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, 59 and raining in Bellingham. If the forecast is to be believed Saturday will be sunny so I’ll proceed with the outdoor party plan. We did find a bee keeper yesterday, but watching him work on a tall and nearly straight up ladder made me very nervous! Thankfully he was careful, and the bees are now in his care and keeping. The bees were quiet when he started, but they were soon buzzing around. After he clipped the biggest portion of the swarm and put it in a box with a piece of honeycomb the bees found their way to it. He said the queen was in that portion and was giving off pheromones and that told the bees where they needed to be.
Between the bees and doing more porch cleaning than I intended I was late getting the flower prep done so by debate time I was to tired to really pay attention. But between tRump angst and the fear of another election like the last one I’m being self protective. 2021 can’t come soon enough, yet it still seems far away.
Best wishes to all on this rainy day,
Time to bee grateful, princesspat! Hope you had a good night’s rest.
Good morning, Meesefolk; 64 when I got up and going up to 86. It was overcast when I got up, but the sun is out in force now; if my widget is to be believed, we don’t have more than a 30% chance of rain for the next week. A total of two weeks without rain is not good news, but so far the forecasters have been wrong more than they’ve been right, so I’m not going to fret too much.
Sorry, Jan, I only watched a portion of the debates last night, so no assessment from me. I found myself paying more attention to the reactions on twitter, particularly from the various _____-stans. I found it notable that the Beto-stans were almost universally outraged at Castro for calling out O’Rourke re Section 1325 of the Immigration and Nationality Act; Warren-stans felt she was rightfully garnering the most attention at the start of the debate, while just about everyone else was panning Samantha Guthrie for going back to Warren before everyone else had a chance to give answers, in addition to asking questions that were clearly in Warren’s wheelhouse. Gabbard generated an alarming (to me) amount of positive interest, but for every tentative “huh, Tulsi looks interesting” comment, there were twice as many, “Oh, no, you don’t” responses. Delaney fell flat despite speaking a necessary truth about Medicare for All; de Blasio and Ryan looked too much alike to be easily distinguishable and did nothing idea-wise to help change that (except de Blasio gained some recognition as being a typical New Yorker, which was both touted and panned, depending on the tweeter’s regional home base); Booker talked the most, because Cory does that (as someone who also uses 100 words to cover what could be said in 10, this isn’t necessarily a criticism…!); and Inslee did better than expected but there were still only 7 minutes on the climate crisis. Amy did well, but it won’t be enough in the long run, and Warren continued with her Mary Poppins-esque persona, because it works. I’m not sure that covers everyone, but it’s what I picked up from Twitter last night.
In the meantime, the Kiddo is encouraging me to seriously consider buying the Soul, because then I can legitimately claim I have a Black Soul which she thinks is the height of…something. Her reasoning isn’t swaying me, but it did make me laugh. Good day to and for all!
This is so true: “de Blasio and Ryan looked too much alike to be easily distinguishable”! They could be brothers.
Thanks for the excellent recap. Will there be a Day Two preview post? If you do one, please check the Editors’ Choice box so it will be front paged. Thanks!
Unfortunately, no. The magic elixir of time+energy ran out. Besides, too many bland white men tonight; I just couldn’t face it.????
A glass half-full from SCOTUS this morning: big win on the census case. It is going back to district court WHERE IT BELONGS and there is about a 99% certainty that the question will be removed.
A sort-of loss on gerrymandering – I am looking forward to reading the Kagan dissent but on the surface saying SCOTUS cannot figure out a partisan gerrymander – or does not want to have to look at them all – is not entirely unexpected or the worst case. They could have come up with a method for determining the crossed-line that was flawed, for one thing. They could have decided that blue state gerrymanders (Maryland) were wrong but that red state gerrymanders (North Carolina) were fine. The issue goes back to the states where Pennsylvania already demonstrated how it is done, and Michigan and Wisconsin that now have gubernatorial veto power over the gerrymanders. I am wondering if some blue states will create maps that eliminate all Republican districts as a stick in order to force Congress to pass a national redistricting law. As I said when we lost cases last year when Kennedy flew his Republican freak flag and this year when Susan Collins set the stage for the repeal of Roe v Wade, we need to create statutes to protect our values – not depend on SCOTUS. This will help make that case.
Friday – very early post debate morning,
A big win for Kamala!
Sitting here still going through twitter
For the win
Worst tweet of the night -so far
Kucinich is getting soundly ratioed
From across the pond
I loved that fierce picture of her as a child! I was watching Twitter for a while and the instant analysis – at least from the people I follow – was that Kamala didn’t just win: she dominated! I have not read today’s hot takes yet.
Good Freya’s Day morning, Moosekind! Jan, love The Guardian tweet!
It’s a fair, lovely morning here in Ashburn. The current temp. is 68 F., with a projected high of 95 F. today. Yesterday was fair and hot, with huge white clouds piling up in the afternoon. Toward evening they turned black, but all we had here was a little shower to moisturize our skin. I mean, our grass.
Kamala KILLED it last night! Won’t go into details, but she emerged the WINNAH! Hope the misogynist male media will now sit up and take notice. I wish the finger-wagger would sit down and shut the hail up. We’re tired of him and his non-answers. Marianne Williamson…is…weird.
Will be hanging around home most of the day except for lunchtime. A friend I worked with 40 years ago at MITRE has just moved here, so we’re going to have lunch at the Deli. I do hope to clean up this Goddess-forsaken place this morning, it’s a total wreck.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and to Kamala beyond!
Kamala 2020 from Diana in NoVa
Good morning, meeses! Friday …
It is 68 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 86. The forecast calls for a “risk of thunderstorms” and it is 100% correct: right now we are in a major storm! It is worrying my dog so I hope it clears up soon.
I did not watch the debates but watched Twitter for a while. Sounds like two shouty old men, some crazy people trying to get attention, and Kamala Harris for the win. w00t!
I have been up since 2:30 trying to get some client work done while it is quiet – I will definitely need a nap. The World Cup – U.S. v France – is on at 2pm CDT. The vulgar talking yam taunting Megan Rapinoe makes it even more important that we advance past the quarterfinals and win the tournament.
See all y’all later!
Slept in — I’ve got to remember to set my alarm next week. Watching Stargate, since I’m just not going to watch Morning Joe. I thought Kamala did well last night, though they went to Bernie far too often. I’d have like to hear more from Andrew Yang (he’s not going to get the nomination, but I’d like some of his ideas to get talked about more) . Gave the voice a couple of test words. Sounds ok.
Agreed.
Glad your voice is getting better, anotherdemocrat!
It was 67 at dawn but already getting to the mid 70s – I’ll have to close up the house as soon as I finish checking in – and mostly sunny. I hope it keeps that up. Forecast is partly cloudy. Yesterday we got 22.9 KWHs and the m-t-d is 480. If that partly cloudy is a very little part we might reach 500 today and still have 2 production days left. Cats are starting to settle down. Except Rennie. He’s walking around with his prey (a pink yarn ball) “calling the kittens” to dinner. Cats. Gotta love ’em.
I didn’t watch the debate last night either. I discovered in 2016 that I can’t stand the voices of the moderators (as well as some of the candidates) and that hasn’t changed any. I keep hoping I can find transcripts but my internet search skills aren’t that good. Great to see that Kamala Harris “broke out” – although of course to those of us who’ve been paying attention she broke out years ago. Early days yet. It’s still 2019. I’ll feel a whole lot better if this energy is out there in June 2020.
Meanwhile the Evil Ones are still being evil. Concentration camps not just still but increasing, separating families increasing, torture of children as well as adults increasing, deaths increasing. We are well down the “good German” road – people in Homestead know where the concentration camp is and even give directions to visitors. They don’t have a problem with it. They think it’s a “holding facility” until the children turn 18 and can be deported “back to Mexico” (which isn’t where they came from anyway) which means they are obviously OK with having a concentration camp in town (“just turn right at the WalMart…”) for decades. AmeriKKKa is sick. I’m hoping we’re looking at boils rising that can be lanced and some healing get started. But I’m not that hopeful. The Rs are plague-carrying rats. You can’t get rid of them completely but you can control them and keep them out of the house and away from the children. That’s what we need to do. Of course the ones who brought the rats out of hiding run a propaganda machine that keeps saying “rats are good, everybody else is bad and deserves to be bit by rats”. So we fight the propaganda while we fight the rats.
Anyway. I need to close up the house and get some coffee. Then do my internets stuff. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 60 and cloudy in Bellingham/ Yesterday’s pouring rain was alarming but a sunny day is forecast for tomorrow so I’ll plan accordingly. My sister arrived yesterday afternoon, more family arrives this afternoon and evening, and even more tomorrow so the next few days will be very busy. I finished the flowers yesterday so today I’ll do my part of the cooking and as much preliminary set up for tomorrow as I can.
I tried to watch some of the debate last night, but I was just to tired to focus. Seeing shouty Bernie on the screen made me avert my eyes. I know each candidate needs to make their case, but hearing them campaign against each other makes me nervous so I turned the tv off and went to bed.
Best wishes to all on this cloudy day.
Good afternoon, Meesfolk; 64 when I got up and heading to 86 today; there’s a chance of rain tonight which would be welcome, but I think it’s chances of reaching the ground are mostly doubtful. My car saga took an unexpected turn; for someone who was sure they were six months away from buying a car, a VERY unexpected turn. I decided against pursuing the high-mileage, but cheap, Soul, because after a lot of thought, it seemed pennywise, but pound foolish. So I checked my usual dealer’s website, and lo and behold, they had a sudden influx of used car (Soul) inventory, including a low mileage, standard transmission 2017. I much prefer driving a standard, so I high-tailed it over to the dealership after work yesterday. It turned out the car wasn’t even on site yet, but I was able to determine that the car doesn’t have cruise control, which is a deal-breaker. I prefer manual, but after multiple episodes of sciatica, I need cruise control for the long-distance driving I do. They also had a 2018 that appeared acceptable, plus two 2016s that were very low mileage but had minor accidents reported on Carfax. I sent Hubby over to do some test driving today. Since he already has a Soul, I figured he’d be in a good position to tell if a car felt “right.” I thought sure he’d go with the 2018, but to my surprise, he recommended one of the 2016s to me. The accident reported was being hit while parked in a parking lot, so the damage had been minimal and barely made the reporting threshold. So safety and long-term ramifications are not an issue. And the 2016 was driven by the proverbial little old lady…it only has 11,500 miles on it. Plus, it’s a Soul+ which comes with higher-end gizmos like a back-up camera/screen and fog lights and a few other bits and bobs. I don’t really need that sort of thing, but I can envision their usefulness. Plus, if the backup camera goes down, it doesn’t stop the car from running in any way, so it’s a definite extra, rather than an integral part of the car’s operation. Basically, the only downside is the color: it’s Inferno Red, which is not my first, second, or third choice of car color. I feel like it screams “midlife crisis,” but I’ve decided to embrace it as a “sixty-something is the new midlife” moment…and color. Anyway, I take over a small deposit tomorrow and then it’s just a matter of waiting for the check from my credit union to arrive in the mail. Sometimes everything falls into place, despite rather than because of one’s plans; this was one of those instances.
I have lots of thoughts about the reactions to Sen. Harris taking on VP Biden last night. My Twitter feed is showing its share of butthurt WW, as well as WM expressing their heartfelt concern that she hurt herself, and I am so not playing. If all these folks have learned since 2016 is that women, and especially women of color, need to be careful about how they express themselves, then all they’re showing me is that they learned nothing at all. Between that and the bots amplifying ADOS BS (oh-so-coincidentally retweeted by one of the spawn of tRump), and I am muting and blocking at a record pace today.
Good day to and for all!
Inferno Red? I hope you have factored in the cost of speeding tickets into the price of the car! :)
Lol, I keep hearing that; it’s a good thing I don’t speed!???? I do so much driving in Columbus, near OSU, in a car with MI plates that I’ve long since learned that defensive driving has multiple meanings.
DoReMI, at least other people will see your car coming, even, yea, verily, through rain and mist. Someone once told me that red cars are the safest to drive for that reason.
That makes sense to me. Years ago, I had a friend who bought a green [colored] car, and within two months of owning it, she was rear-ended once and t-boned once. She’d never been involved in a collision of any sort prior to that, and she was convinced that the color of the car was too close to the color of her surroundings, making her less visible. Anecdotes aren’t science, but that always stuck with me. Even though green is my favorite color, I can’t see myself ever buying a green car as a result. If I was buying new and ordering exactly what I wanted in a car, I’d get one in a bright, electric blue. But buying new is also something I’ve never done, so I’m not holding my breath. I will be quite happy with my new-to-me red car (which, in another first for me, I have named; she will be called Lucy).
I never thought about green cars blending in! I think that gray and silver cars look too much like the road and white looks like the omnipresent snow banks during the winter months. My daughter wants an electric blue car :::shocked face emoji::: – I could do navy blue but nothing neon.
“Lucy” sounds young and carefree! And after all, she’s only three, right?
Sometimes things just work out. Glad this one did for you. Red is energy – it can be a very good thing depending on where and how you use it. LOL {{{HUGS}}}
Saturday Meese. 70 here in Saugerties NY going up to 86 with thunderstorms.
Biden digs a deeper hole for himself
The latest bullshit being spread against Kamala
Puerto Rico
I saw that hoodie comment by Biden – he may not be a racist but he has certainly mastered the language of racist dogwhistling. Excellent tweet by Jamil Smith, summing things up. I can’t believe some of the replies to that tweet suggesting that our only hope to defeat Trump is Joe Biden, a man from a tiny state who has never been challenged on his white male privilege. Goddess, I hope not because the more I see of him the less I want him to be president. He will take race relations backwards by rewarding butthurt whites and elevating their talking points . I will still vote for him if he is our nominee because Trump is worse but JHC, please, let’s not do this.
Dear Goddess, totally agree!
Good morning, meeses! Saturday …
It is 70 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 88 (heat index 104). Sunny skies are in the forecast.
I had a chance to do a more detailed scan of the news this morning and I am laughing at the coverage of Debate Night 2 – there is no mention of Bernie Sanders, it is all Old Joe v Kamala. HA!! Fading into irrelevance is exactly what should happen to the man whose peevish petulance helped elect Donald Trump. And is there any surprise that birther and “not black enough” trolls are ramping up after Kamala Harris broke out of the pack? It will be ugly – I hope that this time people on social media realize what is happening and don’t fall for it.
The ACLU will sue Florida for their poll tax on the ex-felons who were granted voting rights by over 60% of their fellow citizens. I noticed there is also a fund being set up to get fines paid so that at least some of those folks can vote in 2020. With the current anti-voting-rights Supreme Court, I don’t have hopes for any lawsuit protecting the rights of both the voters in Florida who passed a binding referendum and the won’t-be-allowed-to-vote ex-felons who threaten the Republican hold on power in Florida. But at least it might get blocked in a lower court pending resolution.
The USA Women’s Soccer Team defeated France to advance to the semi-finals against England on Tuesday. It was a very exciting – and tense – game. Megan Rapinoe answered her critics in the best way possible: by excelling at her sport and helping her team win. I noticed that on Twitter AOC invited the team to the U.S. House of Representatives for a post-World Cup celebration and Rapinoe accepted. Until decency is back in the White House, that should be the go-to venue to celebrate excellence in any enterprise.
Today I control my own schedule for the first time in about a week and I will spend it catching up on end-of-month, end-of-quarter accounting projects.
See all y’all later!
Hey, Jan, that game was SO EXCITING! Nearly fell off the sofa when we watched it. Looking forward to the USA-England game on Tuesday too. I love Megan Rapinoe!
Sorry you have to spend Saturday working! How long do you have until retirement?
Well, I am semi-retired now, working only part-time, but my work load goes in spikes; right now I have a lot to do because Microsoft is retiring the operating system used by many of my clients and I have to get them on new computers. Things will settle down in the Fall after that big push is done.
I will not be able to fully retire until my daughter finishes with college so I am expecting at least 3 more years and probably longer. I don’t want her to graduate with crushing debt so I am helping her.
Both of Rapinoe’s goals were great. The ball on the first one had to have eyes on it to find its way through a mob of players and arrive in the net untouched. The second one, where the goalie was focused on the wrong player as the target of the pass, was simply perfect. I love this photo of her celebration (from AP):
I hope they win because they are a team filled with wonderful women and because it will bug the hell out of the Orange Orshole in the Oval Office.
Kamala 2020 up from Cecelia S
Up & watching the MSNBC morning show. They’re talking about the Biden thing (gaffe? series of gaffes? disaster?). Anyway, got to start getting ready for the work week, even if it’s only 3 days. Couple of test words sound normal.
Glad your voice is improving, another! Hope it’ll be all the way back by Monday.
I only need it to last through Wednesday, and I think people will be really understanding if I need to make tea about every hour or 2. I have a new box of Throat Coat, will probably have most of it next week.
You get a badge of courage for drinking Throat Coat. I used to keep it in constant supply for The Kiddo (she’s a vocalist), and lawd, that stuff is nasty. I’d offer to drink an entire bottle of Buckley’s before I’d drink one more cup of Throat Coat tea.
Good Saturn’s Day morning, Meese! Can’t believe it’s nearly 10 a.m. Yrs truly is taking it easily today.
It’s another hot, beautiful day in the Ashburn neighborhood: 74 F. now, going up to 93 F. later. Mr. Kindergartener is coming this afternoon for a sleepover. After the race tomorrow we’ll take him home and bring his sister back here. Summer is such a hard time for parents. The alternatives to public school are expensive and ill-timed.
Will devote my time to housework this morning, followed by a quick trip to Trader Joe’s. Mr. Kindergartener eats nothing but baby pizzas and blueberries. Well, he does eat baby pancakes at breakfast time.
Looking forward to a day of not having to go anywhere much or do very much. It’s great!
Hope everyone will have a nice, relaxing Saturday and that princesspat’s family celebration will go well, and DoReMI will get her new car with zero hassle.
Good morning, 59 and partly sunny, yay! Late arriving family is still asleep so I’m using the quiet time to rest my knees. It’s going to be a busy day.
Best wishes to all.
Good morning, Meesefolk; 72 when I got up this morning with a high of 81 today. It feels much warmer than that, but it’s possible I still haven’t adapted to warm weather. It’s bright and sunny, so when I get home from work, I may actually get some decent time in working on the gardens.
I watched part of Rachel’s show last night; she was doing a recap of the debates and highlighting what she felt were positive moments for each candidate. I finally saw the whole of the interaction between Sen. Harris and VP Biden; up until last night, I had only seen Harris’s comments and not Biden’s response. Oh, Joe (may I call you Joe?), you need to go back home to Jill, spend time with the grandkids, and be grateful that your legacy is, overall, very positive. Because continuing to run means that legacy is going to be not just tarnished, but run over and destroyed by the next generation of Dems who don’t have time for your nonsense. I was astonished by his defensiveness; I think I was expecting him to go into Uncle Joe mode, where he acknowledged Kamala’s pain, gave a heartfelt apology (and because it’s Joe, an unasked for hug), before pivoting to a lesson on pragmatism or history or something. I think maybe that Joe is just a figment of my imagination, created in part because of proximity to President Obama. The guy on that debate stage bore no resemblance to Uncle Joe; I didn’t like Politician Joe very much at all.
Back to work…good day to and for all!
I think that is what people are finding out: “I didn’t like Politician Joe very much at all.”
Late checkin today – It was 70 at dawn and oppressively humid. Fortunately it dried up a bit but I’m not totally sure I’ll make it through today with no A/C – not sure I won’t either. The temp in the house is 74 and the A/C is set for 80. Dia mia, I’m caught – the humidity makes my chest feel tight but my body is so sensitive to cold that too long in an overly-A/C’d store can make the muscle in my foot spasm when I depress the accelerator getting home. Anyway we got 20 KWHs yesterday bringing the m-t-d to 501 and we’ve got today and tomorrow production still to come.
Evil Ones still being evil. Mostly prayers & invocations right now. And sending what I can spare (maybe a little more than I can spare) to NGOs who are helping folks survive until we can get rid of the evil ones. And a whole lot of prayers & invocations that we can get rid of the evil ones with this election cycle. It’s started too damned early. Which of course is exactly why the owners of the MSM started it this soon. Blessed Goddess I hope somebody has a plan in the back of her mind on how to legally and constitutionally break up that propaganda machine. Hillary was right – as usual – when she warned us about the “vast Right Wing conspiracy”. Everybody trashed her and mocked her – as usual – but she was right.
Farmers Market had some lovely green beans and early peaches. I’ve made green bean salad with the first. I’ll eat the second out of hand over the course of the week. I was going to skip muffins for a while until it cooled down again but the already high price of my GF bread just went up again so…Tomorrow as soon as I’ve fed the cats I’ll get muffins in the oven. sigh. Oh well. Need to visit the internets. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Posting a last-minute, evening comment so I don’t burn bridges I may regret. Friends on FB (forner Berners, naturally) have posted a NYT opinion piece re Kamala not being a progressive prosecutor. I haven’t read the piece; I’m out of articles and too lazy to go incognito. I do know what my friends are saying, and I’m pretty sure I need to find new friends. They’re so shallow; so willing to proclaim their “wokeness” while so completely oblivious to anything beyond in-your-face racism; and really, really pissing me off. Thanks for giving me a place to vent.