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 37 degrees in the Desert Southwest with an expected daytime high of 57. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Sunday Meese. Snow flurries this morning, and it’s 32 degrees – will turn to rain.
Shelly who reports daily from Vieques posted this bad news:
At Sundance:
Good morning. Another chilly one, low 40s — brrr! I walked yesterday, will again today. Right now I have tea steeping & watching Ali Velshi. Good segment on addressing disinformation. I’ve got next week’s tea steeping, will make next week’s “overnight” oats later.
Posted
Oh, I loved that guy’s singing!
It’s 37 going to 40 and overcast but so still it almost feels warm outside. Almost. We generated 3.6 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d at 128.7 is still on track. We’ll need to generate another 3.5 today to stay on track and I’m not sure we will. But we shall see what we shall see.
I’ve done my Sunday housecleaning chores – hands and back protesting – and am just sitting down with breakfast to start my online chores. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
34 degrees here, that is “wow” cold. Still did my walk, including that accursed hill. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain, so I’ll walk in the afternoon. Forgot to look for the comet, maybe Thursday when I’m back downtown, I’ll look when I’m on the parking garage roof.
Good morning, meeses! Monday …
It is 41 degrees in Tucson and overcast. It appears as though the daytime high will also be 41 with a few ups and downs throughout the day. Rain this morning and possibly wet flurries around 9am! We should see the sun later but mixed with clouds. Tonight we have another hard freeze warning. The weather guys think we will be back to normal by Wednesday. We shall see!
It looks like tRump is going to start tweeting again. If that happens, I will lock my account and wait until Elon Musk gets sick of his plaything and sells it to someone who cares. I have an app that works to display tweets but does not allow interaction (on January 12th, Twitter revoked the rights of third party apps to connect to their authenticators) and I will use that to keep up with news that is not available anywhere else and I will use my mastodon account for toots and boosts. I never found anything interesting to read on Post and Spoutable is not ready yet. I don’t think anything will completely replace Twitter – it is too ubiquitous. But I see more of the people I want to follow for news insights on mastodon and I am starting to see some developers taking an interest in making it more seamless for users. I hope they succeed.
I got enough done yesterday to be able to set aside my accounting work and get back to billable projects this week. The tax forms I need for filing are missing from Wisconsin until January 27th for business and February Freaking 16th for personal. I am glad to be done with them – they have always been difficult to work with. Arizona’s forms were all ready by January 3rd.
See all y’all later!
Monday Meese. It’s snow sleeting here in Kingston this morning – 32 going up to 37.
Watched VP Harris in Tallahassee yesterday:
Righteous anger from MVP Kamala Harris in Tallahassee “How dare they?”
Stories shared
Glad to see her taking the fight to the home turf of Death Santis
Puerto Rico
Good morning, Moosekind! What day is this? What planet is this?
Lawks, what a lost weekend. I totally stayed off the computer both days because I was feeling so ill. I thought I was coming down with Covid, with perhaps a touch of bubonic plague. However, a knowledgeable friend told me that in view of the fact that I could still taste and smell, and my temperature stubbornly remained at 97 F., the extreme fatigue could very well be due to something else. I also had occasional touches of roiling stomach, but they didn’t amount to anything.
The bubonic plague thing began on Saturday morning. It was an itchy pink mound that drove me crazy, but Dearly gave me some cream that stopped the itch. However, by Sunday morning the swelling had subsided and was still soft and pink instead of being a hard black golf ball, so I’m sure it wasn’t the plague. It may have been due to using an unfamiliar soap when I took a shower at my son’s house. The shower has just been put in.
The fatigue that kept me in the recliner was probably the result of nervous strain and a very bad night’s sleep in Younger Son’s FREEZING downstairs bedroom. The nervous strain was because I had to drive at night in an unfamiliar neighborhood, taking little Karl to his Cub Scout meeting, leaving him there, and picking him up three hours later and taking him back home. I hate driving at night in unfamiliar neighborhoods. I also took a wrong turn driving back the next morning, which added a bad half-hour to my trip home.
So I just stayed in the recliner, too tired to do anything but read, nap, and watch Netflix with Dearly at night. We have discovered a totally fascinating series called “Lupin” on Netflix. I’ve already bought the books on Kindle. It was produced in France. I do love the way the French seem to be completely unaware of anyone’s skin color. The MAGAts should all be forced to reside in France for 20 years. No, that’s too good for them. They don’t deserve to enjoy the best food and wine in the world.
It was very nice not to watch the news, either, because we were engrossed in footbore, both British and American. Unfortunately last night’s footbore games were broadcast in Spanish, which we don’t understand. Infinity stinks. We never had this problem with Verizon.
Is that more than you wanted to know? Sorry. Just ordered flowers, chocs, and a balloon to be delivered to my mum’s friend, who will be 101 years old tomorrow. Viva Elisa!
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
THIS! “I hate driving at night in unfamiliar neighborhoods.” I am not sure what I will do when my daughter gets her own place as I currently have her and her young eyes to drive me around at night. Maybe I will insist that she live nearby and continues her chauffeuring duties?
LOL! She’ll love that—not!
It’s 32 going to 48 and sunny. The sun’s got to melt the frost off the solar panels before we can get to serious generation. Which we need to do. We only generated 2 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d at 130 is not on track. And will take 8 to get it back on track by end of day. Considering we’ve got a winter storm moving in tomorrow with a projected 4″ – or more – of snow by Wednesday morning, making the goal for the month is iffy. Anything & everything we can get today will help.
I’m beginning to think the govt should quit announcing Social Security COLAs. The minute they do so, landlords raise the rent, states cut SNAP, Big Oil/Fossil Fuel jacks gas and heating prices, and Big Ag jacks food prices. I’m OK – I don’t have rent, generate all/most of my electricity, don’t get SNAP, don’t go many places, and don’t eat much of what been jacked the highest – but I’ve got friends who’ve been hit really badly. To the extent that they’re worse off than if there’d been no COLA at all. Which I suppose is the point of the Evil Ones doing the evil. They have a “moral” objection to people living comfortably off the earned benefits of their life-long labor. Especially when that money could be given to the obscenely rich instead.
I need to get over to twitter, check on folks, and start my daily chores there. Bright the Day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good day, 41 and mostly cloudy outside my window today. It was a busy weekend with tree and puppy activity. Our son is a licensed surveyor so both sons were here yesterday for lunch and to survey the property line re the fir tree and the ivy. So I was in puppy duty, which was very fun but Elsa is a busy pup! She ended the day asleep in my arms, but in between nap times she was on full go.
Now we know the tree is actually on the city right of way and this changes both our responsibility and what we can legally do so I need to sort it out with the arborist who has been helping me, and then with the city. Safety is the first concern, but I also don’t want to live with an eyesore for years. Removing the tree is very expensive but now that I know it’s not growing on our property that is no longer an option for us, but honestly, I wish we could. I’m tired of the expense and worry but oh well.
My friend is having surgery in Seattle today so it’s nearly time for me to go look after her dog. If she returns home soon I’ll care for the dog at her house, is she needs to stay longer I’ll bring the dog here. Maxi is a large standard poodle so I need help walking him, but he knows me and is comfortable being here so it should be ok. Best wishes to all.
Tuesday Meese. 31 here in Kingston going up to 40. I got annoyed when I didn’t a story posted so I put this up yesterday:
Puerto Rico
Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …
It is 28 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 45. Sunny skies are in the forecast. We had a few flurries yesterday morning – you could count them, there were so few – but the close-in mountains did have snow caps. This morning the clouds were gone and I could see the stars.
Senate Republicans turned the debt ceiling negotiations over to Marj’s Kevin since they are already on record for not wanting to crash the global economy and destroy the full faith and credit of the United States and there is not much more they can do. It will be interesting to see how long a leash they give him, if they are willing to be the party that starved granny in the leadup to 2024 or if they will pull the plug on him at some point and round up enough House Republicans whose donors are business interests to form a coalition with Democrats to pass a discharge petition to vote on a clean debt limit raise. There is some talk that the debt ceiling is unconstitutional, that not paying debts incurred by bills already passed is prohibited by the Constitution. The problem is that it might take too long for the courts to rule PLUS the Supreme Court is not a reliable branch of government when it comes to respecting the Constitution. Speaking of Marj’s House, the Democrats have the list of the 18 House Republicans who squeaked to victory in Biden districts and are going to hammer them in advance of 2024. McCarthy and his gang of deplorables won’t have power long.
Fk guns in the hands of angry men.
See all y’all later!
Good Tuesday morning, Meese. It’s partly cloudy here in the middle of nowhere, and the temp is 32 F. I’m in a rush this morning because I need to drive my friend to a medical facility for cataract surgery. They won’t let her drive herself or take an Uber. I’m glad to do it but I’m the world’s worst driver. Her house is a 20-journey drive from here, but I plan to leave early to allow for “getting lost” time. If we still lived at home it would be an easy drive down Fairfax County Parkway. Bummer.
While I wait for her, I can usefully employ myself by doing some writing. Did nothing at all this weekend of course, but I have the writing for my writers’ group, a milestone birthday letter to Younger Son (he was born the Year of the Rabbit and that’s what this year is), and a couple of article ideas for the quarterly.
I’m so sick of bad news. I did, however, come across an interesting bit in an article about space travel. Human space travelers have to anticipate something called “the overview effect,” which is the sight of our home planet when coming back. Remember, Astronaut Anders lost his religion when he saw Earthrise and took that famous, iconic photo.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
It’s 32 going to 42 already overcast. We’ve got rain starting in a few hours and turning to snow by late afternoon. At least that’s what the widget says. We may or may not get a bit of rain following the snow. That would be nice – it would wash the snow off my solar panels. Yesterday we generated 8.3 KWHs – the highest for the month so far and probably the highest for this month period. At 139 the m-t-d is back on track but it’s not likely to stay there. sigh.
Rocky night. Groggy day. I’m so glad I’m retired and not having to deal with faculty searches and travel arranging/reimbursement any longer. (There are 3 searches, complete with travel for candidate interview, going on in my department right now.) But there’re still folks to check on and tweets/twitter fundraising to boost. So I guess I’ll get to it. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 41 and cloudy. I’ve been on early morning dog duty so I’m just back home. My friends surgery went well so she should return today. Her dog is good with me but he’ll be very glad to see her. Fortunately she lives down the street so I can easily help her this week if needs be, but her husband will need to do the dog walks for awhile.
Reading the news makes my head hurt, so time for coffee and solitaire. Best wishes to all.
Wednesday Meese. 34 and snowing lightly here in Kingston.
There was an outpouring of editorial cartooning re mass shootings/gun control/ NRA yesterday. Here’s a small sample
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico