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 morning, Motley Meese! The week begins …
It is 68 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 79. Cloudy this morning, chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Sunday Meese. 56 going up to a rainy 76 here in Kingston NY.
Puerto Rico
Good morning! Had lots of rain yesterday, but not the extreme weather they feared. Today is supposed to be sunny & warm/hot — 88. I might go for a walk this afternoon, I meant to get up early & walk this morning, but didn’t set the alarm for that. Today: church on youtube — pastor is taking on the gun issue. Yesterday was election day here & my city voted to reinstate a camping ban. Because fining people who don’t have jobs will for sure motivate them to clean themselves up & get jobs. Or filling our jails with homeless people will…… cost a lot of taxpayer money going to private corporations.
Sunday Music
It’s 65 heading for 71 and overcast. Looks to stay that way to one degree or another until Wednesday. Maybe more rain, maybe not. Yesterday we did manage to generate 17.3 KWHs which certainly is better than I was expecting if not what I was hoping for. That’s just over what we have to average daily to reach 500 so we’re starting on track, if barely.
Karen’s apparently doing better. Not that she’s contacted me other than to send a picture of Henry but having Henry home is very good for her mental/emotional health. Blessings on the somebody who’s going to help Lisa get her 2nd vax and whatever else she’s able to do while he’s there. Jill’s still at 10 donors, 13 donations – and a long way from not just her total goal but even the (currently) most important single item, the propane refrigerator. Meanwhile she’s having to try and stretch her $771/month disability to cover not only her & her son’s living expenses but the cancer patient’s living expenses and going to Santa Fe for the next few days for treatment and more tests. Hold Good Thoughts in whatever Tradition, please.
25 years ago I’d have been writing letters, sending email, and such to the various MSM bastids so gleefully misrepresenting what our team is/was doing. I used to buy in to the “incompetent journalists” meme they sell as CYA. I don’t any longer. I know it’s deliberate and planned to put Rs back in power as soon as we get the economy going again. Which we’re doing. But what the MSM is doing works. “Most people forget their friends as soon as they get the wrinkles out of their bellies.” It’s why they keep doing it. So am I angry? Of course. Am I going to bother writing evil people to tell they’re being evil? No. That just encourages them.
Meanwhile, Sunday chores & #BlackMusicSunday – so I’m gonna get some more coffee and do just that. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 49 and sunny in Bellingham. Long day of party prep and cooking yesterday, but today should be fun. Prior to covid confusion I had a firm rule re outdoor entertaining…..something on the grill, a salad, a side and dessert. But I’ve gone astray and today’s menu has too many choices and far too many serving dishes! Oh well, now that everything is organized younger legs will help me.
I’m grateful to have family birthdays to celebrate and that it’s getting safer for all of us, and sending best wishes to all.
Monday Meese. 49 going up to 64 with rain here in Kingston NY, with rain so I have to delay my gardening.
FYI – DKos’ “jotter” has passed.
Sad to hear that about jotter. Some of my best memories were hanging out in jotter’s high impact diaries with friends like bubbanomics, rb137 and other numbers geeks. During one jotter vacation, a group of us were “deputized” to run the daily posts. It was great fun!
Reading Jotters daily posts was how I learned to navigate DKos. I was a complete newbie, barely knowing how to turn a computer on so I had much to learn. I’ll always be grateful for that experience.
There were a lot of smart and clever people in that diary series. Then, like everything else, it got wrecked by the frustrati trashing it.
Puerto Rico
Great Goddess! Patriarchy is so evil. The first thing a frustrated male does is take out his angry feelings on the woman in his life. I wish those men could be locked up.
I also wish there were a women’s country or women’s planet the women could escape to.
Good morning, meeses! Monday …
It is 63 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 66. The forecast calls for rain most of the day. We did not get the intense thunderstorms expected yesterday but the heat did break at some point. I had to put the air conditioning on because the house was 80 degrees and fans did not help and I knew it would not cool down enough to sleep. At least we know that the a/c works for the upcoming cooling season but WAY too early to have to use it.
Kamala Harris is coming to Wisconsin tomorrow, specifically to Milwaukee. No details yet as to where she will appear so it is unlikely that it would be a public event. She has been traveling and talking up the American Jobs Plan which I suspect will be first order of business when the House returns. They may as well tee it up to pass via reconciliation. The puny Republican roads and bridges alternative doesn’t raise taxes to pay for it, it raises fees on electric cars and other things that they don’t like. Kick them to the curb and get the 21st century infrastructure plan moving.
The latest Republican lie is that the American Rescue Plan has disincentivized workers from wanting to work and that restaurant jobs are going begging because of it. That is bs. What is happening is that in a lot of the places where the minimum wage is artificially low – and the tipped wage is an insult – people are finding other jobs that pay better. An article I read in the Tucson paper interviewed restaurants that said that their workers are now earning $15 an hour at the Amazon fulfillment center and they can’t understand why people don’t want to work for $12.12 an hour with the hope of getting more through tips. In places like Wisconsin, where the Republican state legislature banned localities from raising the minimum wage, restaurant owners are weeping that no one wants to work for $7.25 an hour. Boo hoo. Raise the Wage.
See all y’all later!
Good rainy Monday morning, Moosekind! Yes, we woke up to the welcome sound of falling rain. When I took Monty out at six it was raining quite fiercely, but it seems to have subsided for a bit. Thunderstorms are expected this afternoon. Right now in Ashburn it’s 61 F., going up to 79 F. There’s a bird outside chirping cheerfully to her mates: “Y’all come over, we’ve got plenty of worms, so help yourselves!”
Had an awful night Saturday—couldn’t get to sleep, went to the green recliner in the living room to read, got three hours’ sleep total. I drugged myself with sufficient coffee and tea yesterday to attend to little Ethan during his visit. That child is an eating machine as well as a live wire! However, he behaved beautifully and ate all his lunch, so he received a tiny waffle cone full of ice cream.
He lost a tooth on the front bottom and when we looked, we could see the new, adult tooth getting ready to push through. Ethan made a right mess on the screened porch, sitting on the styrofoam, so I have to get out there with a broom and dustpan at some point.
Naturally I performed almost no chores yesterday. Have an appointment with the dermatologist at 11:30 this morning. It is so agreeable to be able to walk there in 8 minutes. That’s what I’ll do, rather than walk outside in the rain or taking the shuttle.
Have a full day of work ahead. The authors are starting to object strongly to the notion that we won’t be allowed to sell our books at the Authors’ Festival in September! The excuse offered by the Powers That Be is that “currency carries Covid germs,” which is stupid. Recent studies have shown that covid is very unlikely to be transmitted through inanimate objects. His breathing in each other’s uncovered faces that transmits it. So that’ll be an interesting fight. All the woodworking, ceramics, knitting, and painting people are allowed to sell their work, so what the hail?
First world problem, I know.
At any rate, it’s time to eat breakfast and get on with my day. Today is “changing the sheets day,” never my favorite as it’s so hard on my fake fingernails.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
In from a run into the office. Got new applications, as well as the people I didn’t get last week. I made some 15-minute dance playlists, going to break up the work day with little exercise breaks.
It’s 65 heading for low 80s today and sunny at the moment. There’s a front supposed to move in overnight and of course the clouds will move in first. Like this afternoon. I’m just hoping it’s late afternoon. Yesterday we only got 6.4 KWHs so we’re already not on track any longer. sigh. We’re at 24 KWHs for the m-t-d with the driblet we’ve gotten so far this morning.
Seriously hoping that – with the help she’ll have today and tomorrow – Lisa manages to not only get her 2nd vax but also some of the other things she’s got piled up. Things that can get her on the path to a more sustainable living situation. Right now she’s surviving and that’s about it. When everything you do to just live – grocery shopping, laundry, taking a shower even – each one takes days to get the energy to do and then days to recover from, survival is all you can do. And that’s her life without the meds she hasn’t had for well over a year now. (With the meds it’s still hours to get the energy & sometimes still days to recover, but she can do more than one thing during her “energy up” stage.)
Jill got caught in a twitter pile on by ablists which really upset her. She’s offline for the next few days anyway while she’s in Santa Fe with the person she’s caregiver for – treatments and more tests (next week is ABQ for still more tests and the 2nd opinion) – but she said she’s seriously considering not coming back to twitter at all. I hope after she considers she does come back. She doesn’t have a support group at all locally (except her son and she does her best not to put that burden on him). She does have one online. But yeah, the toxic trash and trolls who love to gang up on the vulnerable is sickening and I can certainly understand why she would leave. Meanwhile her GFM hasn’t moved in days. And while it says 10 donors I happen to know that at least one of the anonymous ones is the same as one of the not anonymous ones who just didn’t want her name to be out there too often. sigh.
I need to move some money around, see what I can liberate for who and still have my taxes and insurances covered. But I do have it to move around. My friend is coming by to pick up a few things from the lot I’ve been storing for her. We’ll have a nice visit while she’s here. And I may get a walk in today. Which would be nice. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 47 and mostly cloudy in Bellingham. Our nacho buffett was a very nnice family time yesterday. To my relief the food was tasty and my cooking plan for making nachos on the grill worked, whew! And Ryan is now officially 20 yrs old and full of thoughts re his current community college classes. So good to see him felling better and happy again.
I was asleep early last night and have a quiet day planned. It’s hard to accept but the reality of how much activity my knees can handle is real, and yesterday I pushed the limits.
Best wishes to all on this quiet morning.
Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …
It it 50 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 57. The forecast calls for variable cloudiness which I think means “some clouds: some big, some small.”
The moose went dark this morning because the credit card on file had expired. I went ahead and renewed it for another year but we need to discuss the future of the blog which is less a blog than a cyber gathering place. I certainly enjoy cyber gathering and it is nice to have the history of the blog behind us but whether we can continue depends on me being able to get the domain ownership transferred. If I can’t, I am going to move it all to another site name “TheMoosePond.com” and use that as a landing page. In any event, we are paid up for another year so the actual “move” decision won’t need to be made until next year.
In other news, Florida by writ has declared the pandemic “over”. I think this is similar to the North Carolina city that declared climate change a hoax and ordered the rising ocean to “cease and desist.”
I have a busy day and after addressing the site issues, I am behind.
See all y’all later!
Thank you for renewing, Jan. If you need contributions, please let us know!
I cherish the friends I’ve made here. Feel as if I have connections all over the country! And I greatly enjoy hearing about everyone’s day.
Thank you, Jan. Yes, please. Whatever it’s called, I would seriously hate to not have the Moose Pond and lose this connection with everyone. If you need help with funds, well, this is a community and I want to do my share.
I was able to get in touch with HappyInVT and we got the web site information changed over to me. She was instrumental in helping make the move to WordPress and saving the archives and now it is time to let her off the hook since she has cut down her online presence substantially. She had been using money from a fundraiser we had back in early 2013 to pay for the site – I don’t know if there is anything left, I will check with her. In the meantime, the lights will stay on for another year and we will not miss a beat – except for the little flutter I had this morning when the site was down. :)
Oh good. Please let us know if you need funding for it. I’m so glad you got the site back up before I logged on. I’d have been quite upset if I’d tried to log on and not just it wouldn’t let me but it wasn’t there!
I don’t remember how much we raised back then – glad to hear you got in touch with Happy
Thanks for getting us back up Jan
I don’t have much to spare, but to keep the Moose going, I could pitch in some. Just let us all know what we can do.
We’re good for now. We can revisit it next year.
Good morning Meese. 54 going up to 67 here in Kingston NY.
Watching feminists take to the streets in Puerto Rico – hoping folks on the mainland will show support
Got up early & did my walk/run — 1.25 miles, with 8 30-second running segments. Will try that again on Thursday before I level up next week. Supposed to be gorgeous weather the rest of the week. Today: just work. Fighting with my Apple watch — it frequently turns on the workout mode by itself (wonder if that isn’t maybe why my brother handed it down to me…..)
Good morning, Meese, and May the Fourth be with you! (You knew I wouldn’t be able to resist that, didn’t you?)
After the nonappearance of thunderstorms yesterday afternoon and the nonappearance of the tornado in Loudoun County (thank Goddess!) yesterday evening, we seem to have settled into a fair morning. When I took the dawg out at a quarter to six I saw that it had rained during the night and that a half-moon with a ragged edge was peeping over the top of the Cherry Blossom Square building. It’s 67 F. now in Ashburn, going up to 86 F. Shorts today!
This morning I’ve got to take the dog for a walk before Dearly departs to visit his doctor. Every time she sees him she tells him she’s never heard of a 90+ man still driving! Her own father, she says, is 88, no longer drives, and uses a walking frame. Anyway, at 10 I’m going to run to the farmer’s market in the parking lot of Maple Grove, which my husband cruelly refers to as “the luny bin,” and somehow I’ve managed to score an 11:30 appointment with the foot doctor! That was quite fortuitous.
So that’s my busy morning after another totally lousy night. Wishing all at the Pond a good day and may we all stay friends!
It’s 61 heading for 62, dark enough to need the lights on although the PV system is (barely) on. Yesterday we got 12.4 KWHs and to 36 for the m-t-d. Not on track and will lose more ground today. sigh. Maybe the heavens “darkened” in memory of Kent State. We’ve come so far to be in the same place. Or something. I remember the Deplorables of the time jumping to the defense of the Nat’l Guard shooting students. Everything old is new again.
Lisa had a very good day yesterday. Didn’t get everything done, of course. There’s too much everything to do in a day even without her health issues. But not only did she get her jab and deal with more stuff about her car (some of which she didn’t know about until they started doing the stuff they did know about), she had fun! I’m not sure the woman’s had fun since before the shut down (& only then because of MVgal’s visits). I knew she would. The friend/helper is very fun to be with. Nice to have around the house, nice to travel with. But I’m delighted anyway.
Karen was in extreme pain yesterday. I hope to heaven she called her doctor. She didn’t respond to my email but in that much pain I really didn’t expect her too. Jill’s still offline. And still hasn’t gotten another donation on her GFM. She doesn’t seem to have PayPal which is the only other way I’m set up to donate. sigh. I DM’d her to see about one more way, but that way would require I know her name and mailing address. I don’t know if she’ll respond at all and I don’t know if she’ll trust me that much. Although if she trusts Aji I know Aji will vouch for me. My friend came and got her stuff (& a cat calendar from basket) but couldn’t stay. Not only did she need to get back home to work but she’s got poison oak on her face and wearing a mask is most uncomfortable. (It has the one benefit of them allowing her to work from home on the “in-office” days. They’re transitioning back to in office full time by next month. sigh.) We’ve got a “when the weather’s warmer/nice” date for ice cream (Braum’s on MLK has outdoor seating) which is something to look forward to.
These dark days mess with my head. Lots of brain fog and zoning out in front of the computer. Looking forward to some sunshine (supposedly tomorrow). And not so much brain fog. Oh well. Coffee helps. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
We are going to have below normal temperatures for what the paper calls “the foreseeable future.” I don’t mind the coolness but having no sun and what looks like a constant threat of rain is hard to deal with.
Really! That no sun/constant threat of rain is just mind numbing.
Good morning, 51 and cloudy in Bellingham. I feel slow and sleepy this morning so I’m easing into my day. I know I’ve got lots of laundry to do so that’s where I’ll start. Finding an allergy pill may help me get going :)
Best wishes to all.
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 39 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 61. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
The federal government’s vaccination strategy has run up against a wall of resistance and laziness: “won’t take the shot because tyranny” and “can’t be bothered to take the shot” has slowed down vaccinations to a standstill. The good news is that the states will no longer get an allotment based on their population, they will be offered the allotment but will have to accept it within a certain period of time or it will go elsewhere. There is no reason to send Mississippi and Alabama vaccine doses that they won’t use when there are states where there are still shortages and people interested in getting vaccinated. The other good news is that the vaccines will now start getting closer to where people are, doctors offices for example, and will no longer rely on mass vaccination sites. The goal of 70% with at least one shot by July 4th is aggressive because the low-lying fruit (people anxious to get vaccinated) has been picked. It will be interesting to see if we get a surge when young people (who apparently are willing to get infected because it “won’t kill them”) realize that they won’t be allowed at in-person classes at most universities without being vaccinated and most universities will not be offering classes with an online streaming alternative. There will be a scramble for shots at the end of the summer.
Interesting headline in the New York Times – “Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ has devoured the GOP and takes aim at democracy.” I wonder if anyone can get through to Joe Manchin that he will be personally responsible for the end of the American experiment if he won’t break the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation? Maybe he will be happy to be “that guy.”
I have a stack of notes that needs to be converted into a reasonable to-do list. I got most of my 1st quarter accounting done and should finish the rest now so that I can concentrate on project work.
See all y’all later!
Here is the article on the vaccination rates by state and why the government is moving the vaccine to where people want to take it: Supply vs Demand: Which States are Reaching their COVID-19 Vaccine Tipping Points?