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. We’re having unseasonably warm weather here. And critical fire danger. Good walk yesterday. Didn’t push the length, but you can’t do that every day. Watching astronomy & getting ready for work.
Good Wednesday morning, Moosekind! It’s 42 F. in Ashboring and overcast. Rain showers this morning? Possibly. It’s projected the high will be 50 F. today and 80 F. tomorrow. I am going to wear shorts (but not short-shorts).
Had WAY too good a time meeting Darling Niece for lunch yesterday. She was under orders from Beloved Nephew not to let me pay for my lunch or postprandial coffee at Starbucks because, as he put it, my house was a refuge for him when he was growing up. Wasn’t that nice?
Niece imparted the fascinating information that since weed is now legal in Virginia, her elderly 70+ neighbor stays stoned 24/7. Said neighbor is always prevailing upon Niece, who is too kind-hearted to say no, to drive her to the E.R. or her and her dogs to the vet. She repays Niece with batches of marijuana cookies, which Darling Niece throws into the trash as soon as she gets home. Not that D. N. has anything against weed—quite the contrary. However, she does have a 13-year-old son, two active, tiny dogs (one weighs 3 pounds, the other 7 pounds), and a husband who might think, “Hey, those look like nice cookies, and I’m a bit peckish, so…”
In other news, Great-Nephew is bound for film-making camp at Universal Studios in California this summer. They might even move to California if he continues to be enthralled by film-making. I might move with them, if I find myself alone one day. But that’s way in the future.
Didn’t make it to the gym yesterday because by the time I reached home I was exhausted. For today: get hair done, change the sheets on the bed, go to a meeting at 2 p.m. I’ve been asked to write a play by two members of the Drama Club, so we’re meeting to discuss that.
Am over the moon that Jennifer McClellan will now be the U.S. Congresswoman from the Fourth District of Virginia! It’s about time. Hope to make it to the gym today, and meanwhile, wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 48 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 45. It will be rainy and windy as the storm system that is going to batter the country dips down into Arizona and then arcs into the upper Midwest bringing snow there. We will get rain and very high winds, right now 28 with 42mph gusts but over 60mph in the mountains. It will be a good day to stay indoors. The front will bring a few days of overnight lows in the 30s and maybe even a below freezing night on the weekend.
The Democratic supported candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court won handily and will face off against the guy who had been appointed by Walker and lost his Supreme Court seat in 2021. It will be an extremely expensive race and people who live there say that the ads are awful – they will only get worse. The State Senate special election race will be against the less crazy candidate, a long-time state legislator who is being called a RINO by TFG. That district has been trending blue because it includes the close-in suburbs of Milwaukee where wealthy white women do NOT want to see their reproductive rights taken away. The Democrat is the daughter of a wealthy family of plaintiff attorneys. It is imperative that she win to block a super majority – I wish her luck.
Ukraine. Well, the fight between the “let Putin take over Europe” wing of the Republican Party and the “we can’t tolerate wars of aggression and war crimes when it involves white christians” wing of the Republican Party is going to be fierce. It will impact the 2024 election. I was laughing at my TV yesterday when it was reported that Ohioans whose town was blown up by the policies of their god tRump were screaming that Biden should be there and not Ukraine. Why, so they can yell at him and call him names? They hate him and have rejected every decent candidate that has run in their blood red state for the past decade – they need a lesson in “elections have consequences”: vote for deregulators and people in the pockets of lobbyists and you get train derailments. They should just be glad that tRump is not still president, they would have had paper towel rolls thrown to them when he visited – at least the Biden Administration is sending people who can, and want to, help.
I did not get as much done yesterday as I wanted to so I need to get back to it.
See all y’all later!
It’s 65 and raining. The temps will drop this morning, climb again this afternoon, then drop again into the low 50s for a couple of days. The clouds started sooner yesterday (& the rain started later this morning) than forecast. We only generated 5.6 KWHs and the m-t-d is 146 – but that’s almost to what the 2.5K system did in ’15 and it’s supposed to clear off when the rain stops so we’ll probably at least make that today. Probably.
Basket’s dealing with all that has to be dealt with when someone dies. All their stuff, including their bodies, legal notifications, things that take the attention. Both enforcing and distracting from the loss at the same time. So little of it focused on what a kind, caring, intelligent, fun person Harper was. And is. And will always be.
Hard to wake up when it’s dark enough I need the house lights on. But there’s work to be done on twitter so I’d best get to it. {{{Meeses}}}
Good morning, 28 and snowing in my garden today. Rain kept me indoors yesterday so today will be another quiet day. I’ve got lots to do but am lacking motivation so I may just watch the snowflakes melt! Best wishes to all.
32 going up to 40 here in Kingston.
Puerto Rico
Hi Nicole. I suggest reading another type of document. For example this #PlanFiscalSostenibleUPR #planSOSupr that we did in 2017 –
Our mental health every day
Puerto Rican women were used as guinea pigs because they were poor, had brown skin, and were non-English speaking. Nor did the women have any one to speak FOR them. If that’s not genocide I don’t know what is.
It got to 90 here yesterday. Did my mile, in the morning while it was relatively cool. This morning: 1.21 mi with 8 running segments (I’m downtown, so there’s the nice flat parking garage to run in). It’s 68 degrees right now. Supposed to cool off tomorrow, but nothing like what y’all have.
I went back to look at the whale dustup from Tuesday and a lot of people are upset. You can’t just have your heart in the right place, you need to run things competently and transparently. It sounds like people who moved from Twitter to Spoutible traded one dictator for another but at least on Twitter (for now) there are legal things in place to protect the site when it wants to enforce standards. I will give it a wide berth until things come into focus, the main thing being “do I need it?” I think not – I can tweet and toot and find news to read. FYI: Courtney Milan said she logged off of all her social media and is taking a mental health break.
Hi, Jan, I suppose I’m fortunate in being too intimidated by technology to even try to get on to Spoutible and Mastodon. I did think Spoutible sounded possible, but I don’t know now.
I’m still on Twitter and will stay until the bitter. One thing I HATE is that the people I want to hear from have been largely deleted from my feed—I have to go looking for the PalmerReport—and troglodytes are in my feed, as well as attention harlots. There’s a guy who is so needy he’s always crying for a hello because he’s permanently depressed, and a couple of other people asking obvious questions that everyone else answered a long time ago. I might just block them or something.
I can still see you and bfitz and Aji, as well as Radio Justice, Boricua, BrooklynDad, and KenyanDad. Missing are Ragnarok Lobster and Tea Pain (except occasionally). I like Portia and Imani and several others as well.
The whole thing of moving somewhere else just seems like too much work for the old and clueless.
I will let you know when there is a one-button “move my Twitter account to Mastodon” button. Very likely someone is working on it! My hope is that it becomes available as a little file that can be created and stored for the day that Twitter servers go down and there is no one available to fix them.
Thank you, BlogGoddess, mucho appreciado!
Good morning, meeses! Thursday …
It is 43 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 50. After the rain clears around mid-morning, we should have partly sunny skies. The wind yesterday set a record for Tucson International – 56mph highest recorded wind in February. I did not get my full morning walk in – the wind literally took my breath away when I turned the corner on my loop and I skedaddled home.
TFG did not throw paper towels at the people in the Ohio town damaged by his administration’s policies – but he did hand out Trump-branded water to the adoring masses! The press needs to remind people that just because the federal government is no longer mandating certain safety measures does not mean that businesses should not adopt the safety measures voluntarily in order to avoid damage to their equipment, injuries to their employees and massive lawsuits when their negligence leads to death and destruction. Norfolk Southern chose the bottom line over safety and should be sued into oblivion.
I am not sure where book-banning and right-wing takeovers of education are leading but it is probably a good idea that it is happening in the open. To the extent that people have any agency, they can choose not to educate their children in Florida universities. Our country has been getting dumber for several decades now – Scott Walker took a giant step towards The Stupid when his decertification of the teachers union in Wisconsin led to mass retirements, thousands of years of accumulated wisdom simply left the schools. There will be more Stupid States where ignorance is celebrated and it will be a challenge to find enough places to educate the next generation of young people.
Marj’s Kevin would like to show the next group of insurrectionists where all the secret tunnels under the Capitol are so that next time they can find and kill Congressional Leadership, including him, I guess. Great job, Kev! I cannot imagine why anyone would want to be a member of the House of Representatives. I hope Hakeem and his leadership team have some alternate routes planned that they won’t share with the Republicans so that democracy survives.
It is Thursday of the last full week of the February and I really cannot afford to procrastinate any longer on accounting projects.
See all y’all later!
CM posted
Good Thursday morning, Meese. It’s 46 F. and cloudy in Ashboring, going up to 80 F. and sunny this afternoon.
After I am washed and brushed, I need to get busy quick-smart on writing. Not only do I have the disability article to turn in by next Wednesday, I also have my own assignment for the Writers’ Group, due on March 2. I spent a mournful 20 minutes looking through my travel diaries, hoping to find the one for September 2001. No dice. Fortunately, I still have memories.
Missed my nap yesterday because of the playwriting meeting and will miss my nap again today and tomorrow. I don’t do well without a nap after lunch. Probably it’s because I’m old.
With that startling observation, I will now depart in peace to do the necessary. Wishing a good day with lots of sunshine and exercise to everyone at the Pond.
It’s 33 heading for 48 – our actual high of 58 was just after midnight as the temps were falling overnight – and mostly sunny today. A few clouds have shaded the sun since I got up (late) but mostly the sky is blue. Yesterday it cleared off soon enough to generate just over 8 KWHs and the m-t-d is 159.9 so we’re over the 2.5K system with 6 production days left in February. It’s even possible to get over 200 for the month. Not likely, but possible.
Best I can tell about the Spoutible thing is it started over a miscommunication. CB’s response to what he seems to think CM was suggesting wasn’t phrased anyway shape or form the best way but was appropriate. As a response to what CM was actually suggesting it was totally inappropriate. But both of them doubled down – and then the rumors started, the gossip started, the taking sides started. And the very good people who are posting at Spoutible are rejoicing they’ve got a site manager who defends them while the very good people who think CB’s another EM are leaving or deciding to stay away. I’ve seen this scenario before. sigh.
Step by step things are getting done – basket and earicicle have picked up aitchdee’s stuff from the nursing home, are choosing a funeral parlor & crematorium, are planning to get a storage unit until they have time to sort through things. . . all the things that have to be done when someone leaves this mortal realm. Basket told JoanMar (via twitter) that he’d be doing a diary at DK when he got things together. I hope there’s a good showing. DK is so different these days – diaries drop into oblivion with only a few comments and recs and that’s depressing and heartbreaking for an R.I.P. diary.
Rough night then overslept. So. Off to twitter {{{Meeses}}}
Good morning, 27 and sunny outside my window today but it’s warm inside so that’s where I’ll stay. I’ve got a rather boring day tending to my neglected lists but that’s ok. Most of it is mindless and that suits me today! Best wishes to all.
Friday Meese. 36 here in Kingston going up to 38. We currently are under a hazardous weather alert. Snow/ice expected. Unclear how much.
Puerto Rico
I know that 52 would feel warm to most of y’all, but yesterday I was in short sleeves. So this morning I wore 2 long sleeve shirts. Same 1.2 mi, with 8 running segments. Got a lot done yesterday — 7 new library users set up. Today I think I’ll be happy to just remain upright all day.
Good morning, meeses! Friday …
It is 37 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 63. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast; this morning the sky is clear and I can see all my stars over the mountains. Tomorrow we might get to the 70s again.
It looks like Texas universities will be choosing to give in to the white supremacists to please their bosses. I guess that states can control their universities and I guess that the people of Texas spoke when they returned terrible people to power in 2022 but it seems wrong. When Scott Walker tried to destroy the University of Wisconsin, people fought back and shamed the university leadership into resisting with everything they had. Maybe it was a simpler time, maybe now with near supermajorities in state legislatures the Republicans would succeed in destroying the UW System if they had a Republican governor. And maybe people are tired and defeated and ready to give up. Florida universities rolled over pretty quickly – it sounds like Texas’ will also.
China would like Ukraine to negotiate with a man who committed atrocities against their people and for the west to end sanctions on Russia. I hope no one buys this “plan”. There can be no end to sanctions until Russia is back to their pre-2014 borders and international courts are given access to those who ordered and executed the orders to kill civilians. Period.
I have a nagging feeling that I am missing an important deadline and I need to refresh and reorganize my lists to make sure that is not true.
See all y’all later!
TX universities can’t even change or add a new course without a TX state constitutional amendment. They will do exactly what the lege tells them to do. The good professors will try to find a workaround. The Deplorables will rejoice in white supremacy having gotten (supreme) control again.
Good Friday morning, Moosekind! Right now we’re having 49 F. under sunny skies, with some wind. It’ll be cooler today and Saturday is supposed to be downright ugly. Yesterday was so warm, so perfect, so un-windy, that I went for a couple of walks around the campus. The high was 81 F., a real anomaly. The poor little bushes and trees believe that spring has already arrived—are they going to be shocked when they experience a wintry mix tomorrow!
There was a fragrance in the air that I couldn’t identify but it was very pleasant.Too early for lilacs, much too early for honeysuckle, so I have no clue.
From yesterday:
A miracle happened. I had my old Mac, so I brought up the Spotlight Search function, desultorily typed in “Amman 2001,” and behold, I found an email written 25 August 2002 in .rtf format, with EXACTLY what I’d hoped to find in my travel diary! I hastened to print it out and now need do nothing but retype the info into assignment format for our next Writers’ Group meeting.
Had a pretty good meeting yesterday with two other people on a project we’re going to undertake. At least we have defined the parameters, which is good.
Going to make the bed so I can lie down after my shower. Just think, it was a year ago today that Russia invaded Ukraine, which apparently was a well-ordered, civilized place while Russians were still trotting around in bearskins. On the news last night the announcer said a million people have left Russia since the war began. Can’t Putie be put away somewhere, say at the top of a tall tower in the woods with no way to get down? He’d never be able to grow enough hair to let it out the window at night so someone could climb up and rescue him.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
It’s 34 heading for 48, not seriously winter weather, not anywhere near “normal” for February, but still a lot chillier than the last few days. It’s sunny at the moment but clouds are forecast to move in soon. I hope the widget’s wrong and the move in closer to dark. We did get some cloud cover yesterday but managed to generate right at 12 KWHs anyway. The m-t-d is 166.8 with 5 production days left in the month. While not likely, the over 200 for February is still possible.
I’m a bit groggy this morning. Afrin doesn’t work (for me) as well as the generic brand that they were out of the last time I needed to buy nasal decongestant. Oh well, this too is life. This is the 3rd day of the Raynaud’s flare so hopefully it will be passing off. That’s about how long it usually runs. Usually. Anyway, off to twitter. {{{Meeses}}}
Good morning, 24 and sunny but no cold wind and the snow is gone. The furnace repair we did last fall has made our house evenly warm so I’m comfortable indoors and I’ve moved vulnerable plants to the back porch so we’re all waiting for rain and warmer temps. Lots to do today, but coffee and solitaire first then I’ll try to apply myself. Best wishes to all.
Abrupt shift back to normal weather for this time of year here in Kingston. 17 degrees going up to 29 with snow this afternoon. It will change back to higher than normal temps later in the week.
Puerto Rico
Good morning, meeses! Saturday …
It is 52 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 66. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast. The local guys are pretty sure we will see the 70s today.
It looks like Florida has not yet given complete control of all the public universities to their governor but a bill was just introduced to do just that. One wonders if they will have a provision in there that only gives control to Republican governors or if the legislature would have to work overtime in a lameduck session to rewrite all the laws they have put in place to give dictatorial control to their governor if a Democrat should ever win the state? That is what Wisconsin had to do when Scott Walker lost in 2018. It’s sad, really, because people there don’t seem to care and the people who have agency – people who could boycott the state and its universities – don’t give a rats ass. Some of these states seem impervious to shaming – Texas passes draconian laws and California companies move their headquarters there to save on taxes and avoid regulations. I don’t get it and will probably never get it.
The weekend started without me getting the things done that I need to get done last week. Too many distractions and too little energy. Just looking at the stack exhausts me.
See all y’all later!
Florida: