Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: May 17th through May 23rd

May 16, 2020 JanF Community 93

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!
 
– Page Three of Comments is HERE!
 

 

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22 Comments

  1. I skipped the walk this morning, took the recycling out & got the mail. Only have to work 5 hours today, I really like this flexible schedule thing. And it’s supposed to start raining today & rain all weekend. Which is absolutely normal for Austin on this weekend. Have a great day, y’all!

    • {{{anotherdemocrat}}} – I hope the work at home option is kept even when things are totally open again. Once it’s in place and all the bugs are worked out of the process it’s not only more convenient for the worker, it’s more efficient for the work. I hope the rain cools things down a bit. Healing Energy & moar {{{HUGS}}}

  2. Good Friday morning, Meese! We’re having some blissful rain, which means I don’t have to water my garden. Currently it’s 60 F. in Ashburn, going up to 70 F. later. Having trouble trying to get here this morning—can’t log in or out owing to a 404 error and can’t fierce anything—but I’ll just try to post.

    Made Peach Bran Muffins this morning for a taste of sunshine on this rainy day. They were good. I used chopped dried apricots rather than raisins and reduced the 1/4 cup of brown sugar to 2 tablesp. These muffins are fine with the orange juice, maple syrup, and fruit for sweetening.

    But enough of this culinary chitchat. Dearly Beloved and I still look like The Wild Hunt with respect to hair, but today is pedicure day. I hate it. I managed to give myself something of a manicure, but that is not one of my talents. Groan! When will it be safe to attend to our personal needs? (First-world problem, I know.)

    Hoping to get some work done today. We’ll see.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!

  3. It’s 69 heading for 77 today and overcast already. IF the roofers had shown up on time yesterday and replaced my roof, the PV guy would be just finishing up reinstalling my solar panels. The roofers aren’t here this morning either. The weekend has under 30% rain chances. I not only hope to heaven they do it tomorrow, I’m going to be mad as hell if they don’t. PV guy can’t reinstall in the rain and Monday’s chances are not only 75% they’re 75% starting first thing in the morning. And the next lower than 50% chance of rain is Sunday the 31st.

    My grandfather was not a very nice man but he was an excellent builder. In a year like this he’d hire extra men so all the jobs could get done as weather permitted. Yes, that meant each worker didn’t get as many days of work (and thus pay) but everybody got something and all the work got done. Republicans (& Socialists) think construction and farming can be handled just like factory and office jobs – and absolutely hate having more people on payroll even if they’re all part-time or day laborers and don’t actually work that 40-hour work week. (They of course also hate it when construction or farm workers are putting in 80-hour work weeks as they occasionally have to do.) So now everything gets run “like a business” even when the business in question is weather-dependent. And that leads to regular folks getting jacked around on a regular basis even though the owners use the “customer is always right” excuse to also jack around the workers. The construction world needs more builder-owners like my grandfather. (Just keep them away from women and children. Especially children.)

    I would love to have a haircut. I would also love to have lunch out with my son (we missed doing that on his birthday this year) or my friend. As a change from my regular, healthful, but rather boring meals, I’d love to do Thai or BBQ takeout. It’s not worth dying for. Or hurting somebody else for. I can deal with the “new normal” – heck, I like it better now. When I was doing without haircuts and going out or doing take out earlier in my life it was due to poverty. Now I am making an informed choice. Choices/options = freedom. Choosing the least harmful is much more free than the magats want to believe. Mostly because magats equate freedom with not following rules.

    It’s so dark right now the PV system wouldn’t be on anyway. But it still pisses me off. I think coffee. Maybe an Ibuprofen. Channeling Healing/Helping Energy to everybody, to your shaping. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

    • I thought about a haircut and decided to wait until my Dane County hairdresser is back at work. For one thing, I am going to need an expert to fix the mess I made – usually I say “just follow the same lines” but I can’t do that any longer – the lines are gone and it has just been cut to keep it off my face and neck! For another thing, I trust Dane County and the businesses here to implement plans to safely reopen, I am not as confident in the salon in the next county over where my other long-time hairdresser works.

      I really hope the grocery stores continue senior hours and in-store social distancing (one-way aisles, for one) because that is the only place that people need to go. Online shopping with contactless pickup was useless because they could only fill about 60% of the order because of stock shortages and because you had to place the order four to five days in advance. By then you were out of more things!

      I may have to go on-site to a client in late June and I will have to help my daughter move back to college in August but other than that, I can stay hunkered down.

      • Yeah, I’m gonna need a pro to do my hair when it finally gets done again. I’m 100% with you on the grocery stores. Everything else can be put off, curb-side pick up, or delivered – but groceries… Good luck with the clients & I don’t know whether or not to hope for colleges being open. But they probably will be. I hope with precautions. {{{HUGS}}}

  4. Hello again, Meese. I’m still getting a 404 error when I try to log in, still can’t fierce, and when I comment, I have to fill out my name, email, and website URL. I really loathe rebooting but will do it if I have to.

    • I had been logged out on Wednesday morning and had to confirm the administrator email account so something was updated behind the scenes this week. I cleared cache again, updated two plug-ins that had reported as “fixed” and also optimized the database in the hopes that helps. If it would be of any benefit, I can log you out of all your devices – maybe one of them is on an old version of cache and it is causing problems. I know that princesspat uses an iPad sometimes – we can check with her if she is getting the 404. Usually that is transient – it is odd that it is happening all day.

  5. Good morning, 52 and cloudy in Bellingham. The sewing room side of the new door is framed and finished so most of the work will happen in RonK’s study today. I must admit I’ll be glad to see the tools migrate to the other side of the wall. My mask sewing project grew my 12 yesterday so I hope to keep my focus and finish as many as I can today. Watching my son work and conversing with him is fun but distracting!

    Best wishes to all on this now rainy day.

  6. Good morning, meeses! Saturday …

    It is 54 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 72. Rain is in the forecast for today and for the next 5 days. I have no outdoor plans for the Memorial Day weekend in any event but it would probably be better if people could gather outside rather than inside – I hope there are some breaks for them. Some people are planning trips Up Nort’ which is a place as well as a mentality. I worry about the influx of people – the places that depend on tourist dollars to survive appear to be unaware that there is a deadly virus afoot; we had one county that up until last week did not have a single case. They are about to get a crash course in epidemiology.

    I have a mixed reaction to the Republican demands that all churches open without restrictions. On the one hand, I have no problem with white evangelicals blowing COVID-19 all over each other, getting sick and dying to fluff up their spiritual leader, Donald Trump. On the other hand, they will probably take a bunch of innocent people with them – like those killed in Jonestown, there will be children who have not made a conscious choice to commit suicide. Also, everyone who those people come in contact with in their towns – grocery store workers, co-workers, people at the post office, people they hail on the street, health care workers – did not make a conscious choice to commit suicide. Rand Paul, who clearly is NOT a scientist and lacks a basic understanding of how schools are run, said that kids should go back to school because they run such a small risk of dying. Of course, he “forgets” that kids don’t just wake up and go to school – they have adult teachers, administrators, people working in cafeterias, janitors, bus drivers and parents who will run a much higher risk of dying if they get infected. Goddess, I long for a return to science-based governing. This is so frustrating.

    p.s. It is not up to me to say this but I don’t think of Clarence Thomas, Tim Scott, or Ben Carson as black – they certainly don’t care about the black community. So if “black” refers to the “black community”, Joe Biden is right.

    Today is Saturday of a long weekend – I have a few projects that I want to get done so that I am not scrambling on Monday to finish before people go back to work. Dane County’s Safer-At-Home order will expire on Tuesday at 8am to join the rest of the state. The Milwaukee suburbs’ orders expired on Thursday at midnight – I am not sure about the City of Milwaukee and if clients downtown will be back at work or if they will ask people to stay at home until the second wave hits and clears. I need to be prepared in any event.

    See all y’all later!

  7. It’s 68 heading for 84, cloudy but not raining, and there’s a crew on my roof removing the old one. Even though I didn’t really, I told the guy I expected his crew to be here at daylight but, by gum, they were. I wasn’t quite finished dressing and out of my bedroom when the first tarp hit the ground. Only have two cats visible at the moment. Where the other three are hiding I don’t know. But then if I did they’d have to find another hiding place. (Actually I think they’re under the bed in the spare room.)

    So I will focus on getting my house in order as it were. Roof done today, I hope. PV system reinstalled tomorrow, I hope. Then back to worrying about other folks. And the nation. But I’ve been worrying about the nation to no avail for something like 50 years now. Better to worry about folks I might be able to help at least a little.

    Cloud’s response to men on the roof making noise is to pace a lot. Murf’s is to eat more than usual (which is good actually). I think mine needs to be more coffee. Channeling Healing/Helping Energy to everybody, to your shaping. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  8. Rain chances today aren’t great but they go up tomorrow and waaaay up Monday & Tuesday. I should have walked this morning, but oh well. Had tacos for dinner last night from a place that has curbside delivery. Watching the news, eating breakfast & drinking tea. weekend plans? Watch TV (SciFi has a Harry Potter marathon, yay!), read, listen to music.

  9. Good Saturday morn, Moosekind! I’m glad I didn’t log in any earlier because the weather has changed five times since then. It’s gone from overcast, to lovely and sunny to Brigadoon-ish fog and overcast, and now to a really glorious-looking day. When I went to say good morning to the parsley, basil, rosemary, lavender, and Frondsy, the Boston fern, I noticed they’d been rained on during the night. Iss gut thing, ja.

    Heard from my sister-in-law in Australia this morning. The city of Melbourne is gradually emerging from lockdown. People can have as many as five family members in their house at once now, and 10 outside. My poor brother-in-law’s Alzheimer’s is worse. He doesn’t even recognize his wife sometimes. Oh, dear. I wish they would find a cure for that and for multiple sclerosis. One of the precious nieces in Oz has multiple sclerosis, she’s been bravely battling it for years.

    I’ve got to get out for a walk this lovely day. Fortunately, in sunny weather I actually feel like going for a walk.

    At the 4 p.m. daily briefing on the in-house channel yesterday, our good-looking (but Trumpist, sadly) Executive Director said plans were afoot for reopening and would be announced perhaps as early as next week. Meanwhile, we have permission to go for walks (masked) outside the building, take the dog out for walks, and work on our plots in the community garden. Uh…we’ve been doing that all along!

    When he said that I sat down and emailed the only member of the Resident Advisory Council I know personally—a terrific woman, a feminist and ex-lawyer—to ask her to plead for increased carryout venues. The Pub is down the hall from us and the “nice” restaurant is around the corner. The only thing Dearly and I have enjoyed about the lockdown is being able to eat dinner at a time of our choosing while watching David Muir’s muscles. I mean, while watching David Muir utter the news.

    Yesterday I made the bran muffins and a delicious blueberry cobbler; today I feel a deep, growing urge to make a Victoria sponge. We acquired more eggs, so I gotta do something.

    Wishing everyone a nice first day of the three-day weekend!

  10. Speaker Pelosi did not have a press conference this past week so I included Fighting Back news in the comments section of last week’s post which has the all purpose title “Fighting Back: “Democrats will continue fighting for families, workers and small businesses.” ”

    Senator Mitch “Grim Reaper” McConnell adjourned the Senate because he does not care that Americans are suffering.

  12. More PR

  13. Good morning, 53 and mostly cloudy in Bellingham. I enjoyed a moment of graduation fun with Emma and Ava yesterday. Her Nana ordered yard signs for all of us so after a drive by event at her school where caps and gowns were distributed the girls drove by each sign, Emma posed, and Ava was the photographer. Tonight her family is surprising her with a special “prom dinner” and we’ll meet them at a local park for more photos in her prom dress. It’s nice to see a sparkle in her eyes, and I’m very grateful for her mom’s creative planning.

    I made all of the mask pieces yesterday so today’s task is to assemble and finish. A friend found some elastic in her sewing stash so that will make some of them go faster. I can adjust elastic for a comfortable fit for local people, but the masks being mailed are made with ties, and that takes more time.

    Best wishes to all on yet another rainy day in May.

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