eat it as cereal you know. You can glom it together with almond butter for a no-bake breakfast cookie.

        I’m about 60 miles north and a bit east of Fort Smith which is in the AR River valley. Most of the storms heading our way split up around Tulsa with part going north across the MO flatlands and the rest going south along the river valley. (I taught down there for 2 years though. I didn’t care for the flatland but I’ve got some good memories of students. All of whom are in their mid 40s now wherever they are.) But thank you for the concern. {{{HUGS}}}

  12. Had a very restless night — best sleep was in the morning hours, ugh. Anyway, I’m up, watching the news. Going to see Endgame this morning. We are very lucky not having rain this weekend — normally in Austin it rains on Memorial Day; and if you google “Austin Memorial Day flood” you’ll get multiple results. I hope the people in Oklahoma are ok, heard there’s even more tornadoes happening up there.

    Oh, and I’m going to have to call the experiment of cooking beans in the rice cooker a failure. 4 or 5 rounds of cooking – on the setting the recipe said to use – and they’re still hard. Boo.

  13. Good morning meese. Quick check in from Oxford, MS where it’s 73 with a high of 91. I will be having breakfast with some friends and then heading off to visit bfitz!

  14. It’s around 70 and humid heading for mid 80s again. The sun’s trying to come out and I certainly hope it succeeds. We only got 14.6 KWHs yesterday bringing the m-t-d to 427. There are only 5 production days left in May. And there’s rain in the forecast for tomorrow evening and most of Wednesday. We shall see what we shall see.

    Memorial Day is one of those celebrations I’m very conflicted about. A nation has to have an army – it’s not really a nation without one. Or won’t be for long. But our use of our military to muck up other countries’ governments in favor of ones who will sell said countries’ natural resources to US Big Bidness is wrong. And a whole lot of people are dead because of it. Especially Indigenous folks. I most certainly don’t hold it against the military folks themselves – at least not the ones acting honorably if that’s possible in a military situation – and I acknowledge that their service is different from other kinds of service to our country (not in the value of the job but in the dangers inherent in it). So I guess to the folks who died on active duty, Rest in Peace.

    Meanwhile on the not so good news side Aji’s noticed some painful – and scary – swelling where a tumor may or may not be. Of course on the Sunday before a holiday. Prayers and invocations most certainly needed. On the very nice not-exactly-news side basket will be here this afternoon or early evening. I hope it’s cool enough to have the oven on. If so I plan to bake some cheese corn muffins to go with the soup for dinner. :)

    So for now I’ll do my tour of the internets – as much of one as I do anyway – and then see about removing a layer of cat fluff from the spare bedroom. And check for hairballs. LOL. And get some coffee of course. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  15. Good morning, 62 and sunny in Bellingham. Yesterday was a quiet and reflective day so today needs to be more active……gotta keep my balance! Needless to say my garden is just outside the door and I’ve got plenty to do.

    Best wishes to all on this sunny Monday.

  16. Good morning, Meesefolk (probably afternoon by the time I finish typing); 63 when I got up this morning after an extended lie-in with an expected high of sunny high of 72. It’s finally not raining after two straight days, so I hope to get some yard work done. I should be out there already, but I also need to get at least the bare outlines of tomorrow’s post put down, so a few more inside minutes will be necessary.

    I’m pretty sure I’m caught in an alternate reality at the moment, where my life is following the script of a bad sitcom. Because the rain was keeping me from working outside, I decided to go see my friends’ new antique store after all. It was a longer drive than I really wanted to make, but Hubby was sleeping, dogs were with him, and cats were actually snuggled up with one another too (accidentally, because they usually keep to their own pillows). So I drove across the OH border and visited the store. I told my friend that I/my car was getting too old for this sort of thing, but I did find a few small items that the Kiddo can use, and didn’t break my bank, so it was all worthwhile. After a short visit, I turned around and headed home; even with a needed stop at the grocery store, I’d be home in plenty of time to see the Hubby before he left for work.

    HA!

    I didn’t even get 10 miles down the road and had a flat. And couldn’t get the lug nuts loose. I called my auto club service, and they told me the wait time would be 2+ hours. I called my friends and couldn’t reach other of them. I finally messaged both of their stores on FB and got through, so one of them drove up the road and changed my tire for me so I didn’t have to sit for two hours. I did, however, have to drive home using back roads, because there was no way I was going to test the limits of my bubble tire on 70mph highways. Which of course meant I had to use my gps. Which meant turning on my location, which eats up battery. On a phone I had forgotten to plug into the charger on the way down so was already down to 10% power. Which meant getting directions, turning off location, and driving to the next directed turn, and only then turning on the location again.

    I had initially texted Hubby telling him, “Fell down the antiquing rabbit hole. Will be home before you leave, but just barely.” Later I texted both him and Kiddo that I’d had a flat and would be getting home later than anticipated. Which only partially explains why my phone started exploding with text alerts on the drive home…which I couldn’t read or answer because I was driving (and trying to wait until my phone recharged a bit). I finally stopped long enough to read Kiddo’s increasingly concerned texts and was able to respond that I was fine. It turns out Hubby had read my “Fell down…” text while still partially asleep and only saw those two words. He texted Kiddo to find out if I had told her where I was/what hospital!

    I got home at 11:30 instead of 7:30. My family spent a few hours worrying, unnecessarily as it turned out, but with genuine and loving concern. My friends came through, like friends do. Tell me this isn’t the plot to a poorly-written sitcom?!

    Good day to and for all!

    • Good, bad, or indifferent sitcom, the reality of friends coming through and family being lovingly concerned is a fine thing. ????????????????????

    • OMG, DoReMI, what a catalogue of horrors! Glad you came through safely, but it must have been one hail of a worrisome time for you and your family.

      Thank Goddess it’s OVER.

      • LOL, I was largely unruffled. I was a bit annoyed about the extra driving time the backroads necessitated, but beyond that, my reaction was mostly a shrug. I had no idea that Hubby had misread “fell down” so completely and that he and Kiddo were envisioning a “fallen and can’t get up” scenario. They’re adorable.

  17. Tuesday Meese.
    56 and raining here in the Catskills – going up to 62.

    Great response to Forbes’ stupid article, from Brainwrap

    Puerto Rico

    Visual history

  18. Good morning, meeses! Tuesday that feels like a Monday …

    It is 54 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 63. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast with a chance for rain this evening.

    Another trip overseas by the completely-unfit president*, another pile of embarrassments. tRump really is ignorant – I suppose that is what happens when your entire focus is on yourself: there is no interest in learning anything about other cultures, how other people might feel, protocols. Goddess help us if we can’t find a way to win in 2020.

    I am now trending #ImpeachmentInquiryNow – it is time to vote to start an impeachment inquiry and begin to line up the resources we need for that. If nothing else, we need to put an end to the “cowardly Democrats” pieces that are hurting morale. I am sure they will be replaced by “not moving fast enough Democrats” pieces but those are easier to brush off. The Senate has just said that they will vote along partisan lines to hamstring any trial by quashing evidence and rejecting witnesses. So the question is how to time the House inquiry for maximum effect so that we show the American people how awful a Republican Senate is. Will anyone pay attention to televised hearings during the summer or should we set it up to begin those after school starts? I think the fall would be best.

    Terrible weather news these days. Stay safe everyone!

    See all y’all later!

  19. Back to work. We’re supposed to get rain later in the week — at least we had a bit of a break after 8 weeks with rain/thunderstorms. And nothing like Oklahoma & Ohio have gotten. Saw Avengers Endgame yesterday. Wow. Just, wow. Loved how it’s an ending but not. Captain America’s arc was my favorite — every piece of it was perfect. Anyway, like I said — back to work. Last night, all the MSNBC shows had re-runs of presidential interviews. Cory Booker said we need a rebirth of empathy & grace…… which reminded me of one of my favorite song lyrics (because of course it did): “I need your grace, to remind me, to find my own” from Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol. I love how he puts his hand on his heart when he sings that line.

    • I still haven’t seen Captain Marvel, much less Endgame, and the care I have to take to avoid spoilers ridiculous. That’s what I get for not jumping on Captain Marvel right when it came out (and my insistence on seeing it before I’ll consider Endgame). Now the closest Captain Marvel showing is almost an hour away. That’s a nope…not for a movie. Kiddo ended up preordering the DVD for me, so I’ll have it in a few more weeks. I hope Endgame will still be around locally, although I’m beginning to think waiting for the DVD for that may make sense too. I’m not sure I can sit still comfortably for a 3-hour movie; at least at home, I can resort to the pause button.

      • You can also refill your popcorn and soda at home without having to stand in line!

        • I’m more worried about the, um, shall we say, emptying of the pop. It nearly killed me when I went to see Black Panther and waited for the post-credit scene. I knew I shouldn’t have had that large Dr. Pepper!

      • That’s why I tried to word things ambiguously. I think I did say something about a scene on Twitter, but it was about women kicking ass, not really a spoiler in a Marvel movie. Captain Marvel rocks, loved that movie.

        The theater I saw it in has a pre-show that catches you up on what you need to know – because who can possibly keep up with all the Marvel movies?

        • I noticed your carefulness; thank you. And as to your last question? Me. I’ve never read a single Marvel comic, but somehow, the movies became my guilty pleasure. I have every single one on DVD (although Kiddo has a bunch of them at the moment) and will even watch the movies when they’re on tv, despite having seen each one multiple times. My family laughs at me (they both think it’s hysterical that a history geek like myself is all-in on an action/adventure series of films), but I don’t care. We all deserve a harmless indulgence.

  20. Good morning meeses from Fayetteville, AR where it’s 70 with a high of 84 and cloudy. That is not good weather for electricity generation. Hopefully it’ll clear up while we are on the road.

    Had a scenic drive through rural MS and SE AR yesterday, crossing the Mississippi at Helena. I only saw “that flag” two or three times, mostly in poor condition – bleached, tattered, rolled-up… For people who claim to venerate that flag and what it stands for, they certainly don’t afford it any respect. And then there’s the Mississippi state flag. sigh

    Had a wonderful evening visit with bfitz yesterday and helped get the Kindle reader installed on her desktop, so now she can read Turnabout.

    I should probably get out of bed, but it’s nice enjoying the feeling of being on vacation. One more week!

    • Thank you, basket! Glad your travels are proceeding nicely and that you’re now enjoying your visit with our bfitz.

      Let’s hope the weather stays nice enough that you and she have no trouble traveling to your next destination.

      Thanks for helping bfitz so she can read Turnabout! If our friend likes it, hope she’ll write a favorable review. So far there is only one review, so I’m getting a bit mopey. I’m going to start that marketing course THIS DAY so I can get 10,000 readers, 9,998 of whom will write favorable reviews.

      Cheers!

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