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”, Motley Meese! The week begins …
Morning low of 77 degrees in the Desert Southwest with an expected daytime high of 93. Thunderstorms are in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Good Sunday morning, Moose Peeps! ‘Tis early, but wanted to check in before I have to cook a Proper Sunday Breakfast. Dearly is putting the coffee on and emptying the dishwasher. There’s only room for one of us at a time in what passes for a kitchen in this flat, so I’m doing something useful until I can get in there.
Yesterday was exactly half a year from Christmas! Can you believe how quickly the year is passing? If there were such a thing as a time machine, I think I’d rather drink to yesterday than toast tomorrow. Anyway, it’s 73 F. in Ashburn and sunny. The high today will be 91 F., with 8 drops of rain predicted for tonight. That’s why I’ve already shaken the loose dog hair off one of the dog beds and put it and two bath mats in the washer. They can dry on the porch until evening.
I hope Dearly doesn’t shamble too much this morning because we have to retrieve the rest of the porch cushions from our awkwardly placed storage unit. It’s a reach even for him, and he’s 6’2″. Only half the porch cushions were in the bag I found in the storage unit.
Have a lot to do while my energy is still high. After lunch I’m pretty useless. Also, we have to eat in one of the restaurants tonight because I’ll be too busy to cook.
No comment from me on the news or we’d be here all night. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond, and slava Ukraini!
Good morning. I’ve got tea steeping, watching the news. Thinking about going to a Beto/abortion rights rally this evening. But it’ll be over 100 degrees, so maybe not. Anyway, just savoring the last day of the weekend.
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It’s 77 but only supposed to go to 82. I’ve got the house closed up and the A/C on. We’ll see if it actually comes on today. Yesterday we generated 20 KWHs and brought the m-t-d to 428 – still on track to get over 500.
I’ve got all my Sunday chores done. Including the vacuuming. I’m not sure I’ll have the energy to do my treadmilling today. I’ll definitely try. But not yet. My friend came by yesterday – brought a slushy mocha to share – and took most of the stuff she’d been storing in her old bedroom. Finally things are coming together enough she can do that yard sale she meant to do just before COVID hit. Amelia, well Roe being overturned triggered some really nasty flashbacks, she’s even more fragile than “usual” right now. Jill’s had a minor breakthrough with her counseling/counselor which is good. Aji’s running on pure super-charged rage so she seems to be doing a lot better than she really is. Considering how fragile – physically – Aji really is, well, prayers up for when the rage/adrenaline runs out.
Heading over to twitter and DK. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Monday Meese 69 here in Kingston going up to 82 with rain, which may end early afternoon (fingers crossed) so I can work in the garden.
Puerto Rico
We’re supposed to get rain today, and I smelled it outside, so maybe. And it’s only supposed to get up to 99 this afternoon, that will be nice. Working in the office today. Sigh. I can’t sign in, wonder if this tablet is just stuck on the bad sign-in link?
Oh, crud, another, that’s so frustrating! I hate not being able to sign in. I always feel it’s my fault, since Goddess knows I’m no tech expert.
Saw in the paper that Austin would be “cooler” today, with rain, so fingers crossed.
I think it’s my tablet, because at home on my laptop, I’m signed in.
That makes sense. The “rules” for clearing cache on tablets is different than for traditional browsers. Do you ever clear cache in your apps? I do frequently because they tend to hang onto things in memory and eventually I run out of space (I only have 2gig of memory). My tablet (an Android) has the ability to select clearing cache by app and the app you should target would be the Internet browser.
I don’t use apps on that tablet, just the browser & my books. I’ll clear the cache in the browser the next time I use it.
It’s 70 heading for 83. Overcast but hopefully will clear off later. We generated just under 18 KWHs yesterday and with the m-t-d at 445.91, we need at least 15/day these last 4 days in June to get over last year’s total.
The house is open and my hands are cold. I’m having oatmeal for breakfast for the 1st time in weeks. LOL. I’ll close the house up in a bit and see how long we go before the A/C kicks on. If it does. (It did yesterday around 5 pm but only once.) This evening I’ll cook up 3 or 4 pounds of meat (most of what was in my freezer), freeze some of it, and have the protein for a couple of weeks of meals ready to eat. Cold when the hot weather returns.
Nothing new that I know of with anybody. Aji’s still getting soft steady rain off and on – enough they’re going plant their garden this week. Jill’s getting rain, too, but not as soft – there was water a couple of inches deep running under/by her RV yesterday. Amelia’s still stressed with flashbacks overturning Roe triggered but she’s doing her best. Fineena’s back to one-bloody-thing-after-another. sigh.
I’m OK. Or as OK as I get. And since even my not-OK is so much better than a whole lot of folks’ OK-ness, I’m calling mine just fine. Off to twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good Monday morning, Moosekind! It’s 74 F. in Ashburn at the moment, with an overcast sky. Our high will be 83 F. Showers are predicted, but who knows? We did get some rain yesterday—no thunder or lightning or anything exciting like that, but just some soft, steady rain.
I had just made the three-ingredient Peach Ice Cream (no churning, just stick it in the freezer) when Miss Pink Cheeks texted me that she “forgot” that she had plans for this week extending through the Fourth of July. What happened was that she received a better offer from her BFF and BFF’s family to go to Chicago. Beats staying with her eccentric old grandparents, I suppose. It’s a good thing I was half-prepared for this eventuality, since it’s happened before.
Meanwhile, Younger Son, not knowing that she’d already told me she wasn’t coming for a sleepover, informed me of this news and also told me a pathetic story about their house over the weekend. No Internet. Little Karl had to watch a DVD on the telly, Nora was stuck into her phone, and Trevor himself read a short story by Balzac.
And so it goes. It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, however, so this frees me up to concentrate on other things.
As usual, the newspooper contained no good news for Democrats and has started slavishly worshipping Ron DeathSantis, who was responsible for a million Covid deaths in his state. That guy even looks stupid.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
Good morning, meeses! Monday …
It is 79 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 91. Partly cloudy skies are in the forecast.
I spent the morning on a client project and now it is almost Not Morning. So I will close all my browser windows and go offline to ponder the terrible thing that the berners have done to us when they sat out 2016. Our country is now under the thumb of the white nationalist christianists on the Supreme Court. On Friday they said that they trust the states to make laws compatible with their citizens values but you know damn well that when states actually do that, they are overruled by SCOTUS. America is about to become a hellscape; I am going to have to figure out how to live under these new rules.
See all y’all later!
Or figure out a way to move to Portugal, which has gorgeous weather, free health care, and a nonthreatening political climate.
The gorgeous weather would be a draw. The only choices nearby are Canada which is too damn cold and Mexico which has an unstable government. My daughter is very sad about the state of our country after the Roe repeal and the next things the Sanders-Collins Court has planned. Yesterday they repealed the separation of Church and State using outright lies about the facts and today they will take away the right of the Environmental Protection Agency to protect the environment. SCOTUS is now just another institution ruined by the Republicans and the minority rule baked into our Constitution to please the slave-holding states.
Good morning, 70 and sunny outside my window today. Feels like a welcome but sudden change from rain and grey skies. We were at Ava’s dance recital yesterday, followed ny dinner at their house so we had to open windows and bring out the fans when we returned home last evening.
Our son is home from the hospital now and felt well enough to join us for dinner but he looks so weary. He’s got several doc appointments this week, just to make sure the infection doesn’t return and that his blood thinner meds don’t get out of balance again. He’s going to need more recovery time that he wants to have, but until his stamina returns he can’t safely resume work. He is an independent contractor so no benefits for him, but working with power tools and on ladders takes a healthy man and right now that’s not him.
I’ve got loads of laundry to do and little motivation so I’ll just do what I can. Best wishes to all.
{{{princesspat}}} Healing Energy & Good Thoughts to your son – and you. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Sending healing white light to your son, who needs it. Wishing him all the best. Doesn’t he have ACA health care?
Good Tuesday morning, Meese. It’s an absolutely gorgeous day in Ashburn, 64 F. now, 81 F. later, low humidity, blue skies, the lot. We’ve put the porch cushions out on the porch furniture so we can have morning coffee and afternoon tea looking out at the woods.
All agog to see who’s the mystery witness this afternoon at 1 p.m.! Whoever it is, his or her life has been threatened.
I finished my Oh-bitch-uary and am satisfied with it. It’ll do for the Writers’ Group I lead and for the Legacy Letter course I’m taking. Only 431 words, how restrained! I asked All My Children what they thought my legacy to them would be—not money (I hardly have any)—but in the nature of traditions and stories. Three responded (I look on Darling Niece as a daughter), but Elder Son is too busy getting ready to go to the Outer Banks.
That’s all from me, it’s breakfast time! Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and may the Rethuglicans be kicked by wild camels.
Hahahaha!! “Only 431 words, how restrained!”
Well, these days a death announcement costs at least $1,000. No one gets free obits in the Post any more unless they’re famous.
Did you see that the family that paid $900 for a family obit that went viral – and was printed in other newspapers as a news story – is a little po’ed that their money was used to provide news content for another publication? I would be too! I think that their “work product” should be protected by copyright laws.
I didn’t see that! I’ll have to Google it. Unfortunately, I think I’m going to have to add some words about where I lived from 2018 until my date of death. Ugh, every word costs money.
Good morning. We had a big, loud thunderstorm last night — over an inch of rain. So lovely. And maybe under 100. Yesterday was supposed to be that, but it hit 100 before the rain came. Possibly more rain today. Wfh today, so I get to watch the hearing.
It’s 64 going to 85 and overcast at the moment. Supposedly it’s raining. ahem. But it’s supposed to stop and maybe even clear off in another hour or two. Yesterday we generated 19.75 KWHs and the m-t-d is 465.56 – still only track for that modest goal of beating 2021. IF we can generate at least 17 today.
What sleep I got was “late” – between 3 and 6. So I’m groggy and moving slowly. Oh well. Not like I have to be anywhere. My hands aren’t happy with the cooler weather – that’s the Raynaud’s – but everything else is. Everything and everybody was about the same last night as they were the night before. Which isn’t good but it’s hanging on.
Gonna try to find my scattered wits and head for twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …
It is 77 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 91. My weather widget says “a few clouds” which is the typical monsoon forecast. A few clouds in the morning over the mountains, abundant sunshine for a while, more clouds move in and very often storms over the mountains in the evening that might come into the valley. I was trying to figure out how to reconcile the TV temperature, the outside thermometer temperature and the two weather apps on my phone and decided it is impossible. The problem is that mountains create their own microclimates and what is happening on the east slope is different than the south slope – and the airport is not near any of the mountains (for good reason). So I should go with the temperature on the patio as the most accurate but expect it to be different if I go to another part of the city.
Today is primary day in a handful of states. In Colorado, the crazy Q Boebert is in a primary that Democrats are voting in to oust her (it is their only chance to have a say in their representation in that Congressional District). Colorado is also deciding if an election denying MAGAt should be their Secretary of State. In Illinois the “Roe repeal will protect white life” woman is facing another Republican in a redistricting clash. The guy she is running against voted to certify Biden’s election and also voted for the January 6th commission so he is a less objectionable Republican. I hope he beats the Nazi.
The January 6th Committee will hear from Mark Meadows’ aide who was present at a lot of the January 6th meetings where TFG expressed his hope that the Capitol rioters would hang Mike Pence and his disinterest in stopping the attack on the Capitol. She had a cameo role in the last hearing where she identified which Republican congressmen wanted pardons. It sounds like she got a lot of guff from them over the weekend and decided to switch lawyers (she had a MAGAt-connected attorney) and spill the beans on everything. From what I understand, the committee wants to get her public testimony before she has a chance to change her mind; apparently Congress goes on recess for two weeks to celebrate the Fourth of July. I will try to watch it but I have a lot of pending projects related to the end of the accounting quarter which is Thursday. I can probably put them off one more day but I would feel better getting them done.
I am curious about how the state courts treat the court challenges to the abortion bans. In Wisconsin, the Republican state supreme court has been known to occasionally support the rule of law but that swing vote is a hardcore fundie – he is unlikely to go against his God who demands zygote protection. In Florida and a few other states, the right to privacy was specifically put into the state constitution (unlike the U.S. Constitution where it was implied rather than enumerated) and there may be a good case that the right taken away at the federal level exists at the state level. It will be interesting to see what happens. One thing someone pointed out is that it has made state judicial elections more of a BHD and may encourage Democrats to vote in them – they are notorious for not caring about judicial elections because they are boring. Wisconsin lost a chance for a Supreme Court seat in 2016 because the berners swarmed to the polls to vote for their god but ignored every other race on the ballot. Instead Wisconsin got 10 years of an anti-choice mouthbreathing MAGAt-style woman making life or death decisions and helping to ratfk elections. If the fall of Roe wakes up Democratic voters, that will be a silver lining. It is horrible that it will come at the expense of thousands of lives lost and 100s of thousands lives ruined.
See all y’all later!
Good morning. Yesterday was certainly interesting. I hope at least some of tfg’s fans wake up. I’m wfh again today, got several new library users set up — even ended up working past 5, so I’ll log off early today. For now, I’m watching an astronomy TV show & eating breakfast.
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 79 in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 97. Clear skies right now with a few clouds later this morning and a chance of a thunderstorm this afternoon.
I watched the January 6th Committee testimony yesterday and it was riveting. Hutchinson was very poised for a 25 year old – I wonder if she realizes that the likelihood of having anything like a normal life disappeared with her testimony. The salacious details (tRump throttling a Secret Service man, throwing food at the walls like a freaking toddler) are irrelevant – the big takeaway is that TFG knew his followers were armed and wanted them to go to the Capitol. It sounds like the Secret Service is sworn to secrecy and will never testify against a former protectee but hopefully there are enough other people to corroborate that TFG was told that the throng at his rally was armed and that his sending them to the Capitol showed an intent to incite violence against Congress and his vice president. One thing I found stunning was that former General Michael Flynn would not agree that the peaceful transfer of power is important in a democracy – I hope that he can be convicted of some new crime and that his pardon does not cover his part in the insurrection. After Congress fixes the Electoral Vote Act, they need to fix the pardon powers – a pardon should never be allowed for a president’s co-conspirators in a coup plot.
The post-Roe court filings provide some hope at the state level and two states are working on constitutional amendments to protect the right to an abortion. It will be interesting to see if courts in blood red states allow their state’s constitutional privacy protections to protect medical decisions including the use of contraception and abortions.
See all y’all later!
They’re already citing Dobbs for other things. Sigh.
Excellent commentary by Courtney. This:
FFS, that’s all I can enunciate.
She is awesome. I’m grateful she went into fiction writing, but I wonder what she could have done if she’s stayed in the legal profession. Not that helping take down that judge wasn’t awesome; but she is so brilliant……
It was 54 at dawn, is 64 now, heading for 92 today, and sunny. We’ve got one more overnight low of 60 but as of tomorrow we’re back to summer. I’m hoping I won’t have to turn the A/C on today. Yesterday we generated 18.85 KWHs and the m-t-d at 484.5 is very much still on track to best 2021. Possibly even today with tomorrow for “extra”.
I baked orange-raisin-walnut-oatmeal cookies this morning. They’re cooling right now. 3 dozen cookies won’t last 3 weeks but maybe it’ll get us through to another “cool spell” – and if not, I’ll eat store cookies or “toast” until one comes along. Actually there were 37 cookies but that messes up my numbers so I ate the extra. LOL. The baking not only warmed the kitchen up (to 76) it also warmed my hands up. Which is quite nice.
The world’s in a mess on so many levels. I’m not sure recovery is even possible. But I’ll keep trying anyway. Which means, as irritating as I find the continued use of the (quite truthful) “stakes have never been higher” fundraising slogan and as disappointed as I am in some of Joe’s administrative choices and Chuck’s inability to get things through the Senate, I’m supporting Dems up and down the line. Including doing my best to ferret out what party the “non-partisan” race candidates align with. It’s kinda like when I was driving that old ’65 3-on-the-column Ford Falcon. The car needed repairs I couldn’t afford so the sparkplugs fouled on a regular basis. Driving a 6-cylinder vehicle with only 4 cylinders working until I had time to clean the plugs wasn’t fun – but it got me where I was going. And back again. As long as I put gas in it. Well, we need to keep putting gas in the Dem party vehicle – and hope we’ll get enough time and money to at least clean the plugs. Maybe someday we can upgrade to an EV. But that’s not an option right now.
Heading over to twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Wednesday Meese. For some reason I couldn’t log in earlier – but it has fixed itself. 79 going up to 84 here in Kingston.
Elated that my congressman won his Lt. Gov of NY primary – he’s a guy to keep an eye on
Puerto Rico
With the history of recent New York governors, the Lt. Gov position is a BHD! Although I suspect that having a woman governor could end that run of “governors who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves”. She would be the first woman elected governor of New York – it’s about time.
Good Wednesday afternoon, Moosekind! It’s 78 F. in Ashburn on a delightful day, going up to 86 F. The sky is blue with wisps of white cloud drifting across it, and a breeze is blowing.
We’ve had a very busy morning, or at least I have—went to the farmer’s market and was once again put off by the attitude of the farmer. He’s very full of himself. However, I bought a lettuce and a Goddess cantaloupe. When I heard the name of the cantaloupe I could not, of course, resist it.
I suddenly realized that with Elder Son’s family out of town on July 4, and Younger Son’s wife and son also out of town, Younger Son would be all by himself on July 4. The thought bothered me, although it probably didn’t bother him, considering that he quite often takes it into his head to display the Union Jack on July Fourth. (Dearly and both boys have dual citizenship.) Anyway, I invited him over here to our smelly little flat. He and Dearly can drink beer on the screened porch. Nora is out of town and he doesn’t know exactly when she’ll be back from Chicago on the Fourth, as the BFF’s family are driving.
I hear that Plan B is in very short supply. I looked for female contraceptives when I went to the store yesterday, but they only had things for men. Don’t trust men. I may be able to order them on line to have on hand just in case some poor girl needs them. Actually, if I could tell the difference between Queen Anne’s Lace and its poisonous lookalike, that would work just as well as Plan B. You put the seeds of QAL in a glass of water and drink it the morning after the night before.
Went to Costco to get my hearing aids properly cleaned and adjusted. I hate my hearing aids. When I inquired about other brands I learned that no matter how cheap or expensive they are, they all require periodically changing the domes and the filters. This has put me in a really foul mood for the rest of the day, but no need to keep on about it here.
OKay, time to make Dearly’s sandwich and then rest a bit before going to my weekly treat to the barbershop. She not only washes and styles my hair, she puts hot towels on my head and gives me a seated massage. That’s why I tip her $20, which is exactly what I pay for the shampoo and blow-dry.
Enough about me. Hope everyone is enjoying the day as much as possible, given the parlous state of affairs in this burgeoning theocracy. Bless the Moose Pond!