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, 64 and sunny in Bellingham. I took my tRump angst to the garden yesterday and pruned the ivy fence that screens the garage area from the alley. My potting bench is close by and over the years I’ve stashed empty pots and interesting branches in the corner between the bench and the fence, And that had become a tangled overgrown mess. It’s tidy now, the ivy is contained, and my creaky joints are still not happy! So no gardening tasks today, but puttering around will prolly happen :)
Time for coffee, and as always, my best wishes to all.
Her writings on race are pertinent to what is going on right now. It is good to see her remembered words in between the hot takes on racism and white nationalism in the news.
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 63 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 81. Sunny this morning, thunderstorms this afternoon. The weather this week is copy and paste! The front coming through today, however, is supposed to cool us down a bit. I will pass it along to DoReMI. :)
The criminal in the White House will be traveling to El Paso, Texas where he is not welcome except by visiting Texas Republican politicians who are also not welcome. Good for the House member representing that district for refusing to ride with him unless she could talk to him on the phone and get him to issue an apology to her constituents. I am sure she will be the subject of his insulting tweets – she checks all the boxes: woman, person of color, unimpressed by him and his long tie. I have been reading a lot about El Paso in the wake of the massacre and it is a vibrant, diverse community that votes for Democrats – everything the Republicans hate.
Republicans are all butthurt that Rep. Joaquin Castro tweeted out publicly available data to shame people who support the re-election of a racist pig. Where were they in 2012 when Wisconsin Republicans used publicly available names from the recall petitions to punish people who wanted Scott Walker recalled? Walker actually used the lists to deny state jobs and appointments. If it is embarrassing to those people to be exposed as supporting murderous racists in order to get marginal tax cuts then they can stop contributing. Their decision should splatter back on them.
I am trying to get my head in gear – I think I am recovering from the Mercury Retrograde and the mess it left in its wake: lots of things did not work well over the past couple of weeks. There is a theory that the effect of the retrograde is felt until Mercury is back where it was before it started retrograde, not at the point when it starts back direct. That period is called the post-shadow and was strongest through the 5th but will still be felt until the 15th. I definitely felt it over the weekend.
See all y’all later!
My head feels fuzzy this morning and it’s only recently that I’ve felt up to writing. Could that be Mercury Retrograde? Whatever it is, I want it GONE!
To those who are sensitive to it – my mother was very sensitive to it – Mercury in retrograde negatively impacts all things transportation and communication. She had to carefully plan – and have backups in place – everything until Mercury went direct again. (And yes, that means it will be an issue with writing.) {{{HUGS}}}
Thanks, bfitz!
Good morning Meese
72 and cloudy here in Saugerties NY – going up to 84 with thunderstorms, so my dogs will be freaking out. Sigh.
Puerto Rico
Good Woden’s Day morning, Moosekind! In jolly old Ashburn it’s 68 F. this morning, going up to 91 F. There’s a 70% chance of rain predicted, but will it happen? Last night it looked so determined to rain that I covered the loveseat on the porch and brought in the cushions. We were rewarded with 18 drops on the window pane. In Montgomery County, Maryland, which is across the river, streets flooded, trees fell, and electricity went out.
Apparently, last night in DC demonstrators in front of the White House performed an anti-rain dance, so no rain fell there. The weather is weird.
In his WaPo column this morning Courtland Milloy asks why there are so many mass murders. Newspaper accounts completely ignore the contributing factors of patriarchy and misogyny. If I had time I’d write to him and point that out. Patriarchy: dominance, power, control. Misogyny: hatred of women, dominance, power, control.
Question of the day: does anyone here listen to audiobooks? If Y, how does it work for you, having the book read by one person who reads all the dialogue, whether it’s uttered by men or women? When I’ve had occasion to read my work aloud, people have wanted me to continue. I’m thinking of posting videos on YouTube of myself reading books. Don’t know how it would go over, but it’s better than silently fuming about getting hardly any readers or reviews.
Today is child-free until the evening, so I need to do a bit of shopping, complete my interview of a resident here, and do a bit of writing.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
Hot, sticky, blech. 81 degrees at 6am, sadly normal for Texas in August. Leaving work early today to run errands & get to the gym. Pre-energizing for the gym: Dark Switch from Snow Patrol.
In Fay., AR it was 71 at dawn, 75 now, and heading for lower 90s (heaven knows what heat index). We’re doing partly cloudy again. Yesterday generated 18.8 KWHs bringing the m-t-d to 79 – as long as we generate over 17 we’re gaining, if slowly, towards being on track for 500. It would be nice. Especially since we’ve got this heat wave (by Fayetteville, not Austin standards ????????????????) going until next week. I’m expecting to have to turn on the A/C before it’s over but I’m putting it off as long as I can. Partly because I don’t like A/C, partly because I don’t want to use the energy if I can help it – partly because there’s old insulation inside the A/C compressor that blows into the house when I run the A/C and I don’t really need to be breathing that. Unfortunately the only way to “fix” that is get a new A/C compressor. sigh.
I’ve decided to try the wood bricks. They aren’t in yet but I’ll be checking with Tractor Supply weekly so I can get in on the “early bird” (that’s what brings the price down to $365 – which is basically my entire budgeted firewood money usually for 2 face cords plus another face rick if needed). They don’t deliver but they’ll tag “my” pallet to allow me to make multiple trips to get it all home. A pallet of wood bricks is literally one ton. Even if all 96 6-packs of bricks would fit in the Subaru the weight would probably blow the tires or something if I tried to do it in one trip. I hope the one pallet really will do the job. So much cleaner, so much less space, so fewer bugs – and no more sorting through the wood and giving away the logs that are too long to fit in my stove. And if one pallet will take me through the winter, at least this year with the “early bird” discount, it doesn’t exceed my usual-plus-emergency firewood budget.
Meanwhile things in the world suck. Folks – including friends and some family – hurting. Mostly a combination of money and health issues (which is largely causing the money problems). & the fascists getting their jollies from other people’s pain. To stop this we have to win the next round of elections solidly – and fix the election process as soon as we have power to do so. But more, while we have the power to do so, we have to break up the RW media consortium, the fascist propaganda machine that brought us to this space. If we don’t we will continue into the fascist hell they’ve been working towards for well over 40 years (40 years is just when they were allowed to start consolidating – to do that 1st they had to get rid of the “Market share” rules). Meanwhile I am lightly hitting my twitter TL daily so I can boost some stuff for various people. If the TL gets much more unpleasant, I may just bring up a tab for specific people – I already do that with Aji – and boost from their pages.
I need to call the bank – there’s a new service fee I want to read them the riot act about since I just changed type of account to make sure I didn’t have service fees. I also need coffee. Gunk in the air means my head hurts and my chest hurts & coffee seems to help. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning meese, it’s 66 with a projected high of 94, though that seems to me to be too low. Yesterday was in the low 100s.
Not much going on except getting ready for work.
{{{basket}}} – have a good day at work then. Skritches to the kitties & moar {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 64 and foggy in Bellingham. I’ve got to keep my BCH leg elevated today so the fog is welcome. A sunny day tends to lead me stray!
Time to find some coffee. My best wishes to all.
Good morning, Meesefolk; 68 when I got up and going up to 84 but supposedly with less mugginess than we’ve been having. I am so looking forward to the weather Jan is sending my way; it looks like the highs won’t even get into the 80s over the weekend. That would be perfect, although I have to work again on Saturday and miss some of that prime weather.
My head won’t be in the political game for awhile; Kiddo had a minor health event yesterday, but because of her history, I will be turning it into something way more than it is. She mentioned in passing yesterday that she was going back to the doctor because her bronchitis seemed to be getting worse (diagnosed 2 weeks ago). I didn’t think too much of it until I later got a text informing me that she was very bad at using an inhaler. WHAT?! Kiddo doesn’t have asthma, so WHAT?! It turns out that she has developed viral-induced asthma, which is temporary, but because she can’t have steroids (she develops steroid psychosis), they went with an inhaler. I really need to get past the over-reaction (I was ready to drop everything and drive to OH) and also remember that she has a husband now so doesn’t need my presence like she once did, but boy does the adrenaline kick in. But all of those years of going from “it’s probably nothing” >>>> “worst case scenario” have left me a bit skittish. Thank goodness Kiddo has learned to laugh at me at this point, and I don’t drive her fully crazy.
Good day to and for all!
{{{DoReMI}}} – Hoo-boy! am I ever familiar with the “it’s probably nothing>>>>>>worst-case scenario” syndrome! Healing Energy to kiddo – & to you. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Yikes, DoReMI, hope she’s all right! My hubby uses an inhaler for his COPD twice a day, which is better than the four times a day he was using the previous version, which is better than the six times a day of the nebulizer thingy.
I’m sure she’ll adjust to it successfully! She sounds like a determined young woman.
She’ll be fine; it’s really just a cold with a minor complication, but I have to learn to not turn that into “it’s a COLD with a MINOR COMPLICATION!!!!!!” “Past performance is not indicative of future results” needs to become my mantra, but my first reaction is generally less clinical than that and more hair on fire. Sometimes it makes sense; my daughter shares my family’s trait of having ridiculously high pain thresholds. We do feel pain, but apparently not like most people do. (When I broke my leg in gym class in 6th grade, I spent 12 hours in the emergency room waiting for doctors and chatting away with anyone who was around…I had basically been triaged into a low priority because I was so calm and uncomplaining. When they finally took x-rays and discovered my tibia and fibula were not just broken, they were shattered in multiple places, no one could believe I wasn’t screaming non-stop. When Kiddo called me her freshman year at college, complaining of a weird pain in her side and feeling nauseated, I made her contact her RA and ask for an ambulance. I knew that if she was complaining of pain, it was serious; it turned out she had a ruptured appendix.)
Anyway, she’ll be fine and only using the inhaler for about 4-8 weeks. If she didn’t work in a library, it would probably be 4 weeks max, but as MVgal has mentioned, libraries are the worst when it comes to dust and mold and other irritants.
This is good news. {{{HUGS}}} & more Healing Energy.
Thursday Meese
75 going up to 86 in the Catskills.
Puerto Rico
Ugh is right! I wonder if González-Colón being an even more out and proud Trump supporter than the previous governor will help her get money for the island – one can hope. The important thing is help for the people. This is another reminder that there are self-loathing Republican Latinos just like there are self-loathing Republican blacks and self-loathing Republican LGBT. I will never understand how a person can support a political party that hates them, constantly demonizes them, and encourages violence against them.
I have the same problem with patriarchal religion, Jan. Why do women so fervently adhere to a religion that tells them they’re worthless because they’re human and evil because they were born female? “Eve’s curse,” my foot!
Give me a loving Mother Goddess, moon lodges, and Sacred Moon Time.
Great Goddess, it’s like a game of musical gubernatorial chairs!
Good morning, meeses! Thursday …
It is 64 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 77. Sunny skies are in the forecast. It will likely still be too hot to go without air-conditioning but maybe I can hold off until the afternoon.
The headlines were filled with horror yesterday. The vulgar talking yam was doing yuk-it-up photo-ops with health care workers in Dayton – reminding everyone why Ohio is a blood red state and lost for a generation. I was glad to hear that the El Paso victims still hospitalized refused to be part of it – Trump’s advance team had to scurry around and find some previously released victims to come back to the hospital and meet with him. At least the New York Times got the headline right this time: “Trump Uses a Day of Healing to Deepen the Nation’s Divisions”. They could easily have said “Trump Comforts Victims of Gun Massacres” which would have been incomplete to describe what happened as the day went on. I will never understand how anyone could be comforted by a vile person like Trump; I have a DNARPNM (Do Not Allow Republican Politicians Near Me) order in place for if I am ever hospitalized as the victim of a gun massacre.
ICE raids in Mississippi ended in the arrest of almost 700 people and children were left without parents in several communities that house food processing plants. One wonders what will happen to those children, will they be tossed in cages? The inhumane policies of the current government is creating a generation traumatized by fear – fear of losing their homes, fear of losing their lives. We have to win back the White House in 2020, we have to.
See all y’all later!
Don’t know what to say. We’ve got to win back the White House and the Senate.
Kamala Harris has a new video:
Love it!
It is ridiculously hot. 81 degrees at 5am. I was going to go to the gym last night but I got so overheated running errands I was afraid to go back outside (the gym is so close to my house — less than 10 minutes drive, I don’t turn on the car a/c for something that short, it won’t have time to cool off). And just walking the 2 blocks from parking into the building — I feel like I was radiating steam for about 30 minutes after getting into the building. But — something cute happened. While I was waiting for it to be 6 so my badge would work, I started to walk around the loading dock, then I noticed that there were raccoons around the dumpsters. A little family of 4 of them! And they hadn’t run away when I walked up to the building, just kept doing their thing. They did notice me standing by the door, though, and ran away. But for a minute there, cuteness. Not quite a jungle, but here, have Adventure of a Lifetime, anyway.
Turn your magic on, to me she’d say
Everything you want’s a dream away
Under this pressure, under this weight
We are diamonds taking shape
We are diamonds taking shape
Good Thor’s Day, Moosekind! Fair and lovely this morning after yesterday’s humdinger of a thunderstorm, during which we received roaring rain at last! It’s 79 F. in Ashburn right now, going up to 91 F. It’s going to be hot all week. Well, it is August.
Breakfast has been had. Grandma screwed up the simple process of defrosting a bagel, then toasting it for Mr. Kindergartener. Had to do it a second time. When Target opens we’ll go there for a wild shopping spree. Mr. K. just took Monty out to the courtyard for a business meeting, the first time he’s ever done it all by himself.
Today would have been my late father’s 97th birthday. He was a remarkable person and I miss him still.
Hoping for a quiet day. We’ll take Mr. K. home tonight, but on Sunday night I will have him and his sister and Monty Beagle milling around our tiny flat. Miss Pink Cheeks finishes her final summer camp tomorrow, so will be at loose ends the next two weeks before school starts.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
Rain moved in just before dawn dropping the temps below projected (72) into the upper 60s where it still is. The rain off and on – a lot of heavy mist alternating with light drizzle and a few momentary spates of actual rain – and seems to be going to do that most of the day. Definitely not helping the electricity production (we got 13 KWHs yesterday, m-t-d 92 which most certainly is not on track for 500) but it is keeping things cool enough I don’t have to run the A/C. No A/C means as long as I average over 6 KWHs a day I’m covering usage.
The news is deplorable. The actions being done in all our names with all our tax dollars are evil. And we cannot stop them until we get the R party out of power. I know folks who are so passionate about impeachment I don’t even talk to them – but what the hell do they thing impeachment is going to do for those children in the cages, those divided families in concentration camps? Twitler will smirk like that little white shit who was harassing the Native Elder drumming to defuse a dangerous situation – and next best thing to laugh when he’s acquitted. Only thing impeachment will “teach” him is that he can effen get away with anything. Even murder. Even genocide. To stop this we have got to get control of Congress and WH – and hold them long enough to start getting actual judges into the Courts again. For now our only way of helping these folks is via donations to on-the-ground NGOs and protesting so they don’t get erased and forgotten. Which they will be as soon as the cameras are turned elsewhere.
So I do what I can – send a little money, too little but it’s what I can, boost tweets adding twitter handles of the 2 NGOs I’ve memorized their twitter handles, support candidates I know will stop this given the chance – and bring my focus in. Send money to friends in need, deal with my cats and my household, get the oil changed (as I did this morning), stuff. And pray. A lot. Meanwhile, time for coffee. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, Meesefolk; 64 this morning and going up to 81. No rain in the forecast now or in the foreseeable future, which is becoming a real problem. After a spring that felt like non-stop rain, we’re getting none. Lawns are brown, which doesn’t particularly break my heart but is a marker; the crops that did manage to get planted are obviously stressed, and that is a concern. If I can tell crops are stressed when I’m just driving by, the chances are that it’s much worse than I’m seeing. I don’t even want to think about what food prices are going to be like in the fall and winter.
I have been more distressed than I would have expected by the photos of the hospital workers cozying up to 45*. I saw some folks on Twitter reporting “friends of friends” saying that some of the folks weren’t actually employed at the hospital, but that’s the sort of CT that I think comes from wishful thinking. No one wants to think that someone in a helping profession would be fangirling over someone as disgusting as 45*, but I don’t think the pictures are lies. I think they are very, very uncomfortable truths. I also think if I were in hospital for something fairly minor (and therefore fully cognizant of my surroundings), I would be flinching at the sight of any one of those women who were doting on 45* coming near me. I would certainly be questioning their judgment and doing so loudly. I’m not typically passive-aggressive, but I can play that type when circumstances call for it.
Good day to and for all!
Remember – at least 25% (more if you only count wypipo) of any position of power – and that includes hospital staff – went into that profession for the power and the ability to abuse it. Even if they don’t actually abuse it, and they usually do, they giggle inside knowing they could. That’s who you see in those photos – the ones who love twitler because he is doing what they’d be doing if they had that much power.
61 and cloudy in Bellingham today. I was awake in the night, then slept late, and then the phone started ringing so my day nearly over before it’s begun! Time for lunch and to clear my head so I can decide what needs to be done.
Best wishes to all.
Friday Meese,
62 going up to a sunny 80 here in NYS.
Puerto Rico
Kamala – Iowa Bus Tour
I loved the bus video – sheer joy in life. That is so missing from our national politics! Bring back joy.
This reporter annoyed me
Maybe he preferred Elizabeth Warren’s bus which had the “pithy” phrase “Honk if you are ready for big, structural, change! Warren” on the back.
I think KAMALA on one side and FOR THE PEOPLE on the other says all you need to know. :)