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 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 (right before “Leave A Reply”) and use the Pages Tool, shown here with 3 pages of comments available.
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Good Tuesday morning, Meese, and happy Mabon! It’s another glorious day here, 48 F. at 10:45 a.m., going up to a whopping 72 F. I’m reveling in this weather: yesterday was the most spectacular day I can remember. I went for a walk at 4:30 to get away from The Dawg, who’d been driving me insane all day with his incessant demands for attention. The sky was an overall clear medium blue, not a cloud in sight, with sunlight and deep shadows. Even at that hour it was 67 F., so I didn’t get too hot.
Today will be the last glorious day, though, a warmup is predicted for the rest of the week. Pooh.
Had the Night from Hell last night, so feeling very fragile today. Although today was “change the sheets” day, that’ll just have to wait until tomorrow. Today I will do NOTHING except work on the short story.
I did get the bathroom floor mopped yesterday, hurrah! Perhaps I’ll work up enough mojo to mop the kitchen floor one day. I’m still shamelessly hoarding toilet paper—oh, I’m sorry, I mean bathroom tissue, paper towels, and Kleenex. Also stocking up on milk powder and other staples because I think there will be another lockdown. In fact, I fully expect to be sequestered until Yule 2021. This virus is not going away and no way, no how, will I take a Trump vaccine even if it becomes available. I don’t trust anything Cheeto Face does or says.
I’m going to make a cup of tea and pop a couple of aspirin. I always get a headache when I have insufficient sleep. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and to all DEMOCRATS beyond!
Good morning, 59 and partly cloudy in Bellingham. Last night’s rain and the cool breeze coming in my open window this morning tells me summer is over. We were busy yesterday, but it’s a good feeling to have the patio rug, umbrellas, cushions, etc clean and put away until next summer. Now we can just enjoy autumn in the garden and not worry about rain.
I cut a basket of hydrangeas yesterday and made some simple arrangements for the house, using sprigs of rosemary and ivy as the greens. I think the flowers will dry in place now and then I can just remove the ivy and rosemary and have several bunches of hydrangeas to use over the winter. My version of filling the larder!
Best wishes to all.
That sounds so lovely, princesspat!
Wednesday Meese. 47 going up to 77 here in Kingston NY.
Puerto Rico
RIP
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 54 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 77. Sunny skies are in the forecast. I managed to avoid turning the air conditioning on yesterday but it was close – it was 78 in the house and I am a delicate flower that wilts in the heat! The sun going down helps cool things down a lot and, as you know, that is happening earlier and earlier.
Our governor, Tony Evers, extended the soon-to-expire statewide masking requirement until November 21st. I am not sure why he selected that date – just in time to blow COVIDs all over your relatives at Thanksgiving!?!! I think that it must have something to do with what he feels is the limits of his authority to require masking. Right now there are a handful of lawsuits trying to kill the mandate.
I am going to take a pass on the news today. The most important thing happening right now is getting the Continuing Resolution passed in both houses of Congress and signed. A government shutdown right now would be a nightmare for everyone. By the way, people saying that the CR could be used as a cudgel to block the Senate from confirming a Supreme Court Justice should just STHU. You do NOT shut down the government for any reason, ever, and it would be deadly right now. For many, government funds are the only lifeline that they have. All we can do is vote vote vote then fix the messes next year. Don’t take food off of people’s tables.
See all y’all later!
The House passed this bill and sent it to the Senate.
Good morning. Rain moving out today, but we’ll keep the cool mornings for another day or 2. If the forecast is right, I’ll need long sleeves for my walk tomorrow. Today: into the office to drop off my 5 done applications. And another virtual meeting with my Democratic club, more city council candidates.
Good Wednesday morning, Moosekind! It’s another beautiful morning in Ashburn, not quite as beautiful as Monday and Tuesday, but still A-. Our temperature at 9:30 is 54 F., going up to 81 F. We may get some smoke from the wildfires mixing in later.
Feel so discouraged by the news from the national scene that I will focus on news from the home front today.
First—my schoolteacher cousin in Austin, Jennifer Martin, will be on “World News Tonight” (at least, that’s our latest information) this evening. She has to teach third grade remotely at present, but she started a library for kids in the garage of her house. It has been a tremendous success! I sent books from Amazon in Spanish. The nearest library is 15 miles away. I infer from her Facebook posts that the Del Valley (DeValle?) area is an underprivileged neighborhood. Anyway, both children and parents are ecstatic. KVUE-TV has done a segment on her, “Ellen” and People have shown interest, and so on.
I finished my entry for the Loudoun County Short Story contest! Whereas “The Blossoms of Seville” would have been a 5,000-word story, “Catwalk” came in at 2,220. I’ve thought about that story so much that when I sat down to write it yesterday, it wrote itself! It’s like sitting at the keyboard listening to dictation, no agony of creation required. I have to let it “cool” for a couple of days, then touch it up and format it.
I’ll need to contact a Mac expert: the contest has rigid rules, any deviation from which results in disqualification. I can deal with the 12-point Arial font (ugh, reading that many words in a sans serif font will cause eyestrain), but I can’t get the wretched header to be Arial, no matter what I do. I’ve Googled fixes and heard recommendations from fellow members of the Mac Tribe, but nothing has worked so far. The header font stubbornly remains stuck in Helvetica Neue. (Even worse than Arial.) I simply don’t know how to change the “default font.”
Enough of that. This morning, when I took The Dawg out to the courtyard, I happened to look up. A fourth-floor window contained a HUGE “Biden-Harris 2020” sign. To the left was another window sign, equally large, with the caption “Bye Don.” Made my day!
To my surprise and delight, the flowering plant on the screened porch has suddenly awakened and started blooming again! I forget whether I bought it for Memorial Day or the Fourth of July. It was one of those “red, white, and blue” holidays. The white part seems to be gone with the wind, but the upstanding red flowers are once more flaunting their bright petals, and the trailing plant with tiny blue flowers has started blooming too. Our princesspat would be able to identify them instantly. Could it be the cooler temperatures we’ve had that made them start blooming again?
And finally, five-year-old Ethan’s Spanish immersion kindergarten is producing results! Yesterday DIL proudly sent a video that showed him reciting the numbers 1 through 10 in Spanish! I’ve read that bilingual children do better in school. Let’s hope so.
Now that my story is finished, I’ve got to finish writing postcards. Then, on to Bfitz’s suggested changes to the manuscript. She discovered a bunch of things that had whizzed right by me. Thank Goddess for copyeditors!
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and a miserable day to all but two Rethuglican senators on the Hill.
Very cool about your cousin! Yes, DelValle is, as they say underserved. So glad she’s getting so much attention for this.
Thanks, another, I couldn’t quite make out how to spell it. Now I know! :)
It’s 61 heading to 71 and we may or may not get more rain. Not that we got a lot – a little over 1/2″ – but it’s all helpful up here right now. At 3.9 KWHs yesterday we did what I hope will be the lowest generation day of the month. The m-t-d’s 263 so getting over 300 is still possible.
Yesterday was a case of “if something bad’s gonna happen, here’s a good time and place for it” – I was treating myself to take-out BBQ for Mabon (yes, I know that’s not right for Mabon but it’s safe take-out for me) and my battery died in the parking lot. The very kind folks at the BBQ place jump-started the car and I drove it straight to the local battery shop. Yep, the battery was shot. That was $85 I hadn’t expected to spend yesterday – but compared to what it could have been it wasn’t bad. Heck, a tow truck would have more than doubled it right there. So home safe and sound an hour later than I meant to be. And the BBQ was good.
First woodstove fire of this winter season. The cats loved it. LOL. Probably another tonight and then not again for a week or so. We shall see. Hold the Good Thought for everybody. They all need help, mostly money since they can handle the other stuff they need help with if they have enough money. Harvest season. It hasn’t been a good year – actually a very bad year – but please Goddess/es the harvest be adequate to get everybody through the winter and far enough into the growing season to survive in good health. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 64, cloudy and a cool breeze is blowing in my open window. The air smells like rain, a familiar and welcome change. My 2 x’s a month housekeeper will be here today so with her help the summer bedding will all get washed and the beds changed for cooler night time temps.
I realized yesterday that I have never read The Lord of The Rings books, and I think I gave Erica our well worn set. I don’t like mass market paperbacks and I don’t want to read the books on Kindle so I’m going back to the bookstore today. They have a hardbound edition with all three books in one but I hesitated because of the size. But I mostly read with my book propped on a pillow anyway, silly me! Seeing the photos of the movie set triggered my wish to journey far away…..
The Lord of the Rings Filming Locations
Best wishes to all.
{{{princesspat}}} thank you for the link. New Zealand’s got some gorgeous scenery. Once I’d hoped to emigrate there but…life happens. But I still think fondly of it. Healing Energy and moar {{{HUGS}}}
I’ve never been to the South Island, where “LOTR” was filmed, but the North Island is quite scenic as well. It reminds me a lot of England, with endless cows grazing on endless green hills. (NZ ice cream has to be tasted to be believed.)
Kiwis are some of the nicest people Dearly and I have ever met! I remember them fondly.
bwahahahahaha
Huh?
Good morning, meeses! Thursday …
It is 55 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 73. Showers expected this afternoon.
I am not quite sure why “Trump won’t concede and will call the election ‘rigged'” is being breathlessly reported as something new. That has always been his position. He has a lot at stake personally, he knows that he is going to be indicted for crimes in New York State as soon as walks out of the White House. He knows that his income is built on his ability to raid the US Treasury for his personal gain and the gain of those who will keep his floundering businesses afloat. And this (from Campos at LGM): “Trump is completely obsessed with ‘winning’ whatever contest he sees himself in, and he will do literally anything to avoid ‘losing.’ This is because his narcissism is totally out of control, and his whole life is simply a series of actions designed to first invite narcissistic injury and then somehow overcome it.” So I will take a pass on reading the what-ifs, what someone called “disaster porn”, and do the only thing I can do: voting (done) and making sure my family votes (done). We can win if we vote in large enough numbers to make even Republicans accept the results. Sucks that it has to be that way but we have what we have.
Ron Freaking Johnson’s report of Joe Biden’s conflicts of interest was, as expected, a nothingburger. The testimony that he points to breathlessly was testimony from the impeachment trial and the witness had already cleared Joe of any wrongdoing. If his adult son did something slimey, that is not on Joe and any effort to paint it that way is not going to land a blow. I can’t wait to vote his useless ass out of the Senate in 2022. I hope by then Wisconsin is reliably blue again and that demographics – in our case young v old, we have few minorities – turns the tide. First, though, 2020.
Joe Biden reminded everyone that there is a federal investigation into Breanna Taylor’s murder and should serve to lay out clearly what is at stake when the Justice Department is run by people who want justice. I have no doubt that his Attorney General will make sure that investigation is not swept under the carpet. Vote. Vote. Vote.
See all y’all later!
Thursday Meese. 50 going up to 78 here in Kingston NY.
Feelings
The world just keeps getting worse. The Kentucky thing yesterday….. I didn’t think I could be flabbergasted any more, but…. wow. Have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, keep our sanity until January 21. Did really well on my walk/run — new personal best of 8 running segments. Today: work, and there’ll be some U2 things, it’s their 44th anniversary.
It’s 58 heading for 80 and overcast at the moment. Misting a little. Not supposed to but – widgets don’t always check outside their windows as it were. I hope we do get the sun. Yesterday we generated 8.2 KWHs and the m-t-d is 272. With only 7 production days left in the month. But we should make 300 – getting to 341 and out of last place for the 4K system is another issue.
I’m not surprised about the cops who killed Breanna Taylor. Appalled, disgusted, nauseous…all that and more. But not surprised. ???????????? for Breanna and ???????????? for her family/friends/community.
AmeriKKKa may fall to a “president for life” but I don’t think it will be twitler. The fascist propaganda has been preparing us for it – started with rumors that W wasn’t going to leave, then the russian bots floated that Obama wasn’t to really gear up the Deplorables, and now this. Of course twitler isn’t planning to leave. That was never a secret. But the Rs aren’t quite ready yet. They have to not only get full control of the Courts – and not just SCOTUS – they also have to have the support of the military. “Justice” Dept thugs and Brown Shirts aren’t enough. It will take them at least another cycle to get it. IF we don’t manage to stop them. But to stop them we have to not only be in power, we have to be in power long enough to undo some of the damage to the Court system and break up the MSM propaganda machine (including restarting “Stars and Stripes” in the military). So we vote in numbers too great to ignore or override. And I guess pray a lot.
My personal circle of folks are hanging on. Right now that’s apparently the best we can do. And hope the direction we’re pointing the life raft is actually the closest land. Meanwhile I need to grill breakfast sausages – and actually eat breakfast before my blood sugar tanks. We do what’s closest to our hands to do. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 60 and partly sunny in Bellingham. I did buy The Lord of The Rings compilation yesterday and despite the size the book has a lovely soft cover and stays open to the page so it’s comfortable to read. Now I just need to focus my worried/wandering mind and let the words take me away.
The news is all overwhelming so I’m listening to a Mark Knopfler concert recorded in A Coruña, Spain. The music and the scenery in the video is lovely. Best wishes to all.
https://youtu.be/49MGNDkPo3M
Good Thursday morning, Moosekind! It’s overcast in Ashburn and will be all day. The current temperature is 64 F., going up to 77 F.
I am LATE today—it’s nearly noon! Well, that’s because with the aid of just one blue pill (not Viagra), I managed to get 7+ hours of sleep! Woke up feeling quite sprightly for an old bag, so I made Carrot Bran Muffins, flavored lightly with grated orange peel and brown sugar, and of course, a cup of grated carrot. They are of a deliciousness impossible to describe.
Cousin Jennifer’s story was moved AGAIN, to today (possibly). The problem is there’s so much news there’s no time left over for “feel good” stories. We always watch Handsome David at 6:30 anyway, so we may catch it one day.
Yesterday I bumped into the Director of Philanthropy. She said the commercial for which I recorded the voiceover of the piece I wrote will air tonight during the telethon for the Benevolent Care Fund. I alerted all my friends and asked them to watch it. Dearly claims I have a squeaky voice, so I would like to know whether they agree with him.
Found some Mac expert help. He or she (hard to tell when the first name is “Jo”) says he or she doesn’t use Pages, just Word. This expert said if I sent the story to him he would format it for me, including the header. That’s so nice!
I’m going to make chicken soup tomorrow because it’s supposed to rain all day. Now trying to think of a dessert to go with it. It may involve pears.
Feeling very encouraged in one way! Have a gander at this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/va-politics/virginia-early-voting-record-turnout/2020/09/23/dc2ad9b2-fdaa-11ea-8d05-9beaaa91c71f_story.html
Arlington and Fairfax counties are solidly blue. Loudoun County is bluer than before, when its population consisted of rich vineyard owners who always voted Rethuglican.
Questions for princesspat: Daughter Carol who lives near Austin has started talking about “Game of Thrones” after I told her I stopped watching “Outlander” because of too much sex. (I’m 76, I don’t need a sex manual.) Are the books good? Is the series good? How much sex, drugs, and rock and roll does it have? I quickly grow bored with the latter.
Yikes, I need to watch the news! Was so pleased to see a Twitter video of the crowd at the Supreme Court booing Thing and Melanoma, and chanting “Vote him OUT!” Good old DC.
Wishing a good day to everyone at the Pond and a miserable day to all Rethug politicians.
I enjoyed the books Diana, but GGM could use a good editor! He tends to go on and on with side stories and adds new characters as he does so it’s hard to keep the main story straight. He writes each chapter from a main character pov though. so that helps.
The HBO series is quite sexy and violent…..had to cover my eyes at just peek at times! I enjoyed the HBO shows based on the books more than the last few seasons when the writers no longer had Martin’s books to use. It was fun to hear a line of dialogue and to know the pages and pages of story that line represented.
If you do decide to watch the series the visuals are stunning, especially the costumes. HBO has “how we created the shows” videos on the GOT website and I really enjoyed seeing and hearing the various pros talk about their creative accomplishments.
Thanks for the info, princesspat! Are the books based on the Wars of the Roses? Are there any dragons in the series? If there be dragons, I won’t bother reading or watching. I don’t like fantasy.
I had forgotten how to post photos to FlicR and how to share them here so this is a test to see if I can do so again. An end of summer bouquet, in an old jardinaire setting on a victorian plant stand. I miss my old friend Stella, who owned the antique shop where such treasures were found. I worked for her part time for years and learned so much while doing the endless dusting.
yay, it worked!
pretty!
It’s gorgeous!
Good morning, meeses! Friday …
It is 63 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 77. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
Today’s news looks a lot like yesterday’s news which I had decided to ignore! I will continue with that plan other than to say that I don’t need or want a $200 coupon from a drug company (I don’t take any prescription drugs) and I hope that no one is not duped by the bulldung coming from the tRump maladministration about health care. The Biden ads on my TV are talking about health care because it is what Democrats ran on – and won on – in 2018 and what they can run on in 2020. Republicans are putting in place a Supreme Court that will repeal the Affordable Care Act and they have tried to repeal the ACA at least 100 times since 2010. Anyone who believes that they intend to preserve the American people’s access to health care is stupid. I hope there are enough smart people to put Joe Biden over the top.
This weekend is the last weekend in September and I need to get some projects in place so I can’t stick around.
See all y’all later!
Ugh, I had the worst night’s “sleep” I’ve had in weeks. I’ll probably have to e-mail in sick at some point today. I got up around midnight & took a muscle relaxer & even that only got me about 3 hours. I’m up now because my alarm went off — old fashioned alarms that you could cancel with a flick of a switch had their good points. I’ll eat breakfast, sort the e-mail at work & work long enough to make 1 round of calls to the applicants I haven’t been able to reach all week. And listen to U2 radio, because today is actually the anniversary.
Friday Meese. 54 and sunny going up to 81 here in Kingston NY.
History
Puerto Rico
Dee, I’m sure you know that Elizabeth Eckford was so traumatized by that whole horrible situation that she suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome for the rest of her life.
Melba Patillo, whose autobiography I read, ended up being friends with one of the white girls who screamed at her. In later life that girl apologized for her behavior.
The Little Rock Nine were so brave. Living as I did in the same neighborhood as Central High, the situation made an indelible impression on me.
I first learned about that reading Travels With Charley when I was in elementary school – I’m seeing the bookshelf in our house in Lake Jackson, so that means 4th grade. I could not understand what the people were yelling about, I just couldn’t imagine what would get people to yell at students for going to school.