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 to view previous pages, shown here with 3 pages of comments available and Page 2 circled.
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Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 37 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 59. Rain is in the forecast. The thunder and lightning woke my poor doggie up at 2:30am which means that I got up. Even though she is mostly deaf, she “feels” the thunder and is unnerved by it. I wonder how she will react to the monsoons which can be very noisy.
I was SHOCKED SHOCKED that Joe Manchin is against the billionaire tax. I wish our majority was not razor thin – it really sucks to have to placate those who consistently put the donor class over ordinary people. I am sure that Sinema feels the same way as Manchin, plus she is looking at a lobbying job after she gets defeated in the 2024 Democratic Primary and wants to please as many Richie Riches as possible. I guess we settle for finishing the work of filling the federal courts and hope for a miracle in November.
For the next week, I will have my nose to the grindstone to get end of month, end of quarter projects done and finish reducing my office footprint (target date 4/5). Today’s list of three is already one third done – progress!
See all y’all later!
Wednesday Meese. 21 here in Kingston going up to 45. Taking the puppies for their first shots today. That means they will be able to go outside to do their bizness (yay)
Finally lynching is against the law!
Puerto Rico
Have only heard of Vieques through press reports. All the filthy stuff the U.S. Navy was doing killed and traumatized many innocent dolphins. Men! Gods, I hate patriarchy.
Good Wednesday morning, Moosekind. It’s 33 F. and Doing Something in Ashburn this morning. When I took Monty out to the courtyard for a business meeting, I saw tiny white pellets landing on the ground. Presumably that’s graupel. Anyway, lousy weather today and even worse (thunderstorms) tomorrow.
Not much to say except that I need to get as many tasks done as possible before I collapse owing to too-little sleep. The latest edition of our quarterly, Around the Ponds, came out yesterday The article on the residents who served in the Peace Corps takes up three pages with its accompanying photographs. There is NO byline, so apparently the article just wrote itself. One of my advisers told me to sue, but the only lawyer I know is meaner than a rattlesnake and if I turned her loose on the Communications Committee, she’d make short work of them. Anyway she lives in a remote desert in Texas, which is just as well.
Other than that, we’ll just notch up another victory in our ceaseless quest to become the Most Boring Elderly Couple in America.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond, and may Sekhmet the Blood Drinker smite the evil Rethuglicans.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
While I laugh, actually is it not funny. The disrespect that is shown for people’s words is truly deplorable: quotes without attribution, wholesale copy/paste and the notion that someones creative output is not respected if it is not paid for – or you don’t have a fancy intellectual property lawyer at your beck and call.
Thank you for the sympathy, Jan! I wrote a very restrained email instead of screaming in all caps, “WHY IN THE DIE-DIDDLEY HAIL DIDN’T YOU GIVE ME A BYLINE?”
First, I complimented the four Committee biggies on how well the layout of the article looked. It did look nice, and the photos were all in color.
Then I told them that I felt it was unfair that my name did not appear on the masthead, despite the fact I’ve written more articles than anyone else on the damn Committee, and one of the editors told me publicly that he didn’t have to do anything to my stuff—there were no errors of grammar, spelling, or punctuation. A whole bunch of people’s names appear on the masthead but not mine. And on top of this, not to have a byline was the final blow. I ended with, “That fact makes me feel, if not outright disrespected, distinctly unappreciated this cold spring day.”
After I dispatched the email, one of the interviewees wrote to thank me for “the lovely article. You deserved a byline,” so I wasn’t the only one who noticed.
By day’s end I had three apologies. The one from the managing editor was lengthy. He promised to make it up to me in the next issue by calling out my authorship of Part I, and by putting writers’ names on the masthead in the future. I’d prefer “Staff writer” or “Story contributors” but he said he wants to put “Writers for this issue.”
That’s better than nothing! In truth, I’ve begun to wonder whether there isn’t a better way to spend my time than working with that crew.
Warm morning here with high today of 82. Tomorrow, when I have to go into the office, it’ll be 49. Crazy Texas weather. Yesterday, I took a 15 minute dance break, helped my stiff back. I’ll try to get in 2 of those today. I don’t know if I can do that at work, even in my cubicle.
It’s 56 and the “high” keeps being pushed down to meet it rather than the temp going up to yesterday’s forecast mid 60s. Light rain off and on, mostly on. Damp, chilly, and uncomfortable. Overcast, of course. The PV system’s on but if we get a whole kilowatt hour today it’s gonna have to clear off – or at least lighten up. Yesterday stay cloudy but very lightly so and we generated 13.3 KWHs. So at 330.77 we’ve at least generated a little more than we did last March.
Lousy sleep again. I’m not sure whether more or less than the previous. Solidly from 3 am to 5:30 – light dozing until 7:30. So I’m groggy. And start stuff then get sidetracked to other stuff and forget to go back to the original stuff started. Which is why I’m posting my check-in now. LOL. Once I boosted Dee’s tweets, I started doing twitter stuff. I think the shingles is better. No worse anyway. Hands are not happy with the change in weather but they’re working so far.
Yesterday I saw that bigjacbigjacbigjac over at DK lost his wife this month (he commented in Black Kos). Amelia – and therefore I – reconnected with MsSpentyouth when she DM’d Amelia to offer a little help w/ her rent. Otherwise things haven’t changed – folks are still hanging on. Barely in cases, but hanging on.
I need to do another 20 minutes on the treadmill but for now I guess I’ll get back to twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
That was sad about bigjac’s wife. That poor guy has been through such a lot.
Good morning, 50 and mostly sunny outside my window today. I want to be outdoors but my knees and legs think otherwise so I’m restlessly resting. I have a few errands to do and just a bit of gardening so it’s an easy day for me. Best wishes to all.
Good morning, meeses! Thursday …
It is 34 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 37. Light rain right now, snow expected later this morning. The radar looks nasty – I hope it stays rain if it insists on precipitating as I may need to get to the store. March definitely not going out like a lamb!
Now that the Republican Party has won on abortion (thanks, berners) they appear to be turning towards making political hay on gender identity. The governor of Arizona is the latest to sign a “trans sports ban” law which is simply cruelty – making life more difficult for young people who are already struggling to figure out who they are and their place in society. I guess they can’t be a swimmer or a runner or a basketball player! Republicans never pay a political price for their hate, their base mainlines it and their donors don’t care as long as they cut taxes and regulations. You just have to look at what is happening to Disney to see what an uphill battle it will be for corporate America to push back against the hate. I don’t know how it all ends but some days it seems hopeless. :(
It sounds like Ukraine is close to collapsing as Putin pretended to pull out but was actually just rearranging his troops for a new onslaught. A permanent war against a world power is not sustainable by Ukraine and the Russian economy seems to be surviving in the face of the current round of sanctions. Time is on the side of Russia. :(
I better get back to my projects. It is the last day of March and the last day of the quarter and I have to get accounts up-to-date and reports prepared early because of my office relocation project. No dilly dallying!
See all y’all later!
Dearly moans that Biden needs to pull out all the stops and not worry about WWIII. I do worry about WWIII. If Putie uses nukes, we here in the District-Maryland-Virginia area will be the first to get it.
Jan, do I infer correctly that you will keep working after you move? Won’t it be nice to donate your freezing weather clothes and boots to Goodwill before you go?:)
Yes, I don’t think I will ever not work; I mostly enjoy it. I will just be doing fewer of the things I don’t like. :)
Thursday Meese. 38 here in Kingston, going up to a rainy 65.
Puerto Rico
Cool morning, for Texas in March. Wore a sweatshirt this morning, won’t need it this afternoon, it’ll be gorgeous and mid 70s. Working in the office today. Hoping the world gets better.
Caribbean Matters posted
There jolly well should be reparations! Let the royals do without their fancy hats and cars for a year or two and send the money to the Caribbean nations they wronged.
I was elated to see all the pushback.
It’s 36 heading for 47 which is about 10 degrees lower than last night’s forecast. They’ve also lowered tonight’s low to below freezing although just barely. We started the morning with sunshine but the clouds are already moving in again. We did get a whole 1.39 KWHs yesterday – the m-t-d is 332.23 so even if we got the brightest and sunniest day possible we might have made it to 350. As it is we’ll be lucky to get to 335. Which is still 10 KWHs over what we did in March ’20 so there is that.
I surprisingly got decent sleep last night. Not that I didn’t wake up during the night, but I went right back to sleep – and the cover on my bed wedge was still where it was supposed to be when I got up. LOL. The shingles rash is still there and still achy not itchy. But I’ve got some small and itchy spots in other areas. Which is the part I hate about warm weather. Something outside, probably but not necessarily windblown, that my skin reacts to. sigh. And whatever triggers the “problems with using the mouse” situation with my hands did its thing yesterday. I’m having mouse problems todays. Oh well. If I were in a hunter-gatherer society that would translate into trouble with picking small berries. And/or bugs. LOL. As it is, it means I’ll have trouble boosting tweets and I won’t be able to play FreeCell.
Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. Until I recover financially from buying that vacuum cleaner, Good Thoughts are all I can send. So I hope they help.
I need to do some baking today. Which is good considering the weather. It’s cheering to have the oven on and good smells filling the house. But first I need to get set up on twitter. And read Dee’s diary. I’ll be slow retweeting stuff but I’ll do my best to get it done. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
What is that? Is it a medical game?
It is a very enjoyable solitaire game!
OK. I know nothing.
Good Thursday morning, Meese. It’s grey and misty this morning in the woods across the way, but quite warm—65 F. already! Thunderstorms and worse are expected, starting at noon. I must get dressed and ready to go pretty soon. I can’t face any more of the high-salt, high-carb, high-fat food from the restaurants, so I plan to buy a little dead roast chicken. We can have that and its leftovers for ages.
Tomorrow is payday so I’m looking forward to that. Let’s see, what can I complain about? Oh, my blood pressure! In spite of all the exercise I do (reluctantly), it’s still high. I might actually have to start taking something, although not the cancer-causing Losartan.
Dearly and I both have such horrid sleep experiences I wonder why we bother to go to bed at all. Perhaps I’ll try a 20-minute row today plus my usual 30-minute treadmill thing, and see whether that helps.
Well, having bored y’all thoroughly with my first-world complaints, I’d better get cracking! Hope everyone at the Pond will have a good day and that the rest of the world (except for the Rethugs) will have a good day too.
Good morning, 43 and cloudy outside my window today. I have a haircut this morning, and I hope we can move the last shelf units and start putting the part of the garage we’re working in now back together. Seems like every task we do with this old house takes longer than planned so why am I always surprised? Best wishes to all.
Friday Meese. 44 going up to 54 and rain all day.
Lotta outrage in Puerto Rico about sneaky attempt in the right-wing controlled PR Senate to push harsh anti-abortion measure.
Glad to see one US journalist following up on post Maria PR
Another gorgeous day here. Cool morning, then near 80 this afternoon. Fortunate that very little is happening here.
Good Friday morning, Moosekind. It’s partly cloudy and 49 F. and as dear Jim Morrison used to say, “Girls, we will not get much higher!”
Last night it rained for exactly one hour from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. All day we had NO tornadoes, NO lightning, NO rain, NO hail. We had nothing except a lot of agitated news coverage. I’ve given up expecting the weather forecast to be accurate. Oh, one thing, though—we will continue to have 40 mph winds! That’s so goddam jolly.
Nothing much to report except that one of my best friends actually telephoned me. We only telephone in emergencies. She wanted to know if I were OK as she hadn’t heard from me in a week. Yes, I am OK, but my lack of sleep makes me nod off after lunch and after dinner, so there’s, like, no time to write long emails. Anyway, last night I enjoyed 7 and 3/4 hours’ sleep because of .5 mg Activan.
Hoping not to pop my clogs before I get around to making a medical appointment to find out why my blood pressure is so high. Yesterday my gym buddy and I leaned into the wind for the 4-minute walk to our very nice gym. We go at 4 p.m. in the hope that we’ll have it to ourselves and my immunocompromised gym buddy won’t be exposed. We both wear masks. It’s really not that big a deal to wear a mask, and if it helps keep her safe, I’m all for it.
Anyway, I was on the rowing machine and Marge was on the Nu-Step when several people came in. We knew most of them so pretty soon it was like a gym party, with all of us chattering away! I wanted to giggle. In the end, I did a 15- minute row down the Hoover River or something like that, and 35 minutes on the treadmill, so that used up 250 calories. You’d never know it by my weight this morning, though. Soon I will require a hoist.
By now you must be bored to the point of madness, so I will close and get ready to run errands. Monty doesn’t know it yet but he’s going to doggy play care for several hours today.
May Goddess bless all here and let all at the Pond have a good day.
It’s 32 heading for mid 60s, sunny at the moment. We actually got over 6 KWHs yesterday, wrapping March ’22 up with 338.45 – definitely not great but still better than last year. Target for April is 476 – but anything over 400 is good.
Yesterday was not a good day. I spent 2 hours worth of minutes that fortunately I had either on hold or jacking around with TracFone CSRs who apparently couldn’t understand “I’m on my account page, it’s refusing to process any transactions.” Very nice, polite people. They changed the password 3 times and had me reboot the computer once before they finally got it. (“Oh. We’ll put in a ticket and mark it ‘escalate’ – you should be able to do transactions in 24 hours.”) And of course that put me behind on everything. I – fortunately – called my pharmacy about the 2nd COVID booster and found out yesterday at close of business was when they stop in AR. So I dodged out and got boosted. My arms a little sore. That I know is the vaxx. I’m also a little nauseous and I’m not sure about that. Could be the booster itself. Could be the booster interacting with the shingles I’m still not rid of. I’m cold, can’t seem to get warm. That’s another one I’m not sure is the booster or something else. sigh. The combination – plus sinusitis of course – means I had a lousy night’s sleep. sigh. And my hands are still cycling through the trouble with mouse clicks (so no FreeCell again today). But the sun is shining and it’s supposed to get warm so we’ll see if that helps any.
Jill’s husband is harassing her again. She’s more worried about her son. On 2 counts – one is Ukraine of course. It’s possible once his tank unit finishes basic they could be sent to Germany to allow the experienced tank units to move into Poland. (Probably not Ukraine itself.) The other is while legally as his wife Jill is her husband’s next of kin and she’s the one who should be dealing with him should he be institutionalized or die. But the bastid signed paperwork when the boy joined up saying the youngster is next of kin – which until/unless that’s cleared up should said bastid be institutionalized or die the boy will be pulled out of his unit and sent to deal with everything. I don’t know anything about anybody else yet. Holding the Good Thoughts. As best I can anyway.
I hope I can do my treadmill today. Only managed 5 minutes so far. But I can at least to minimal twitter stuff so I’d best get over there and do it. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, meeses! Friday …
It is 30 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 45. Sunny skies are in the forecast. Overnight into tomorrow we will have another bout of winter weather with mixed precipitation likely.
I opened this tab at about 3:30am and now it is 9:30am and my day has started. I hope there is nothing I need to know in the news!
See all y’all later!
Good morning, 47 and cloudy outside my window. Our son is sealing the joint between the foundation blocks and the garage floor now so maybe today we can move the shelving units back in place. Once that is done the rest can happen over time. Today’s unexpected task is to decide if I can keep a plant we have grown as a screening tree alive or if it’s best to replace it. It grows up and over the garage so new plants will take some time to get to that height. I’ve been phone shopping with several nurseries today so now we need to go look at what they’ve got. I want to keep the photinia, but I don’t think we can keep it alive much longer. Between the fungal disease and damage from the last hard frost it’s not looking quite sad. Oh well, gardens evolve and change like it or not. Best wishes to all.