Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: December 6th

December 5, 2020 JanF Community 81

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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COUNTING DOWN THE TIME UNTIL DECENCY RETURNS …

January 20, 2021 Noon ESTCountdown

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44 Comments

  1. God morning, 51 and raining in Bellingham. I did get the green blankets cut yesterday, but my plans for hemming them had to change. What I wanted to do is too time consuming for 5 blankets so I’ll make a quick and careful trip to the fabric store for more thread and just serge the edges. The serger uses 4 spools of thread and I don’t have enough.

    I’m glad we hosed off Christmas tree…..it looks and smells much better now. And the lights are on, whew! we won’t be having any in door family gatherings this year but it was impt to the family that we do a tree, so are.

    65 new Covid cases reported in today’s paper, :::sigh::: Stay careful everyone.

    • Transcript: Health Team Nominees & Appointees Remarks as Prepared for Delivery .

      I loved the remarks from the new CDC director who has a huge task ahead of her to rebuild the reputation of the CDC:

      Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Dr. Rochelle Walensky in Wilmington, Delaware

      Mr. President-elect, Madam Vice President-elect, I’m honored by the trust you’ve placed in me to serve the American people at this critical moment.

      I want to thank my amazing husband and our three wonderful sons for answering this call along with me.

      As all doctors and public servants know, these jobs ask a great deal not only of us, but of our families.

      The pandemic that brought me here today is actually one that struck America and the world more than thirty years ago.

      Because my medical training happened to coincide with some of the most harrowing years of the HIV/AIDS crisis.

      As a medical student, I saw firsthand how the virus ravaged bodies and communities.

      Inside the hospital, I witnessed many people lose strength and hope.

      While outside the hospital, I witnessed those same patients — mostly gay men and members of vulnerable communities — be stigmatized and marginalized, by their nation and many of its leaders.

      A scientific breakthrough came in 1995, when the FDA approved the first AIDS cocktail, and we saw the first glimmers of hope.

      I’ve dedicated my career ever since to researching and treating infectious disease and to ending the HIV/AIDS crisis for good.

      Now, a new virus is ravaging us.

      It is striking hardest, once again, at the most vulnerable — the marginalized; the under-served.

      Nearly 15 million Americans have been infected.

      Nearly 285,000 of our loved ones are gone.

      The pain is accelerating, our defenses have worn down.

      We are losing life, and hope, at an alarming rate.

      I never anticipated that I would take on a role helping lead our national response.

      Government service was never part of my plans.

      But every doctor knows that when a patient is coding, your plans don’t matter.

      You run to the code.

      And when a nation is coding, if you are called to serve, you serve.

      You run to take care of people; to stop the bleeding, to stabilize, to give them hope and a fighting chance to come back stronger.

      That’s what doctors do.

      And I’m honored to get to work with an administration that understands that leading with science is the only way to deliver breakthroughs, to deliver hope, and to bring our nation back to its full strength.

      To the American people, and to each and every person at the CDC, I promise to work with you to harness the power of American science — to fight this virus and prevent unnecessary illness and deaths — so that we can all get back to our lives.

      Thank you for this opportunity.

      And the remarks from Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith who will chair the new COVID-19 Equity Task Force:

      Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith in Wilmington, Delaware

      Mr. President-elect, Madam Vice President-elect, thank you for the opportunity to serve the American people.

      I’m proud to go to work with leaders who are deeply committed to science and to centering equity in our response to the pandemic.

      Not as a secondary concern, or as a box to check — but as a shared value, woven into all of the work we do and prioritized by every member of the Biden-Harris team.

      I’m enormously thankful to my research team, my colleagues, to President Salovey and the leadership at Yale for supporting me in this work.

      And I’m grateful to all of the researchers and advocates who’ve blazed the trail, whose work on health equity and racial justice too often went unbelieved or overlooked across the generations.

      Most of all, I’m thankful to my family, to Jessie and our three children, for their unwavering support and humor.

      And to my mother, and her mother, for modeling kindness, generosity, and courageous leadership through service.

      I have wanted to be a doctor since I was six years old, and I am a proud general internal medicine physician today.

      But as I grew up, I came to understand that there were deeper dimensions to health, beyond what I saw in the human biology textbooks I borrowed from my mother’s bookshelf.

      I grew up on St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

      A place where people too often died too young — from preventable conditions.

      My own father had his first stroke in his forties and was left paralyzed.

      I learned there was a term for what we were: an “underserved community” — marginalized by place and by race.

      In my medical training, I saw countless patients whose conditions were shaped by factors having nothing to do with science — and everything to do with broader social inequities.

      Now, the COVID-19 crisis has laid those inequities bare.

      It is not a coincidence, or a matter of genetics, that more than 70 percent of African Americans, and more than 60 percent of Latinx Americans, personally know someone who has been hospitalized or died from COVID-19.

      The same disparities ingrained in our economy, our housing system, our food system, our justice system, and so many other areas of our society have conspired, in this moment, to create a ‘grief gap’ that we cannot ignore.

      It is our societal obligation to ensure equitable access to testing, treatments, and vaccines.

      Equitable support for those who are hurting.

      And equitable pathways to opportunity as we emerge from this crisis and rebuild — including for the most marginalized communities: the undocumented, the incarcerated, and the homeless.

      I’m grateful for the chance to continue this work, to earn trust and find success through genuine partnerships with the people and communities who’ve been hit the hardest during — and before — this crisis.

      On this team, you will be heard, you will be counted, and you will be valued.

      Thank you.

      • Thanks for posting the transcript Jan. Listening to them yesterday gave me hope, and reading their words this morning helps counter the worry the daily covid case count and new lock down measures bring.

  3. Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …

    It is 30 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 48. Sunny skies are in the forecast.

    My local newspaper said that Wisconsin missed the Safe Harbor for Electoral College electors because of the latest bogus lawsuit filed in state court by tRump and his minions. Bastids! So we will possibly be the only state that has no say in the 2020 election thanks to Republican deadenders. Speaking of Republican deadenders don’t even talk to me about the latest stunt by Ron Freaking Johnson, stupidest man in the Senate. Goddess, I hope we can win the Senate and turn him into a backbencher until we can replace him with a person with a brain in 2022.

    I am laughing at the “Biden will be fine” conservatives who are now calling him a failed president because he dares to nominate a person with real progressive chops like Xavier Becerra who is not pleasing to them. As long as Joe only nominated No Labels Democrats and center-right moderates, he was fine with them. Sooooo predictable.

    I have several projects that I need to do before the sun rises and I need to go eyes forward on them.

    See all y’all later!

  4. Wednesday Meese. 27 and snowing here in Kingston NY, going up to 38. That cancels my early morning shopping expedition.

    • Tish James

      • I have thought for some time that tRump would resign and let Pence pardon him – and that people who were buying “46” cufflinks were a bit premature (Joe Biden could be our 47th president).

        If someone were to get to Trump and convince him that he can’t pardon himself, that will definitely happen. Whether anyone could do that is another question – he is notably impervious to information that goes against his ingrained beliefs. He could still pardon himself and then force the Biden Administration to expend political capital going after him for what would clearly be a pardon violation (they would have to) but if he is really nervous about this, he will resign and let Pence pardon him – there is no doubt that would work. That would also pardon him for the crime of issuing self-dealing pardons to his family, business associates, and staff AND let him avoid appearing at Joe Biden’s inauguration.

  5. Puerto Rico

    • OMG, that’s outrageous, tragic, and altogether HORRIBLE!

      Men who are powerless know there’s always one class of people who will always be below them, and that’s women. Men can’t fight their oppressors so they take it out on women. Same in Mexico. Same here, in fact.

      I don’t know why any women ever form partnerships with men. A lot of women would be better off without men, providing the women in question can support themselves. A lot of Japanese women don’t marry at all: they continue to work, save their money, and take themselves on marvelous vacations. The life of a Japanese wife is far from enviable when she’s married to a man who is away from home 18 hours a day and who spends what little free time he does have at the geisha house.

      If you’re female, you’re best off in a Scandinavian country.

  6. Chilly morning, but it’s supposed to get up to 81 this afternoon. Had a restless night, dumped some instant tea into my tea. Eating breakfast & watching Star Trek. (I don’t know what I’ll do when BBC America decides they’ve played Deep Space 9 enough times) Speaking of Star Trek — there’s a Zoom thing on Saturday to benefit the Georgia candidates: Get your ticket here: http://electjon.com/startrek

  7. Good Wednesday morning, Moosekind. Never got here yesterday because our lives are so chaotic now. Dearly continues to bleed despite his face being bandaged in various places, so I’m not letting him out of the house for fear people will think he’s a battered spouse. He sits on the sofa and watches telly. That means it’s now my job to walk the dog. I also have to take him out to business meetings in the courtyard. Yesterday there was an election for three of the four positions on the Resident Advisory Council, so I voted in that.

    After playing telephone tag with the audiologist all day Monday, we finally got hold of her. I’m to see her today at 1 p.m. I can barely hear. Couldn’t hear her voicemails at ALL, and I can’t hear music, which is annoying. This is the time of year I especially want to listen to music.

    It’s a peculiar-looking morning in Ashburn with an overcast sky. The woods across the way have a gray, misty look—not fog, exactly, but a kind of indistinct appearance as if the gods were dreaming them rather than the trees being present in this world. It’s 31 F., going up to 46 F. Showers are predicted, although naturally I don’t believe that.

    I ordered flowers to be delivered to my poor friend in Garden Ridge, the medical facility in Greenspring, the sister facility of where Dearly and I live. She was ecstatic as her hospital room is gray and charmless. She called to thank me and said as soon as she was told there were flowers for her at the front desk downstairs, she figured they were from me. This speaks volumes about her lout of a son, who is unmarried, 55 years old, works at home all day in a well-paid government job, and in addition to his salary has inherited money from his late father. Yet he never thinks of sending her flowers? He hasn’t visited her at all in the last 9 months. Glad my sons aren’t like that. When I was in the hospital 5 years ago for exactly 24 hours, both sons AND my nephew visited me.

    Princesspat, I like reading about your Christmas traditions. I do miss the ones we used to have! Only one has taken place so far: all three local grandchildren took a hand in decorating our tree. But I can’t make Cornish pasties because there will be only the two of us to eat them. I ordered a tiny plum pudding from the British Tea Store in California, of all places, instead of making my own. Of course, making Christmas potpourri with Circle sisters or even family members went by the wayside a long time ago.

    Complain, complain! Y’all are undoubtedly bored by now so I will shut up. I’m wishing a good day to everyone at the Pond and hoping the vile Rethugs will be prevailed upon to give suffering Americans a decent unemployment check. May karma deal with hard-hearted billionaire Rethugs as they deserve.

  8. Warmish day for the season – we’re at 54 and heading for 70. It’s mostly sunny again. Yesterday we got just under 7 KWHs (45.72 is the m-t-d) so slowly catching up to usage. Of course one cloudy day drops us again but I’ll enjoy what we got while we’re getting it.

    My hands are giving me trouble. Not pain. Unlike most of my friends, I have very little real pain just a lot of “discomfort” – when the doctors ask that stupid question about 1 to 10 pain levels I usually say 4. But weakness and mild tremors. Neurons misfiring I guess. Mostly it manifests in typing letters out of order then having to back up and correct. But sometimes, like now, it means it takes me 3 or 4 tries to click the mouse hard enough for it to take. And the tremors mean the cursor isn’t always where it should be when the mouse clicks finally does take. It’s frustrating and maddening (it doesn’t seem to bother the cats when I scream and curse the mouse &/or computer but it probably does the neighbors). I have no clue what triggers a spell of it and really no clue about what to do besides wait it out. But it sure as heck limits what I do online when just getting from one tab to another (and not closing 3 of them when that click “took”) is so difficult. Figure any tweet I boost/ed today was accompanied by cursing – not because of the content but because of the process. sigh.

    Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

    • I just did some online searching (complete with cursing) and it looks like this business with my hands is “just” my Reynaud’s flaring. Probably. Maybe. Still not sure what to do about it – besides curse – but the triggers are anxiety and stress as well as the better-known cold. So not gonna be able to control the triggers. I’ve got the wrist brace and the fingerless gloves on. We’ll see if that helps any.

        • I always appreciate healing thoughts. (Apparently that’s the only thing that can be done about this.) I guess my hands are where the “joys of aging” decided to go. {{{HUGS}}}

        • {{{Diana}}} thank you. If you actually are going to do a spell, please include taking away the weakness – or to put it more positively give strength – to my fingers & hands. The pain is not comfortable but it also isn’t severe enough to hamper me. The weakness is. thank you, Blessed Be – and moar {{{HUGS}}}

      • I think it’s when my mild carpal tunnel decides to flare at the same time as my not-so-mild Raynaud’s. & no, there doesn’t seem to be anything but wait it out.
        {{{HUGS}}}

  9. Good morning, 46 and light rain in Bellingham. Yesterday was a pouring rain day…..too wet and dark. I finished the blankets while muttering to myself that I should be sewing Christmas rain gear!

    tRump angst is thankfully receeding, but Covid angst is increasing. The Gov issued new lockdown measures with a January 4th possible end date and Covid case numbers continue to be alarmingly high but so far we are still ok. I had to buy thread yesterday and just doing a simple errand like that makes me worry.

    Today’s task is to wrap and mail a packages for my sister and our Oregon daughter and her family. When that’s done I can just let Christmas happen as it does. Best wishes to all.

  10. Good morning, meeses! Thursday …

    It is 27 degrees in Madison with a daytime high of 50. Sunny skies this morning then clouding up as a front moves in that will bring precipitation, possibly a snow storm on Sunday.

    I am trying to avert my eyes from the Texas lawsuit intended to, literally, overturn the election. The legal theory is that the four Biden states made voting too easy for Democrats and that is unfair to states that made voting too difficult for them! The premise is that the presidency is unique in that the winner represents the entire country and that the patchwork of state laws governing elections is illegal – but only insofar as it differs from Texas! Sixty-two Biden electors should not be seated, according to the lawsuit, and then after that, I guess (I have not looked at what they perceive as the remedy), there is no winner because no one has over 270 and the House decides the election. The gerrymandered House would give the election to tRump – each state’s delegation has one vote and there are more Republican delegations than Democratic delegations and, of course, Republicans hold the Senate. For SCOTUS to go along, they would have to use Bush v Gore as the precedent – the case where the court told the State of Florida that they could not conduct the election according to their laws and decided by their courts and that they were stepping in. The court also said it was not be to treated as precedent but Bart Keggernaugh referred to Bush v Gore as settled law in his opinion in the Wisconsin case outlining how he would be willing to step in if he did not like the results from some of those librul states. If the Supreme Court does not end this madness now, they will be responsible for everyone killed in the ensuing civil war. They should not be allowed to fuel the fever dreams of the #StopTheSteal deadenders. Goddess help us.

    Our tree is up and decorated with lights – I am happy with that, it is all we had last year. I might be persuaded to do ornaments but it seems like a lot of work; you can’t do just one!

    Like princesspat, I have COVID worries again. The mismanagement of the vaccine response by the tRump malAdministration is of concern to me. I don’t trust them and would be inclined to want to wait until Biden’s CDC is in charge. It is only :::checks widget::: 41 days. I can shelter in place for that long.

    See all y’all later!

  11. Thursday Meese. 37 going up to 45 here in Kingston NY.
    Debating on whether or not to have a tree this year. Will decide this week

    • Selfish rich people may have to change their ways. I know Biden can’t do it by fiat but we can guilt-shame people into not flying and consuming excessively.

  12. Another chilly morning with an 80 degree afternoon. I might try walking this afternoon, will have to ask my achilles how it feels about that. Otherwise, just another day of voice mail, e-mail and trying to get new library users set up.

    • {{{anotherdemocrat}}} I hope you can get your walk in. moar Healing Energy, moar {{{HUGS}}}

  13. It’s 44 heading for 74 and sunny, more or less, again. Last day of this – we’re heading into lots clouds, maybe some precipitation of one kind or another, and highs in the 40s – so I’m gonna enjoy it as best I can. We generated a little under 7 KWHs yesterday. The m-t-d of 52.37 isn’t on track even for usage but was gaining. I will enjoy that too as best I can.

    My hands are going better enough I can at least handle a computer mouse without cursing. I’m gonna keep the fingerless gloves on as much as possible and hope things stay that way. Since my “job” in my retirement is mostly boosting tweets, I really need to be able to use the computer mouse.

    AR tagged on with the TX case. I knew we would. TX has never done anything evil that AR hasn’t tagged onto immediately. Those folks really don’t think things through. They’re setting up for a federal election standard. And while they’re thinking they’d then be permanently in charge of the government so no problem, as long as there are elections at all sooner or later we will be in charge – and immediately revise that federal standard for automatic registration at 18, automatic ballots mailed out 30-days prior to the election, automatic return of ballot via mail, drop box, or election center. In fact there’s nothing the Rs do to get/keep power that couldn’t be used to keep them permanently out of power once we got in.

    Whether or not there are any Rs more afraid of COVID19 than are happy to use it as a genocidal weapon I don’t know. If there are, they’ll find a way to support Biden (even as they pretend they aren’t) and his COVID team. If not…

    Need to deal with a cat mess. Need more coffee. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  14. Good Thursday morning, Meese, sure and it’s a grand immortal day! Here in Ashburn we have cloudless blue skies, a great deal of sunlight gilding the woods across the way, and 33 F. Today it will go up to 53 F., so we can definitely go for a walkies.

    In our chronically short-of-sleep household, today’s prize was won by The Don, who had to get up at five-bloody-o’clock because Monty was barfing up all the grass he’d eaten yesterday. Dearly will spend the morning resting, as indeed he should. His wounds are healing, I’m glad to say.

    Yesterday’s short-of-sleep prize was won by yrs truly, who did not take a sleeping pill Wednesday night in the hope of having an interesting dream (didn’t), and therefore woke up at five-bloody-o’clock. As soon as we returned from the audiologist visit I collapsed into the green chair and slept so long that we had to have leftover Chinese food for dinner. It was okay, not great.

    What’s the best thing to give dawgs who have problems with digestion? Monty ate a lot of worms on our walk and ate lots of grass and leaves afterwards.

    Re the audiologist: She was very nice, as always, and said the problem with the dead hearing aid was that a wire inside was broken. She offered to fix it for a sum, but I refused, saying I knew the new hearing aids were going to be quite pricey. The problem with battery-powered aids is that Loudoun County doesn’t let you throw the used ones into the garbage and there’s nowhere else to put them. I heard that Costco would accept used hearing aids, but will only take them back if they are pasted between layers of clear tape. Since I now have about 100 of them, that would be tedious beyond belief. I shall put the problem to Goddess. She’s helped me out before.

    I ordered the new battery-less hearing aids and although they are pricier than the ones I’ve been using, the price isn’t so terrible that a discreetly applied tax refund won’t take care of it. Dearly adores tax refunds, so I’ve given up explaining that we’re making a tax-free loan to the IRS.

    The Rethugs’ lack of concern for the suffering unemployed is affecting our Younger Son. The part-time job he has now with the Fairfax County Public School system doesn’t pay enough to really help with their expensive mortgage. Thank Goddess DIL is a GS-14 or whatever! Problem is, Younger Son’s furlough from his actual job seems likely to go on forever. Swissport is in the business of refueling and cleaning airplanes. Although there are far fewer flying now, a whole bunch of them still seem to fly over this community. Not as many as before, of course.

    In other news, one of the downsides of living here is the sight of emergency vehicles parked with flashing lights at one or another of the buildings on campus. This morning the Purple Paper came out and I was appalled to note the death of a fellow resident of this building, Birch Point. Although I didn’t know her well, she was always charming and quite funny every time we met. Cause of death was not listed in the PP, so I’ll ask around. I don’t know what her poor husband is going to do. I feel sorry for the widowers here. They don’t seem to be as well equipped to look after themselves as widows do.

    Actually, the widows seem to take on new lives. With no men to look after, they discover unused or long-suppressed talents for modeling ceramics, painting, sewing quilts, or knitting. I find that interesting. They also join the Ashby songbirds, or play card games, or get involved with the drama club.

    Texas, no matter how big it is and how many big and bright stars hang over it at night, is not allowed to interfere in the elections of other states. Also, although the Supremes stood ready and willing to give the nod to Outgoing in a rilly close election, the election was not close. There’s not one thang they can do, to talk Texan, and there’s no use in their having a little fit, because Biden indisputably won. I’m deeply glad the right man and woman won, and I was pretty sure they would the minute I saw the lines of voters wrapped around the voting centers in every state.

    Well, that’s enough from me today. Hope everyone at the Pond will have a good day. Dearly is still trying to rest, so I’ll start work on my writing chores.

  15. Good morning, 35 and light clouds in Bellingham. Christmas packages are wrapped in the mail to my sister in New Mexico and to our grand girl in Oregon, whew! Jan, I’m going to have a talk with RonK re a lights only tree. It would be fine with me this year. I’m not doing the sentimental me sewing room tree and that’s just fine too.

    I have some housekeeping chores to do this morning and a careful errand to do this afternoon so I’d best get busy. Best wishes to all.

  17. Puerto Rico

  18. Good morning, meeses! Friday …

    It is 36 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 37. Rain this morning giving way to mixed precipitation then snow overnight. This is one of those winter storms that has a chance of dumping a lot of snow or being a nothingburger. I am ready for both but would prefer the nothingburger.

    I am not sure why I am surprised that red state legislators, and the people who elected them, are upset to find out that being an asshole who supports ignorance turns out to be deadly. I don’t have sympathy for the New Hampshire Speaker of the House or his family. He died in service to the political fortunes of Governor Sununu and Donald Trump – how is that honorable? That he probably killed otheres by his ignorance is a blemish on his soul. And the people in west Texas who are finding out that having no health care services means you die needlessly, gasping for breath? Sorry, not a lot of sympathy there except for the health care workers who will get sick and maybe die because the people there believed those who said masks=tyranny and that if you lived to be 80, you had a good life – die and get out of the way so that the youngs can hang out in bars and restaurants and go to sporting events.

    And if the NHL and NBA get the vaccine before people in nursing homes, that is the America you deplorables voted for.

    Yes, I’m grumpy. Our country led by Republicans is burning down around us and no one is willing to help or to even do their own part to stop the spread. Our state courts are hearing a case to overturn the Dane County ordinances put in place to curtail the spread and it looks likely that they will. Today one of the deadenders in our state legislature, the state legislature that held no hearings and has not convened since March, is holding a hearing to “look into” irregularities in the vote so that they can make a recommendation to toss out the election results and appoint their own slate of Trump electors. In a fair world, they would be swept away into the dustbin of history – in 2020 gerrymandered Wisconsin, they are in charge of our lives.

    Busy day – I have weekend work projects planned and need to organize them and make sure I have everything I need from clients to proceed.

    See all y’all later!

  19. Warm morning — 60s already, and we’re supposed to get rain. I moved some of my plants out to get rained on. Today is the last day for early voting in some local runoffs, so I set a reminder to go vote after I shut down the work laptop. Otherwise, today’s just about work.

  20. Good Friday morning, Moosekind! A beautiful clear day is turning sunny in Ashburn. The high will be 60 F. Right now it’s 40 F. I was lucky enough to glimpse a sliver of waning moon in a beautiful, clear sky early this morning when I took Monty out to the courtyard.

    General Services/Security has come into our apartment just as we are slopping around in our dressing-gowns, trying to eat breakfast and drink coffee. They said the smoke alarm went off and asked if we were all right. Of course we were. The oven wasn’t even on. The stove wasn’t on. The covfefe pot had just finished making our drink. No alarm ever sounded in our flat.

    They need to get better equipment.

    It’s not even 10 a.m. but I’m already tired. I seem to have writer’s block or something. I was trying to work on my holiday newsletter yesterday but can’t think how to begin. “Happy holidays, y’all, hope this finds you well and not deader than a post” is hardly the way to begin a cheery newsletter. Well, this hasn’t been a cheery year, except for the simple fact Biden-Harris won by a sufficiently large margin that there can be no question (by rational persons) that they were indeed elected and in fact will be sworn in 40 days from now.

    So take that, Death Culters. These “pro-life” people are proceeding with executions, 11 of them, no doubt hoping to qualify for a holiday discount if they kill them all in December. Rethugs disgust me more than I can say.

    Posted my story here this morning. Needless to say it did not win the Loudoun County Library contest. You should see what did: it was written in the present tense AND in the second person! The writing goddesses are all in a dead faint. I have only written one second-person, present-tense story in my life and after I finished it, I swore I’d never do it again.

    Wishing a nice, quiet day to all at the Pond. Today at 4 I’m supposed to visit the audiologist again to get my new hearing aids fitted. Hope nothing happens to stop that. Later!

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