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 day yesterday, knocked on doors, almost no one was home. I wonder if they’ll send me to doors or a polling place today. Hips are unhappy, but I can do this one more day. For now, doing laundry & watching the Stargate rerun, because I’m not watching Morning Joe (though I do wonder if they’ll talk about Chris Matthews at the end). Anyway — for everyone in a Super Tuesday state — Happy Election Day!
{{{anotherdemocrat}}} bless you for getting out and doing that. Holding the Good Thought for TX as well as AR. Healing Energy and moar {{{HUGS}}}
It’s 40 heading for 65 today and supposed to be partly sunny which I see no sign of yet. But then yesterday it was supposed to be 63 and cloudy but we got up to 75 (!!!) and the clouds cleared off by lunchtime. We generated 11 KWHs bringing the m-t-d to 17 – not on track for 300 much less 400 but it’s early days yet. & the gee-dee-em-eff daylight savings time that starts Sunday isn’t going to change the amount generated per day by a single watt. (I don’t know who is making money off DST. Other than the medical industry for the increase in illness and accidents that accompany the change twice a year. Business in general isn’t as productivity decreases for up to 2 weeks after the change. But somebody must be or we’d have gotten rid of it decades back.)
Today is a definitely “ignore the sturm und drang” day. Do what you can, pray if you’re that minded, and stay away from the media. Today is last shot at voting in the primaries for a bunch of states. If folks haven’t voted already, this is it. The totals come in tonight. We’ll have data then and not memes or Russian-bot-pushed propaganda. So. We shall see what we shall see. (It’s still gonna be a more-coffee-than-usual day.) Healing/Helping Energy to everybody. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 47 and mostly cloudy in Bellingham. So nice to see a bit of blue sky outside my window this morning. I’ve been cleaning out old files and yesterday I decided to just burn the papers in the patio fireplace instead of shredding. It was quick, cathartic, and thanks to the rain, very wet! I could have waited until today but it’s good to be done.
Like it or not we have COVID-19 cleaning products on the porches and in the cars. I’m going to stay close to home and take reasonable precautions, but RonK is in the community more than I am so we’ll keep the doorknobs, car handles, shopping bags, etc as clean as we can.
Seeing support for Biden gives me a bit of hope for the net election, but lordy I want this tRump nightmare to be over! Best wishes on this partly sunny primary day :)
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 34 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 41. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
Big wins for Biden as he harnesses the South Carolina momentum and turns it into wins across the country, especially in the south. Once again, black voters have bailed our sorry asses out and reminded us that the base is strong. Joe Biden now has the delegate lead (453) taking away Sanders’ claim as the front runner and his claim as “inevitable – get out of my way.” The uprising against the takeover of our party by the usurper from Vermont was swift and overwhelming. Two states we care a lot about for November’s general election – Virginia and North Carolina – voted resoundingly for a return to the normalcy of the Obama administration and rejected revolution.
I have a bunch of articles up in tabs and will return to read after I get a couple of projects completed.
See all y’all later!
Good morning Meese. 45 going up to 50 in the Catskills.
Getting ready to post a rant over at Dkos
Elated to see Biden kick ass. Mad at attacks on black voters.
Your Puerto Rico tweet was yesterday’s. Fixed!! :)
I was “watching” the early returns with friends and knew that the attacks on black voters would tick me off – and they did! Somehow Bernie Sanders winning Utah – a state he would likely get 5% of the vote in the general election – is “momentous” but Joe Biden winning in Alabama means nothing because “red state, black voters.” STHU, racist berners, we see you. In 2016, Sanders crowed about winning Oklahoma – this year, crickets. He only won Oklahoma in 2016 because he has a penis – when it was a penis versus penis and people look at the person and the policies, he loses.
Post a link to your rant for us!!
Enjoyed your rant, Sis!
posted
So, bad news: there’s a damn runoff; good news: my candidate is in it. I’m going to have to come up with something other than knocking on doors to do, it’s just too much. I need to look at other local races, see how my other candidates did. Maybe after my tea. I wonder if Warren will drop out today. That would be so depressing. Maybe we can get Biden to say he absolutely will have a woman VP. Today is definitely a day for City of Blinding Lights. And add in Adventure of a Lifetime:
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
Another, there are people here at the home who aren’t physically able to knock on doors. We have postcard-writing parties, assemble walk packets, and hand out sample ballots in front of polling places.
Of course I don’t need a postcard from a fellow voter to remind me to vote, but I’m always touched by the idea that someone who cares about democracy would send me a handwritten postcard.
One thing I’d like to do this year is sit outside a library or some other such building and help register voters.
I’m going to suggest postcards. They might be cheaper to print than the literature we take when we go knocking.
Ugh. Lost 4 of the judicial races, and a runoff in a county commissioner race. One of the judicial races really stings, because the woman who won is really a Republican. We have pretty much no elected Rs in Travis County, so the primaries are really the only race, especially for judges.
Happy Woden’s Day morning, Meese! Sorry I never made it here yesterday: I had four different breakfasts to cook as well as two children to supervise. After we were finally washed and brushed we went to stand in line at the polls. It’s really nice that our polling place here at The Home is a three-minute walk across the parking lot to the Great Oak Club House. Dearly Beloved and I snapped photos of ourselves waiting in line with the children.
Needless to say I am WILDLY happy that Virginia went for Biden in a huge way and that our turnout yesterday exceeded the turnout in 2016 and in 2008! I think Virginia’s blue counties of Arlington and Fairfax are responsible for turning the state blue. There are a lot of rich people in Loudoun County, where I live now. They own vineyards and horse farms and tend to vote Rethuglican.
I was kept busy yesterday producing meals and trying to compensate for my awful night’s sleep on Monday. Woke up this morning with a cold sore, which I don’t appreciate at all. I don’t need another cold right now, especially not with tomorrow’s large unseemly lunch in honor of my birthday next week.
Oh, the weather! Lovely this morning, blue skies and sunlight, 43 F. now and 63 F. this afternoon. I’m definitely going for a walk today.
It’s good to see everyone here! Hope you’re all having good weather and gloating to the max. I know I am!
May it be a good day for all at the Pond.
It’s 50 heading for 62 and cloudy in Fay., AR. Maybe, I hope, the sun will come out later like it did yesterday. We got 12.3 KWHs which brought the m-t-d to 29 – that’s nowhere near on track for 400. It’s almost on track for 300 which is totally not a good number for March. We’ve got to generate at least 390 just to get in 2nd place. But at least we’re generating more than I’m using.
Joe won AR – got 40% of the vote and 16 of the 28 delegates. bernie got 12, bloomie 4, and EW didn’t qualify for any. I’m so glad Joe’s pulled in front. I’m not “fired up” – more in the “I seen my duty and I dood it” category – but Joe is our best of a bunch of not very good chances to take the WH back and our only chance of taking the Senate and keeping the House. Our state Supreme Court race went to the Deplorable. It’s not supposed to be partisan but there was a reason she used her maiden name (Womack) in all her campaign literature so even if folks didn’t know her husband’s the head of the R party here they’d know which camp she’s in. My candidates won Circuit Court Dist 3 and State Dist Court. I think the Circuit Dist 4 person is OK although not my choice – at least the Deplorable didn’t win. That’s a Juvenile court and the last thing those poor kids need is a Deplorable handling their cases.
Folks on my “concern list” – at least the ones I can keep track of because they’re on twitter – are not doing well but they’re hanging on. Which is pretty much all any of us can do until the next thing comes up. If I didn’t know how bad the odds are I’d buy a lottery ticket. LOL. A solid win would get a dozen folks away from the edge and on solid ground. A dozen’s not a lot of difference but it’s a world of difference to that dozen. sigh. Anyway, Healing/Helping Energy to everybody. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 43 and mostly sunny in Bellingham. So nice to wake up this morning with a glimmer of hope! May the Dems unite behind Biden, may he stay healthy, and may the sun soon set on tRump and all of his red hat enablers.
While watching the returns last night I was updating a motley assortment of family computers. Contrary to popular belief updates don’t just magically happen and five hours later the motley assortment of computers on my dining room table are ready for Justin (our computer guy) to optimize, do security checks, install some needed fixes, etc. He’s coming at noon today.
Best wishes to all on what seems like a better day for our country.
Wow, princesspat, je suis impressed! Had no idea you were so tech-savvy. Wish I were!
Thursday Meese
I overslept. Was up trying to read the over 1000 comments I got yesterday.
38 here in the Catskills, going up to 51
Biden Sanders
Puerto Rico
Good morning, meeses! Thursday …
It is 37 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 43. Showers are in the forecast. A look ahead suggests that we will get to nearly 60 degrees on Sunday – I am ready for spring.
So Elizabeth Warren will make another pact with Bernie Sanders to combine forces to create a left-of-the left coalition? Good luck with that. Many Warren supporters want nothing to do with the berner revolution and chose Warren for her “persisting”, her plans, and, frankly, her gender. That does not magically transfer to Bernie Sanders and his plan also ignores that fact that many Warren supporters remember what Sanders did to Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016 and are not interested in Kumbaya. That Sanders and his brobots believe that they will scoop up those voters is simply more evidence of their delusions. They wrongly attributed his 2016 victories to people wanting him to be president rather than the Hillary Clinton hate he ginned up and rode to victory on. People don’t hate Joe Biden and will have no problem voting for him in Michigan and Washington state next week. In 2016, Washington was a lightly attended caucus overrun by bernbros and this year they will have a small d democratic primary.
I am trying not to think too much about COVID-19 because there is not much I can do about it except to be mindful to avoid my own exposure. I hope that it does not disrupt university instruction to the point that kids will have to suspend their educations and won’t be able to complete this semester. Universities need to put in place a way to shift to streaming lectures to replace classroom work and modify lab requirements for course work. Can you imagine the nightmare of cancelling classes, delaying graduations, and reimbursing students for the current semester? Some money has already been spent – on housing and food, for example. I know that our university system would not have funding to pay for a do-over and the anti-education Republican legislature would provide no help (they would dance gleefully on the grave of Wisconsin higher education).
Busy day again here. I sometimes despair about catching up – it was easier when I was younger and had more energy – but I have to keep plugging away.
See all y’all later!
Chilly morning — trying to savor the mornings when I need a sweater because all too soon — and for way too long, it’ll be 75 or 80 this time of day. Didn’t make it to the gym yesterday, will try again today. More disappointing election news — the person I liked isn’t in the Senate runoff. MJ Hegar is the likely winner of the runoff, but my Latinx friends say she has wrong positions on immigration. Ok, looking for something to be happy about….. Here’s U2 doing Pride.
Does MJ Hegar have a better chance to beat Cornyn? It does not matter a lot what her positions are on a lot of things because all we need right now is a D by their name and a promise to caucus with the Democrats so we can have a Senate majority and send Mitch McConnell to the trash bin of history.
Cornyn will get the votes of people who reflexively vote R, but for all his years in the Senate he just doesn’t have much presence or name ID. We have a chance with either her or Royce West, the other Dem in the runoff – with anyone who needs persuading.
Cornyn was most famous for appearing in photos with Mitch McConnell as McConnell destroyed democracy in America – and trolling people who care about climate change with his tweets. Not much of a resume to run on. He resigned (or was relieved of?) his leadership post at the beginning of the last Congress so that he could focus on re-election so there was obviously some concern about his seat. I hope we can retire him – Texas deserves better.
Good Thor’s Day morning, Moosekind! It’s fairish today, cooler than yesterday, with a current temp. of 36 F. in Ashburn. It’ll go up to 56 F. today.
Yesterday, presumably because of my incipient cold, I fell asleep in the green chair after dinner and so could not sleep when I went to bed. Went back to the chair and I did fall asleep. Plan to crash this afternoon when we get back from the big lunch we’re scheduled to attend.
Still haven’t uploaded my story to the website, but fortunately March is a long month. I’ll try to do it today.
Feeling very comforted that even in this kakistocracy we inhabit, spending $500 million on TV ads and mailers still can’t buy you the nomination. When I think what even some of $1 million could do for bfitz’s friends, I just want to scream.
Can anyone tell me how to capture a tweet from this site so I can share it on the Urban Intellectuals Facebook page? I want Freddie Taylor to know about our very own DOV. She’s a natural for inclusion in his next line of flash cards.
My poor daughter-in-law has pneumonia. I’m going to send her some flowers. Super-antibiotics and two weeks’ of rest is the order of the day, and the doctor has stated it’s not coronavirus.
Wishing all at the Pond a good day.
I am chuckling at this because I am seeing it every day “fortunately March is a long month”. Before you know it, it will be the Ides of March then Equinox. :)
Depending on the widget you look at it’s either 30 or 38 right now in Fay., AR heading for 65 and sunny. I might even get a walk outside today. I have been fairly consistently managing half and hour a day on the non-electric treadmill. If that’s all I can do, I can live with that. We only got 5.1 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is currently at 34.65 – hopefully today’s sun will take it over 40. It could potentially take it to 49 which would be nice.
Diana’s right – I could get a bunch of people away from the edge and stable with “just” a mere million. The bunch currently balancing on the edge right now, managing to hang on and not go over for the moment. But the colonizer society we live in isn’t set up for sustainability or sanity. Welp, what sane people do in an insane world is the best we can to survive it. (We can only do that in community which is why what Momma used to call “power-overs” have spent billions of dollars in TV, movie, and other forms of propaganda to destroy community.) If we can ever find a way to break up that propaganda machine we will be able to survive longer and better. Meanwhile we work on getting people in office who aren’t trying to kill us for fun and profit.
So we do what we can. Enjoy what we can. Help where we can. And pray a lot. Healing/Helping Energy to everybody. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 40 and mostly sunny in Bellingham. Heidi, our oldest grand dog, is staying with us for a few days while our son and his friends celebrate/contemplate life at 50 yrs old. They met in grade school and have stayed friends so it’s nice they have this time together. Heidi is 14 yrs old now so she’s a good companion for our quiet life.
I’ve got a hair cut this morning and a few errands to do after, then I’ll sanitize myself and hope for the best. I’ve got two more needlepoint canvases I want to sew into pillows but I need to get a better wool soap so I can wash them and stretch them into shape. These have been used so they are quite soiled but the stitches and the colors of the yarn used to create the floral pattern is very nice so they are worth restoring.
Best wishes to all on this quiet March morning.
Good morning, meeses! Friday …
It is 28 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 34. Sunny skies are in the forecast. We had a bit of sleet and snow yesterday evening which I don’t remember being in the forecast. Fortunately I did not have to go anywhere.
Democrats were having the same problem in 2020 that Republicans had in 2016 – a completely unsuitable candidate who is barely in the party becoming the front-runner by winning less than a third of the votes in each nominating contest. The difference is that our party, having learned their lesson from past electoral college blowouts, ditched the winner-take-all template and allocates delegates proportionally. So the Republicans ended up with tRump who won about 30% of their primary’s voters and whose presidency will likely destroy their party as it has no path forward without disenfranchising everyone under 25 years of age (they will try!). Democrats will most likely end up with Joe Biden who is winning states with wide margins and slowly racking up delegate totals. He will be a consensus candidate and he will govern as a Democrat and surround himself with Obama administration professionals who both know how to run a government and how to clean up messes left by the previous administration (gawd, we have to do this again!!). I am content to wait until the existential crisis has passed before we can once again take a chance on a candidate who is not a white male. I am hoping Biden puts our future in place with a vice presidential pick that energizes our party’s young people and gives them hope for the future. One of my friends said that if he picks a white male, she will burn things down; I will hand her the matches!!
I made it to Friday without having any of my delayed projects cause serious problems for clients. Today I will triage my to-do list and plot a course for the weekend when I hope to make significant progress.
See all y’all later!
Friday Meese. 31 going up to 49 here in Saugerties NY
Sanders commitment to racial justice thrown under the bus as he skips Mississippi and heads to where he can get “working class votes”
Puerto Rico
This has certainly been a long week, considering that I only worked 3 days.So looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow — at least until 7am. (Isn’t is sad that that’s “sleeping in”?) Didn’t bring my gym stuff. But I’ll spend a lot of time there tomorrow. Moving on from the election — for a couple of days at least, then there’ll be runoff stuff — and remembering there’s a world out there. And I’ve been neglecting fundraising & training for the Ride.
At 32 we’re coming up from the lowest overnight low for the foreseeable future – and the only one below freezing. We’re only going up to 59 today (says the widget) but it’s sunny again. Yesterday we got just over 15 KWHs! The m-t-d is a hair under 50 and should reach it within the hour. Holding the good thought for another such day. Sunshine is a good thing. Of course we also need the rain (projected for Monday) – I’ve already got squirrels drinking from the bird water dish. But sunshine is a very good thing.
So Dems want a real Dem to be our candidate – and want that enough to coalesce behind Joe to stop bernie from berning us down. Good. I hope the next DNC rule change requires a person be a demonstrated member of the Dem party for at least five years and release at least 10 years of tax returns. Primaries where we can (caucuses are less expensive), closed primaries where states will let us would also be very good changes but the requirement that a Dem candidate be a Dem is the highest priority. Don’t have to worry about bullying bro types if the bernie types aren’t on the ballot. And hopefully enough of the kids will look at history – be nice if they paid attention to their elders but our society trains them not to – but look at what happens when politicians try to do the big/grand/much desired but a long way off things all at once. Bill Clinton declared “open serve” on Day One. And had to walk it back to DADT by Day Four. It took 16 years of DADT before Obama could take it to “open serve”. Hillary spent most of ’94 trying to get us universal health care. Not only did it not pass but the alliance of Big Med, Big Pharma, & Big Insurance shifted the balance of power from doctors to the insurance companies and shifted most non- and not-for-profit hospitals and insurance companies into for-profit. She worked with Ted Kennedy to get SCHIP in ’98 but it still took another 8 years of the situation made worse to get ACA through (barely – & Lie-berman cost us the public option Nancy Pelosi’s House had put in). But of course it’s easier to curse the folks trying to get the good things done as “corporatists” than to take on the folks who blocked them.
Of my group of folks I’m concerned about, right now Amelia’s topping the list. Not because she needs housing – that, thanks to an angel walking the earth, is covered for March. But because she’s back in that health trap of not having her meds to be able to focus and concentrate enough to go get her meds. Damned officious “we know best” laws that won’t let her doctor renew her regular monthly scrips without actually seeing her. She could manage the few miles to the pharmacy at the grocery store with the “pebbled” windshield. She can’t manage – hasn’t been able to for over 2 weeks – to call the insurance company (anxiety attack when she starts to) to get the windshield fixed/replaced so she can drive the 30 miles on the freeway to the doctors office, wait anywhere from 1 to 5 hours to see him, then drive back stopping at the pharmacy on the way home. This is where she needs someone physically there to help. Who can take her to the doctor to get the scrip renewed, get her meds, so she can function enough to make the phone calls. Actually this is where whoever makes those punitive laws that so victimize victims should be thrown out of power and the laws revised. Wish for the moon while I’m at it.
Prayers/invocations/Channeling Healing/Helping Energy to her and to everybody. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}