Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: April 23rd

April 23, 2023 JanF Community 70

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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44 Comments

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

    Morning low of 64 degrees in the Desert Southwest with an expected daytime high of 88. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. Sunday Meese. 52 raining, going up to 59 here in Kingston NY.

    Puerto Rico

  3. Good morning. I’ve got tea steeping, eating breakfast & watching the news. This afternoon, I’m going to a concert/movie — Coldplay are broadcasting one of their concerts to a number of movie theaters. They did this a few months ago & it was fun. They are playing to a number of sold-out concerts in huge stadiums in South America, the crowds are ecstatic….. It’s just lots of fun. And cheaper & easier than going to an actual concert. Anyway, that’s my day: tea, church, make breakfast, movie.

    • Sis! Sweetie! I am going over to Orange right now to see your essay. Imagine Shakespeare a jazz fan! He might have been a stoner as well. Broken clay pipes were dug up in the backyard of his house in Stratford-on-Avon.

  5. Good Sunday morning, Moosekind, and happy Shakespeare’s birthday! He’d have been 459 today. It’s also St. George’s Day, if that means anything to you. (He killed the dragon.)

    It’s a fair, cloudless morning, 53 F. at the moment and, girl, we ain’t gonna get much higher. Yesterday I was lounging in the recliner, deep in a romance novel, and almost jumped out of my skin when I heard a roll of thunder! It was the first thunder I’ve heard in a year, if not more. This was followed by a lightning flash—also a first. Then we were treated to 50-mph winds and torrential rain for 20 minutes. All in all, our area received .43 of an inch of rain, which means we are now only 5 and a half inches under normal for the year.

    But enough of this meteorological chitchat. As usual, having had a horrible night’s sleep, yesterday was a dead loss. I prepared meals but that was all. Today I have a lot more energy, thank Goddess. I’m not getting many responses to my request to hear from immunosuppressed residents, so today I’ll concentrate on the vegetarians. It’s going to be comparatively cold all week long, so I’m not sure I’ll feel like going for an early morning walk Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday with the walking club. I was going to write an article on them as well.

    Anyway, the newspooper has been read, Dearly has been fed and is now watching Newcastle vs. Tottenham, and I’m getting ready to work instead of shirk. It’s really handy having two laptops! The Lenovo was disinclined to work this morning, so I’m using the Mac.

    This is Croaky McRibbitt, signing off now and wishing a good day to all at the Pond.

  6. It’s 46 heading for 62 and sunny again. I don’t care how many cloudy days the widget predicts as long as they’re actually sunny when they get here. (And the widget said today would be cloudy – that the whole rest of April will be cloudy.) Yesterday we generated 16.3 KWHs and the m-t-d at 325.6 is still on track.

    Just finished doing Sunday cleaning chores & fixing breakfast. I haven’t checked in with anybody yet. Heading over to twitter, Spoutible, & DK. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}

  7. Good day, 50 and cloudy in my garden today. I started pruning the salal around the upper patio yesterday and hope to do more today. The buds are bigger now so I can see where to cut and I hope it won’t look bare for long. Last year I was to late to really clip it back so it’s a bit overgrown.

    I’m trying to keep my focus more on daily life and less on the daily news. It’s hard to detach but but I’m weary of worrying all the time so I’m trying to find a balance. Makes me feel I’m a bit boring though. As always my best wishes to all.

    • I need to detach from the news, as well. It feels like a rerun of 2020 which was fraught with anxiety due to COVID, tRump, the elections and then election denying. The COVID is, at least, under control – we will be vaccinated and masked, tRump is now on the outside looking in instead of in power, and the Biden Administration has a real Attorney General, Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Homeland Security instead of the poseurs in place at the end of tRump’s reign of terror. I am a little sick of the headlines proclaiming that Democrats are “settling for” Biden. Those Democrats answering the polls that way can pound sand. We got a lot of good stuff from Biden first two years and but for a self-destructive New York Democratic Party who gifted four seats to the Republicans, we would still hold Congress and would be coasting right now. I am not sure how people will see the pretty much certain default on our debt (Marj’s Kevin knows that he will lose his speakership if he allows a vote on a clean increase) and what will be a certain government shutdown later this year when Republicans will not vote for a Continuing Resolution or a budget that can pass the Senate. Will they blame it on the Republican House or on Biden? I guess we will find out but I am certain that I do not need to worry about it every single day – there is literally nothing I can do.

      • Thanks Jan, appreciate your thoughts, and share this feeling……

        I guess we will find out but I am certain that I do not need to worry about it every single day – there is literally nothing I can do.

    • Princesspat, you’re doing the right thing, IMHO. The news is so uniformly bad 24/7/365, that I’ve entertained thoughts of committing the Big S. I refuse to pop off before Dearly does, however, so I’m safe for the present.

      But, Great Mother, it’s SO DEPRESSING!

  8. Monday Meese. 42 here in Kingston going up to 56. Am going into NYC this afternoon for the first time since COVID – doing a photo shoot with other former Young Lords in front of Lincoln Hospital – which we took over in 1970.
    Puerto Rico


    Monisha Rios writes:

    Social scientists have collected testimonies from Viequense women concerning sexually violent conduct of military personnel, who sometimes numbered as many as 100,000 in place with a population of roughly 10,000 inhabitants. One woman related the “legacy of the military occupation of the island [to] how women in the 50s and 60s were confined to their homes by the presence of drunken sailors in the street.” Another woman told how her mother would keep “a machete under her pillow to defend her family in case carousing sailors broke into the house.” There are countless other stories that have been silenced and ignored.
    Many of these women have been central to resisting the militarization of Vieques, including through the campaign Justice for Vieques Now. Their demands are straightforward. They have called for demilitarization, including the removal of Relocatable Over-The-Horizon Radar system and Mount Pirata Telecommunications Center. They’ve campaigned for decontamination, involving enclosed detonation of unexploded ordnance to mitigate the ongoing harm to community health from open detonation, They’ve demanded the restoration and return of all lands controlled by the federal government. And they’ve supported a community-directed Master Plan for Sustainable Development of Vieques approved in 2004, in addition to a modern hospital and compensation for health problems related to military activity.
    Although the United States paints a so-called feminist face on its twenty-first-century implementation of the Monroe Doctrine, women in Vieques are still fighting for justice and trying to heal their community from the toxic legacy of U.S. foreign policy, while the very government that claims to “defend” their “freedom” ignores their demands. The plight of Vieques is a prime example of why U.S. foreign policy must be critically analyzed, called into question, and restrained by the people of the United States in whose name unspeakable harm is being done–abroad and within their own communities. U.S. citizens should be asking who profits from U.S. interventionism, who develops U.S. foreign policy, whose interests are served and who pays the price, who wins when the very earth that sustains us is contaminated by unnecessary military activity and can’t produce food. After 200 years, the time has come to do away with the colonial law of the past that has plagued our communities in Latin America and the Caribbean for far too long. It’s time for the abolition of the Monroe Doctrine, the Jones Act, and the Puerto Rico Oversight and Stability Act.

  9. Good morning. Got my walk done — didn’t feel up to adding running segments. Still, 35 minutes of walking is a good thing. Watched a Coldplay concert in a movie theater yesterday, that was fun. I was surprised how empty it was, other theaters had big crowds, according to the pictures on Twitter. Will keep the music in my head while I work in the office today.

  10. Good morning, meeses! Monday …

    It is 61 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 86. Mainly sunny skies are in the forecast. The indoor temperature stays pleasant until about 3pm and then we turn on the air conditioning to cool things down and make it comfortable for sleeping.

    Biden will announce his re-election bid today, apparently. I am sure it will make a lot of lefty people sad that he did not take their advice and choose a new Vice Presidential running mate. I don’t know where all the Kamala hate comes from, she has done a fine job and she is an excellent ambassador for the Biden administration and the Democratic Party. She is qualified to step in and assume the presidency if she needs to. That should be enough.

    Short newsreading day today as I discovered a few things over the weekend that I need to address. One is that the renewal for the Motley Moose website posted and I had meant to find a less expensive host before that happened. It is my own fault for letting my to-do list become unmanageable but I need to find an alternative for next year and make the change when there is time to move the site comfortably (there are a lot of moving parts). They also charged me for something they shouldn’t have so I have to get on livechat with them. PLUS I have still not finished an accounting project that needs to get done today and I discovered some issues with address changes and the IRS that I need to deal with. Mondays!!

    See all y’all later!

      • I’m good. I got a refund for some of it because they failed to cancel the domain which I had already moved. I just ran out of time to do research – it fell off my to-do list and I am confident that whatever survived at the top of my to-do list on the day I should have done something covered the cost of the renewal. I have re-calendared it for December which will give me plenty of time to do something.

    • Let us know if you need us to send money. You’re already doing all the tech work to keep the Pond available. Which we greatly appreciate. (As hopefully you already know.)

      • You’re welcome! I feel as though having a place to check-in online that is not owned by a narcissistic rich guy who has power over me is important. That eliminates Facebark, Melon’s site and the orange place. :)

  11. Good Monday morning, Moosekind. In Ashburn it’s beautiful but chilly outside right now (45 F., on its way up to 62 F.), but we’ll have clouds later.

    Not much to say except that we had a quiet weekend. Went looking for photograph albums so I could find pictures of my sister, but we only found one tiny album, showing a visit to England in 1988.

    Have plenty of work to do, so I’d better get on it. Hope everyone at the Pond will have a good day!

  12. It’s 38 heading for 68 and mostly sunny again. Not quite warm but not cold either. I may or may not have a fire this evening. Yesterday we generated 18.9 KWHs and the m-t-d at 344 is ahead of what the 2.5K system generated in ’15 and on track to beat out last year. IF the widget is wrong about the rest of the month being cloudy. (Which it has been these last several days.)

    I talked to Fineena last night. She’s still got no internet or a working laptop and is seeing no improvement in the condition her surgery was supposed to fix. Nor in her income or housing situations but those would take a miracle. Everybody else is trucking along as best as I can tell.

    I had a nice visit with my son yesterday. In our discussion of health and nutrition I discovered I’m probably dealing with a potassium deficiency. Which actually figures. It’s very difficult to get enough potassium via one’s diet if the calorie limit is 1500/day or less. Hunter-gathers with their 3000 to 4000/day needs (and grub farmers with their 6000 to 8000/day needs) did fine. Oh well. I’ll do some research on supplements today. After I’ve gotten the 1st couple of hours of clearing through boosting stuff at twitter and Spoutible done. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}

      • Oranges – or at least orange juice – daily. Not bananas. I don’t care for them. One of the best sources of potassium is cantaloupes and I don’t know why it doesn’t show up when I do a search. A 100-calorie serving (about 9 ounces) of cantaloupe is about half the recommended daily potassium intake. Of course they’re hard to find & also expensive this time of year. LOL. {{{Diana}}}

  13. Good morning, 49 and mostly cloudy outside my window today. I have a hair appointment this morning and if I can stay awake I hope to do something in the garden this afternoon. Lately naps are moving to the top of all my lists! Best wishes to all.

    • Naps are so blissful. After I heard the news about T—– C—— I craved white cheddar popcorn. I ate the WHOLE BAG and now need a nap.

      See y’all later!

  14. Monday Meese. 37 here in Kingston going up to 46 and we have rain in the forecast for the entire week.

  15. Good morning. Watching astronomy & getting ready for work. I had a weird dream: I was at a candidate announcement, and the info cards they were handing out had endorsements from all these astronomers & physicists. And the candidate announced and left for another event. I was looking for a staffer to ask why the endorsements from scientists when I woke up. Speaking of announcements — glad that Biden released his; let’s get this done.

  16. Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …

    It is 59 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 86. Sunny skies are in the forecast. Last night the waxing crescent was supine in the western sky with Venus just below her. I love the clear skies here and especially the night skies which are dotted with planets and stars. After years in the Midwest with the chance of clouds always greater than the chance for clear skies, it is a wonderful sight. Being in an area where light pollution is held to a minimum is a bonus.

    So Tucker Carlson is out. That is a better outcome than having Fox’s dirty laundry aired for three weeks in a public trial! The only question is whether Fox viewers will turn off their TVs in anger. I suspect that they will not, they didn’t after Bill O’Lielly was fired and other Fox hosts have disappeared. The tRump family will probably boycott the cable news network for a while but really there is no other place for right-wingers to spew their nonsense to a large captive audience. Carlson and his brand of hate politics cost Fox nearly a billion dollars, for them to keep him on – especially after he trashed the bosses – would have been shocking. I saw this in a story about the firing:

    Carlson has now been fired by all three cable networks, having been pushed out from his previous stints at CNN and MSNBC. In baseball, they call that a “golden sombrero.”

    Ha!

    A 14th state has been added to the list of forced birth states with 6 week abortion bans now that North Dakota signed their ban. They have no exceptions for rape or incest. Goddess help those women who have no way to leave the state.

    Busy day here. I am hoping to reset my work schedule at the end of April and find a better work/nap balance. Lately, I have been feeling too busy and unable to take time off to do what I want to do rather than what I feel I have to do.

    See all y’all later!

  17. Good Tuesday morning, Meese! All is quiet here for the moment There was an unexpected opening in the Audiology Department at Costco this morning, so we’ll have to leave before the Dishwasher Guy ambles in to see what’s wrong with our dishwasher. It’s feelthy inside. (Yes, we have used dishwasher cleaning tablets.)

    Another beautiful day has dawned here in the middle of nowhere. It’s 48 F. now, on its way up to 62 F. When I went to pick up dinner yesterday, I was surprised it was so chilly. I took the shuttle rather than walk.

    Yesterday I took a stab at writing “The Drunken Ladies of the Garden Club,” my attempt at writing flash fiction. We’re supposed to limit ourselves to 600 words but I’m not going to be able to get the effect I want in less than 1,000 words. Fortunately, a dear man in the group, whose flash fiction ran rather short, has offered me 274 words. If I can get someone else to do the same, I’ll be OK. The idea is not to tie up each writer’s time by forcing them to read overlong submissions.

    Speaking of writing, I feel I can’t get going on the blog about my late sister without reference to photographs of her. We looked for photo albums in the storage room upstairs and found—nothing! What happened? Did we, “in a happy haze of drunken misapprehension” (to borrow a phrase from Nancy Mitford), decide to toss them all into one of the four ponds for which this old people’s home is named? Hail!

    M’daughter and her husband flew into NYC yesterday, and whom did Daughter bump into at the baggage carousel at LaGuardia but John Andrews, author of the #Black Justice #ASnitchOnTime and #InjusticeBakedIn book series, screenplay writer, public speaker, and actor (John Q)? Her hubby took a picture of them together, with her holding his books and the man himself pointing to them. Both are grinning hugely. How cool is that?

    That’s enough from me today, Meese. Hope everyone at the Pond will have a good day.

  18. It’s 50 heading for 60. We’ve had a little rain and are supposed to get more but we’re actually getting intermittent sunshine at the moment. Yesterday we generated 18.2 KWHs and the m-t-d at 362.5 is still on track with room to spare. Just as well since the widget says our next even mostly sunny day is Sunday. (Apt, that. ????)

    Hard to believe next week is Beltane. I hope enough people are marking it properly to bring the good harvest in Autumn. I think/hope everybody is trucking along. I had a rotten night and am very groggy. My hands aren’t too happy either. I’ve both baking and laundry to do today. But first twitter & Spoutible boosting. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}

  19. Good morning, 49 and cloudy outside my window today. I got tangled up in the T*****C news yesterday afternoon and then needed a nap to recover. Some quiet time in the garden may happen today, but the three deer browsing on ivy as we ate dinner the other night was a strong reminder about what I can and cannot plant. Best wishes to all.

  20. Good Wednesday morning Meese. Was worried when I couldn’t log in this morning.

    Puerto Rico

    More than 80 percent of the food consumed by Puerto Rico’s more than three million inhabitants is imported, 40 percent of the population suffers food insecurity, and the devastation left in the wake of Hurricane María in 2017 put local climate vulnerability on the table.
    The call is made for nutritional security and food sovereignty for Puerto Rico. Traditionally, food security means that enough food is available, in sufficient quantities and good quality, year-round for everybody. Along with that understanding, modern food security adds criteria such as local and proximity production, cultural affinity, and environmentally sustainable farming.
    Few people know that Puerto Rico was hailed by the first geographical studies made by U.S. scientists as “the land of the farmer” and that the best lands were vastly taken over by U.S. sugar interests in the first half of the last century. Yet, around 1940, local farmers produced 65 percent of the food consumed by almost two million people, while at the same time exporting sugar, coffee and tobacco, among other products.
    Most of that food was produced by small and medium-sized family farms in the hills of the interior. But later in the ’50s and ’60s, in a political and economic decision to industrialize the island’s economy and reduce its population, jíbaro families were encouraged to move to the island’s coastal cities and the continental United States, while food imports and supermarkets substituted local production.

    Washington – U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris announced yesterday $34.4 million for eight coastal restoration projects in Puerto Rico funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) with additional funds from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
    Most of the funding for projects on the island -$10.5 million- is for Socioecological Research Institute initiatives to improve the recovery and resilience of coral reefs throughout Puerto Rico, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

    • What kind of message did you get when you tried to log in? At least once every few weeks, the site logs me out and makes me log in again. It never rejects my log in though. I will test a log out and log in later.

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