Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: May 29th

May 28, 2022 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 to view previous pages, shown here with 3 pages of comments available and Page 2 circled.

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35 Comments

  1. Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …

    Morning low of 70 degrees in the Desert Southwest with an expected daytime high of 90. Sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. Good morning. Yesterday I did laundry & cooked. Hot here, didn’t wake up early enough to walk before church, I might go to the gym…. Maybe.

  3. Sunday Meese. 60 going up to 79 here in Kingston. Still working on the new puter.
    Posted:

    Puerto Rico
    Puerto Rico

  4. It’s 72 heading for 88 (heat index over 90) and sunny at the moment. I don’t trust it to stay sunny all day, but I hope it will. Yesterday we got 13 KWHs and the m-t-d is 359 – we can still make over 400 for the month. It would only take 2 good days, like we got Friday. But if we can get at least 14/day these last 3 days of May, we’ve got it.

    The computer started right up with no error/warning messages about the CMOS battery. Can batteries restore themselves? I put the icepack on the computer as soon as the fan got loud and only had to do it the once yesterday. We shall see what today brings.

    I’ve done my treadmilling and Sunday chores except vacuuming and am taking a break for breakfast and to check folks/get set up on twitter. Then I need to get back to it. Both to have it done before the day heats up any more and to have it done before basket is scheduled to play in the semi-finals. (Yes, I know that doesn’t start until 1 p.m. CDT – I move slow. It takes me a while to do the vacuuming.) But I’ll manage Dee’s diary in there somewhere. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

      • Weird, isn’t it? But overheating is overheating and other than turning it off, a non-drippy icepack was the only safe thing I could think of.

  5. Good Sunday morning, Moose Peeps! It’s 74 F. at the moment and a positively Shakespearean day—blue skies, sunshine, deep shadows where the sun hasn’t fallen yet. I keep meaning to mention the flowers growing by Farmwell Hall, which is right next door to Birch Point, the building where I live. Some of the roses growing closely together are pink, others cream-colored. It reminds me of the South of France. And somewhere about is a shrub or a tree giving out the most delightful scent you can imagine. It’s a joy to walk past this little enclave. It’s, ah, too bad the poetry of the place is somewhat ruined by the fact that the other side of the sidewalk is Monty’s favorite pooping ground.

    Had a bad night, blast it. There was so much I wanted to do today. I’ve cooked a Proper Sunday Breakfast, peeped at Twitter, barely glanced at the newspooper headlines. I’m sick of the news. I’m just going to potter about all day (perhaps hitting the gym, since my weight was unbelievable this morning) until it’s time to go to Younger Son’s house for dinner. We’ll do our best to make sure Monty doesn’t get into trouble for the three hours we’ll be away.

    The son of one of my dearest friends has Covid. She is beside herself, not only because he told his friends before he told her, but because he will have to isolate and she won’t see him. She lives for his Sunday visits from 2 until 5, the only time she has free of aides listening to all her conversations. And tomorrow’s a holiday, which, unfortunately for her, will suck.

    I’ve made a list of things that need attention around here and will hope that I can do them one by one—not all in the same day. Feeling very excited because I’m going to start planning Chapter 10! There will be four scenes of 1,250 words each. That gives me 5,000 words for the chapter. It’s going to be quite exciting because Centurion Quentin’s enemy at the fort wants to kill him, his Roman colleagues want to kill the village wisewoman, and so forth and so forth.

    Golly, I feel quite human now that I’ve had two cups of tea and two cups of coffee. However, I’ll crash right after lunch, as usual. Will today be the day I finally install the magenta cartridge in the printer? I’ll watch the YouTube video before I do.

    Wishing a peaceful Sunday to all at the Pond, a refuge in these awful times. Thank you, Jan.

  6. Memorial Day Meese.

    Republished my annual diary on the Black roots of Memorial Day. Good to see Symone Sanders highlighting this


    Republished my annual on this

    • “They” don’t even bother to get the history right if it involves reading anything about Black history. Bastids.

  7. Puerto Rico

  8. Good Monday morning, Moosekind and happy Memorial Day—I guess. It’s 74 F. heading for 90 F. but I can’t take Monty for a walk. He barfed up green vomit on the bedroom and hallway carpets this morning. I gave him yogurt for breakfast and he is now lying quietly on the sofa. It’s a beautiful day, though.

    I’ve been trying to avoid most of the news as otherwise I’d get too depressed to carry on. Yesterday we went to dinner at Younger Son’s house, and of course, it was delicious. The birthday boy asked if I’d brought him a present, apparently forgetting that I’d already sent him chocolate planets and a Lego set a couple of weeks ago. He’s 8 years old today.

    Miss Nora, still in Florida, is on her way back home, but we heard plenty about her. She received straight A’s on her report card and scored 500 on her pre-SATs (apparently, this is a good score), so has been demanding special treatment. “I want a bubble tea! I want bacon and eggs for breakfast like Grandma makes!” I don’t even know what a bubble tea is, that’s how clueless I am. She’s living up to the reputation of teenagers for being obnoxious.

    I was fascinated to hear how much parents do on weekends, what with children’s art classes, Chinese classes, baseball practice, swimming, and tae kwon do. It sounds exhausting! We didn’t live that kind of life when we were bringing up children. Elder Son joined everything from ice hockey to Boy Scouts, but Younger Son just wanted to flop on his bed and daydream when he wasn’t watching the Baltimore Orioles on TV.

    We are going to an early lunch at the Windows restaurant a few minutes walk from here just to get it over with, and then will spend the rest of the day doing what we please. I should go to the gym this afternoon, my weight is out of control. Other than that, no real plans other than taking it easy.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.

    • This:

      I was fascinated to hear how much parents do on weekends, what with children’s art classes, Chinese classes, baseball practice, swimming, and tae kwon do. It sounds exhausting! We didn’t live that kind of life when we were bringing up children.

      Parenting chores have definitely gotten a lot more intense. My daughter had a lot of sports she wanted to try out but usually just one at a time. I remember my own childhood where we were pretty much on our own – we jumped on our bikes and went exploring or over to other (more fun) friends houses or walked around in the woods. I don’t recall there being any organized sports for children and certainly not “enrichment classes.” We seemed to turn out okay. I worry that kids nowadays are learning at a too-young age to be ruled by their schedules (now digital). They need time for daydreaming.

      • I think so too, Jan. That’s why I didn’t argue with Younger Son when he wanted to drop out of Cub Scouts and soccer at age 7 because he was “too busy.” Elder Son did try out everything but, like your daughter, it was one thing at a time. Karate lasted the shortest time.

  9. Good morning. Slept in, watching the news — Doris Kearns Goodwin on CNN talking about how tough things are & we’re so divided… and I’m back over to HGTV. The movie Sing was on TV last night. Sweet, funny, happy. I think the sequel is on Prime video, if so I’ll watch it later. anyway, for now, I’m just eating breakfast & trying to stay cool.

    • We’re only “divided” because half the country votes for people who think that it is okay for 18 year olds to murder people with weapons of war when they are unhappy. I have no interest in making common cause with them, they can pound sand.

  10. It’s 70 heading for 85 and sunny at the moment. Yesterday we generated 20.4 KWHs bringing the m-t-d to 379.4 – so if it stays sunny today it’s entirely possible to reach 400 by sundown.

    I may have gotten 4 hours of sleep. I certainly didn’t get any between 2 and 5 and I got up before 6. The power lines behind my house were giving random fireworks displays between 2 and 3:45 when I got up and called it in. I think I dozed off around 5 but woke up again to the sounds of power saws. Problem is, they didn’t do the entire fenceline. They did the one tree they could get to without taking their truck off the tarmac, saw my light come on, logged that “service was restored”, and left. sigh.

    I’m moving slowly today. Brain function included. But I’ve got my treadmilling done and breakfast eaten. (Poor Murf. He’s staring at me waiting for the oatmeal dish and I didn’t have oatmeal today.) Totally looking forward to seeing basket when he gets here this evening. I haven’t checked in on anybody yet. Pretty much bet money, if I had any, that everybody’s doing the same as yesterday – all dealing with pain and financial issues to one degree or another plus their individual extras, all hanging on as best they can.

    Heading over to twitter to get that part of my day started. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

    • Hope you feel start feeling better today, our bfitz! So glad basket is coming to see you. I hope you’ll have a great visit.

      I must slept funny because I had a pain in my neck. Took an Advil and it seems to have stopped. Good show.

  11. Good morning, meeses! Mondayish …

    It is 64 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 90. Sunny skies are in the forecast. Yesterday it stayed in the mid-90s and there was a nice breeze most of the day. I know “it’s a dry heat” has become something of a joke but it really does make a difference to have low humidity and a slight breeze. I would not run a marathon in it but one can sit outside in the shade and not pass out. The sun is coming up earlier and earlier every morning – we are adding minutes of daylight in big chunks. Shortly, I will close the big patio doors and block out the sun to store the coolness “gathered” in the early morning. It should last for several more hours before the air conditioning has to kick in. I am enjoying learning the nuances of the seasons here! This morning in the dawn the pale bluegreen color of the light behind the mountains to the east looked like the colors of the Southwest – also on my new license plate!

    I am going to ignore the news today. First, I have some quiet time projects I want to get done so that I can take a walk before it gets too hot. And second, the news is depressing. The berners are screaming petulantly about “Biden’s broken promises” and are planning on sitting out the mid-terms. They did that in 2010 and Tea Party Republicans took over state legislatures and destroyed good government in a dozen states plus gerrymandered us out of any hope for a majority, possibly forever (suppression begets suppression). If the purity pests do that in 2022, we will be well and truly screwed. This Twitter thread:

    See all y’all later!

    • Here, I will save you a click – from threadreaderapp:

      THREAD: If Biden forgives $10K in student debt, and you have decided you won’t vote for democrats because you want $50K, I have a favor to ask. And I’m being 100% serious. 1/
      Call up a parent of a slaughtered student or a loved one at Robb or in Buffalo, or a family member of someone at Sandy Hook or Colorado or AME, and tell them you’ve decided to help elect republicans who will keep allowing mass murders because you didn’t get enough debt relief. 2/
      Then speak to a friend that’s a member of the LGBTQ+ community and explain to them how you’d really like to help preserve their right to marry who they love but you just can’t because you *only* got $10K free dollars. 3/
      Then I’d like to you chat up a rape survivor. We all know one. Tell that person that as much as you’d love to vote for more democrats to protect Roe, you simply can’t be bothered because you deserve $50K instead of only 10. 4/
      After that, you should call up a teacher you know and inform them that you’d rather see them underpaid and armed than have to vote for the democrats because they wouldn’t give you $50K. 5/
      Then speak to a Dreamer. Any young amazing immigrant here since they were babies and you’re super sorry that your actions will probably mean they’ll be deported to a country they’ve never been to whose language they probably don’t speak but you won’t stand for a $10K gift. 6/
      Then call a parent who has lost a beautiful trans child to suicide because they couldn’t talk about themselves or their families in school and let them know why you’re supporting the other side this time. Because that’s what this is. Not voting is a vote for republicans 7/
      Just look any of them in the eye and justify your reasons for not being able to pick up a pen and vote on their behalf this time around. That you have to turn your back on them because you still have some loans to pay that you’re gonna have to pay anyhow if you help the GOP. 8/
      Or maybe just ask them if that would be okay. See if they understand. Maybe explain how important it is to you.

      Of COURSE I want $50K in debt forgiven, but am I gonna sell out everyone I love if we don’t get it? Fuck no, I won’t. 9/
      And ABSOLUTELY advocate for more debt relief if that’s what you want. Call or write to Biden and your reps and demand more. But before you advocate for not voting, I BEG you to take a moment and think about how your actions will impact someone other than yourself. END

  12. I am going to put the Microsoft 365 comment that we started last week here so I can add to the information I have and answer questions.

    First, here is a link to the original discussion. I won’t repeat why I think Microsoft 365 is better than DropBox and GoogleDocs.

    We’ll start with this:

    If you use Microsoft Office, the most seamless place is OneDrive. You should have a free OneDrive subscription that came with your computer’s Windows Operating System but it only holds 5gb – that sounds like a lot but it isn’t. The other options are here. For $20 a year you can get 100gb, for $69 per year you can get Microsoft365 which comes with OneDrive and includes Office in the Cloud and stores 1tb (1000 gb). My recommendation is the Microsoft365 Personal. You can share your OneDrive files on up to 5 devices and it comes with easy to understand apps. If you need more storage, you can go to the Family version for $99 a year and get up to 6tb (6000 gb) of storage.

    The first step is to figure out how much data you want to store. A terabyte (1000 gigabytes) is a lot but if you have mostly videos and photos, it can get eaten up pretty quickly. Documents (Office documents and PDFs) take almost nothing to store, I have decades of document archives stored and haven’t even used half of my allotted storage. You can always upgrade from Microsoft365 Personal to Microsoft365 Family if you find the 1 terabyte to not be enough – $99 per year versus $69 per year is not that big of a leap. One great feature is that Microsoft does all your backups and provides easy to use “undelete” and recycle bin recovery back to 120 days.

    Dee, you asked about storing music files that your husband uses and which end up on flash drives that often get misplaced. Here was my reply:

    You can store music files in the Microsoft cloud but I am pretty sure that you can’t play them from there – you would have to copy them out of the cloud into local storage to play. However, that information might be dated – I researched it for a client who had some video files they wanted to save off into Microsoft storage last year. Do you happen to know what format the music files are in (MP3, MP4A, WAV)? I can do some research. I can’t imagine that Microsoft would push “cloud computing” for consumers and not be able to accommodate music files.

    Let me know what format his music files are in and I will do some research on that.

    • Thanks Jan. A musician friend suggested – give the massive amount of music my husband has stored on flash drives, and a large cd collection – that we invest in pcloud – it has 2 terabytes of space. Plus it has a player.

      • A player, I think, is essential – no one wants to have to copy files around. Does pcloud do the documents as well or would you need a business cloud (M365) and a music cloud (pcloud)?

        • Pcloud is for docs, pics, videos …I opted for a lifetime fee rather than yearly or monthly rate.

  14. Good morning, 51 and raining outside my window today. Ryan is packing his bags and Lisa will be here soon. We have really enjoyed his visit. I’ve made progress planting the garden containers and I’m pleased with the more simple approach. I’ve got to focus laundry this morning and if energy allows I’ll plant the new tree in the front porch pot. Best wishes to all.

  15. Tuesday Meese. Crazy weather shift here in Kingston – again. It’s 68, going up to 94. Tomorrow’s high will be 73.

    Puerto Rico

  16. Good morning. Back to work, but at least it’s wfh today & tomorrow. Did nothing yesterday; like nothing at all. But people need days like that. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of work today & tomorrow; and then in office Thursday & Friday, ugh.

  17. Good morning, meeses! Tuesday that will feel like a Monday …

    It is 64 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 91. Sunny skies are in the forecast.

    The news is not new: the Senate is dysfunctional! Sadly, it was designed by the same people who created the electoral college and was literally set up to be the tyranny of the minority and to reward states for enslaving their populations. I wish we had had some Founding Mothers instead of Founding Fathers – women would have designed a better form of government.

    Here we are, almost done with May! I have grand plans to shift from post-move to being productive again. I had hoped it would occur sooner (I expected to be ready by May 15th) but my energy level has not been great, probably because the sheer mass of things that I needed to do post-move was exhausting! I am also not sleeping well – I wonder if the altitude changes how cushie my mattress topper is, I just can’t seem to find a comfortable spot to settle into. I don’t think it is different night noises although this place does not have the highway drone that the last place did. Maybe I need some white noise? In any event, I hope to get to the bottom of it because I need to wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed to carpe diem.

    See all y’all later!

  18. Basket’s here! YAY!!! Aside from masks and daily COVID testing – which we’re doing religiously because a couple of folks at the music competition tested positive yesterday and were kind enough to let everyone they’d come in contact with know – it’s almost “normal”. Visiting with him is always a good thing.

    It’s 74 and sunny so far. Heading for 85 with a heat index of 90. We generated 17.3 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d starts this last day of May at 396.74 – a few KWHs more than last year and close enough to 400 we should definitely make it even though clouds and rain will be moving in later today.

    Aside from the wildfire situation in NM (and AZ and CA) getting worse, everybody and everything seems to be hanging on. COVID & monkeypox situation also getting worse. Aji says it’s like Groundhog Day – we’re stuck in March 2020.

    I’m not sure how much I’m going to be online today (or for the next several while basket’s here) but off to twitter now to get things started. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  19. Good Tuesday morning, Meese! Right now it’s 84 F. in Ashburn, heading for a high of 94 F. It’s sunny and blue-skied. When I took Monty out, we went down the slope of the courtyard and it was lovely to see dew-diamonds sparkling in the sunlight on the grass. We didn’t begin our walk until 9:30 because this morning I was busy making muffins for breakfast, but I walked him in the shade as much as possible.

    The Peach Bran Muffins have been made, consumed, or given away; Dearly, who is washed and brushed, is on his way to Macy’s to buy some new trousers; and it’s time for me to get busy doing one of the things on my list.

    The plotting for Chapter 10 of Iron and Scarlet awaits. Four scenes, 5,000 words in all. Lots is happening at the Wall fort of Cilurnum in A.D. 139!

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond. Bfitz, please say hello to basket for me!

  20. Good morning, 58 and cloudy, but the rain has stopped for now. I got the “boys room” Ryan was sleeping in ready for my sister to stay there next. But then I ran out of steam and needed a nap so today I’ll get the “girls room” ready for Erica and her family. I have both a twin bed and queen bed in each room so it’s lots of bedding to keep clean but everyone is comfortable. So today is a laundry day ready or not! Best wishes to all.

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