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. I slept in — had kinda counted on my usual early wake up to go vote before starting work. Oh well, I’ll just log off early. We have 2 propositions: 1 to actually monitor the police and one drawn up by the police union that sounds like it gives accountability but doesn’t. Watching astronomy, getting ready to work.
Guten Morgen, die Moosekinder! It’s Wednesday, even here in boring-as-hell Ashburn. The current temp. is 46 F. with cloudy skies: it may go up to 67 F., or it may not. Ugh, yesterday at 4:40 p.m. when I left the gym it was 58 F. April! Dear Goddess.
Today is the day I get my hair done, and will go to the grocery store afterwards to get milk and half-and-half. This morning we had a hot breakfast, which should keep Dearly going for a while.
I really must install the new magenta printer cartridge, design the immunocompromised people questionnaire, and make serious inroads on the vegetarian story. Too much of the food here is FRIED. Very bad for you. The WaPo carried an alarming front-page article about Alzheimer’s. Apparently, you have to eat a very strict diet, with no sweets and not much meat, and exercise hard every day. Also, take up painting or something.
My position on the sweets thing is the same as my position on living in an environmentally sound fashion. Once there was a young woman who washed her baby’s diapers in soap, not detergent, and hung them out to dry using a clothesline, not a dryer. She did everything for the environment. One morning a rattlesnake left the woodpile where it had resided all winter, slithered into the backyard, and bit her on the leg. She died. (This story is made up of whole cloth, BTW.)
If I never eat sweets again, what if I were to be trampled by an escaped rhinoceros weighing 2 and a half tons, or bitten by an Eastern Diamondback rattlesnake, or struck by lightning? Then I wouldn’t have had any carrot cake before I died. Not on, my friends.
First-world moanings: it’s very tiresome not to have a dishwasher. We now have to get mildly dressed up and go to the restaurants instead of getting carry-out from them. Yesterday the waitress forgot the lemons for our iced tea three times. Dear Goddess.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
I am with you on giving up the things that bring happiness – which sadly includes food that is not good for me. I gave up smoking and drinking and that leaves sugar as my abuse substance. I do try to only eat dark chocolate and limit the full-on sugar to Peeps (and only around Ostara!) but I would much prefer eating without worrying about the impact of the food on my body as I did when I was 25.
It’s good to have company in my misery! :)
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 55 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 82. Sunny skies are in the forecast. I slept in longer than usual and was treated to a pretty dawn behind the mountains. The sun has really moved north! I just read that Tucson had a glimpse of the Northern Lights on Sunday night from one of the University of Arizona sky-watching sites near Mount Bigelow. Wow!
I am going “news light” today to try to get some project work done while it is still April. I will have two weekend days of Aprilness but I need to make sure I have everything I need from clients by end of day Friday. I really like three day weekends and I am wondering if I can claim Friday to be a weekend day and just not answer any emails or pick up the phone? I may try it next week.
See all y’all later!
It’s 52 going to 62 and dark enough it’s a wonder I’m up yet. Yes, the house lights are on. Yesterday we managed to generate 8.8 KWHs and the m-t-d is still on track at 371 but losing ground. The widget’s showing us solidly socked in through midday Saturday. We shall see what we shall see.
I’m groggy. What’s new? Which actually could be dehydration rather than lousy sleep. I’m still researching sodium-potassium balance – starting with working out how much of both I’m actually getting in my current diet. Can’t make appropriate changes until I know where I’m starting from. As odd as it may sound, I think I’m not getting enough sodium.
I don’t know who here is on FB – or used to be – but there’s a diary over at DK about a class action lawsuit with info on how to tag in. Aashirs nani saw it and sent me the link. I boosted it yesterday tagging Nurse Kelley, MVgal, & Pastor Jill – those are the only 3 I know are on FB – but wanted to let folks who might have missed it.
I’m moving slow but there’s work to be done. Off to twitter & Spoutible. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Good morning, 50 and cloudy. We were going to drive to the tulip fields today but tomorrow may be sunny so we’ll wait. It’s just too wet outside to enjoy walking through muddy fields. I made progress with the ironing baskets yesterday so will try to finish that task today. I’ve been dressing myself, the tables and the beds from various stacks in the laundry room so it will be a welcome change to have things put away in the cupboards and closets again. Best wishes to all.
Thursday Meese. 44 going up to 59 – raining – here in Kingston. Have not been able to mow the backyard -due to rain. The grass is getting higher and higher, which has me worrying about deer ticks.
Puerto Rico
Corruption is despicable … but the money is not
Hi, Sis! Oh, gosh, the mother in the picture looks very like my mother in later life! April was the month she died, 15 years ago.
Didn’t like the photo of that great big ol’ hairy may-yun, so proud of murdering a turkey.
If you’re tired of the rain, please send it down here. We’re six inches under normal for the year to date.
Good morning. In the office, got my walk done. It’s nice & cool after the rain last night. Had a good Democratic club meeting last night. Preparing for in-office days.
Good Thursday morning, Meese. It’s 49 F. in Ashburn right now, going up to 73 F. It’s sunny, although we’re supposed to get rain all day tomorrow, part of Saturday, and throughout the day Sunday. Sniff. You know what I think of such predictions, don’t you?
Although I accomplished several tasks yesterday, not one of them included the to-do list I mentioned here. I really must get over my dread of doing anything out of my comfort zone (changing the printer cartridge).
Had a sketchy night’s sleep, which is unfortunate, because I have a 1 o’clock meeting with Dining Services. I’m becoming seriously annoyed at the short shrift vegetarians are given as far as the menus here are concerned. I might even go to a Town Hall and point out that, for what people are paying per month to live here, they could do a lot better job than they do for vegetarians. As for vegans, the motto seems to be, “Let them eat air.”
But enough of that. I have a UU happy hour at 4 p.m. We’re still trying to eat at home as much as we can. I bought paper plates, so all Dearly has to wash are glasses, cups, and cutlery.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
Caribbean Matters. Some history you may not know
Good morning, meeses! Thursday …
It is 59 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 86 (feels like 82). Sunny skies are in the forecast.
Marj’s Kevin got his “debt ceiling” bill passed, claiming that his work is done and it is up to the Senate and White House to pass his bill and avoid the default. Well, there you have it. It certainly makes Biden’s job more difficult because low information Americans will not understand that what the House passed is not a clean debt limit increase but a shredding of the social safety net and gifts to Republican donors in exchange for a debt limit crisis suspension until next year. I know people are saying that Democrats can run ads in Biden districts showing how the newly-minted Republican House Members are harming their constituents but that election is 18 months away. The pain will come in about two months when the United States government defaults on its debt and the delicate economic recovery crashes and burns, throwing us into recession. Biden can’t give in to terrorists and the House won’t vote on a clean debt limit increase because McCarthy has staked his speakership on not allowing that. I am not sure how it ends but I am going to put cash in my mattress. I will never understand why the Democrats did not fix this last year when they had the majority – it feels like an own goal.
The rest of the news needs time to age – the key to getting off the 10 minute news cycle is to recognize which headlines are click bait hair on fire and which are actual “things that happened that have changed something.” For example, the Disney lawsuit against DeSantis is hilarious but it has not changed anything – the governor of Florida is still destroying people’s lives and livelihoods and there is no one who can stop him. One positive about Melon destroying Twitter and making it unsafe to post there is that I am not clicking refresh on that web site any longer and the outrage du jour does not reach me.
I got quite a bit done yesterday and I have a shorter “must do” list for April. Now I need to decide what to do today and tomorrow and what to push into the weekend.
See all y’all later!
It’s 51 heading for 62, house-lights-on dark, and intermittently raining. We generated 5 KWHs yesterday which is not only not on track towards the goal but is less than what I use in a day. The m-t-d at 376 is no longer on track. Sigh. We shall see what we shall see.
I got my booster yesterday – 5th shot in all, 2nd bi-valent – and other than my arm being sore/feeling bruised, no side effects. I treated myself to takeout enchilada plate. The price has gone up 60% since the last time I did that. (Which was the last time I got a booster. LOL.) Lousy sleep so feeling groggy and moving slow.
I haven’t checked on anybody yet. I’ll do that when I get over to twitter & Spoutible in a few minutes. I’ll do Dee’s diary of course but I usually don’t get to the comments until around noon. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Friday Meese. 41 going up to 62 and cloudy here in Kingston.
Puerto Rico
Good morning. Did my walk. The rain hasn’t washed the allergens out of the air, sigh. Anyway, getting ready for another in-office day.
Good morning, meeses! Friday …
It is 64 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 90. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
So I guess that the Republican War on Women now insists that only women whose lives can be put at risk in post-Roe America are “mothers” while the rest of us (adopted mothers, step-mothers) are nothing. Fk them with a rusty boat anchor. That Kevin McCarthy needed to elevate the ghastly Marjorie Taylor Greene to a position of power in order to become Speaker of the House tells you everything you need to know about the rot in his soul and the soul of his political party. Deplorable.
I was on a roll yesterday and got some things done that makes my office look less like a paper bomb exploded in it. Now I have to finish the job and do some shredding and scanning.
See all y’all later!
Good Friday morning, Moosekind! ‘Tis raining! It began to rain heavily at 7 a.m., at which time I stuck one rosy foot out of bed (was an hour late getting up this morning), and it’s raining steadily now. The current temp. in Ashburn is 54 F., going up to 58 F. It’s supposed to be a mostly rainy weekend. I couldn’t be happier, as we are supposed to get at least 1 inch, which will make inroads on our 6-inch deficit.
Today is the visit to the ENT’s office. Not with a real doctor—oh, no! I’d have to wait until July to see him. No, I get to see the chick who told me I have a hole in my eardrum, and wanted me to come back in six months so she could tell me again that I have a hole in my eardrum. I knew that back in the year 2000!
If I don’t get the treatment I want, I will kick up an enormous fuss in my croaky voice and visit every ENT’s office in the building until I can find someone who will provide the treatment. It’s called hyaluronic acid, a substance found naturally in the body. My UU informant told me that when her husband, who’d suffered the same affliction as I for almost a year, was instantly cured when he received the injection.
Heard of another resident yesterday who is suffering from this and they’re planning to give her Botox, which, as you know, is derived from botulism, a fatal poison. I’m not having that!
Going to a play tonight, next door. Hope it’s good. Wishiing a good day to all at the Pond.
It’s 51 going up to 67 and overcast. No rain until tomorrow just clouds. We did get .6″ rain yesterday. And 5.9 KWHs which is almost what I use in a day. The m-t-d is 382 and we’ve got 3 production days left in April. At least we’re ahead of ’17’s 375.
I got better sleep but I’m still groggy. Which actually could be dehydration – both the groggy and the messed up sleep. Well, partly on the messed up sleep. Sinusitis is the main issue there. As in Austin, the rain didn’t wash the allergens out of the air. Anyway, my hands are doing OK – not great but mostly functional on the keyboard & with the mouse – which is good. I haven’t connected with family about my nephew. If my calculations are right he’ll start his 2nd course of chemo this weekend. Amelia/earicicle has started her ADHD meds and feels “like herself” again for the first time in over 3 years. I’m not sure how anybody else is doing.
Groggy and a cat on my lap who keeps head bumping my right arm are slowing me down a lot this morning. I’d best get over to twitter & Spoutible and get things started there. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Good morning, 54 and sunny outside my window today. We drove through the tulip fields yesterday and it was just as I remembered, lovely and familiar. However I am still a day “off” re days of the week so I missed a Dr’s appointment yesterday and now have to reschedule. I really dislike the changes to our medical clinic but I don’t have an alternative so I’d best cope. Best wishes to all.
Saturday Meese. 43, raining, going up to 50. Looks like mostly rain for the next 10 days here in Kingston.
Puerto Rico
Good morning, meeses! Saturday …
It is 64 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 93. Sunny skies are in the forecast. It got into the 90s yesterday and the result is that it does not cool down until just before sunrise. So the “cool mornings” are only a few hours at best. It seems a little early for 90s but last April was such a blur, I don’t know that I can trust my memory. In any event, we make sure we do our outside things before 10am.
A quick scan of the news headlines shows that American democracy is hanging by a thread. The Supreme Court is filled with grifters, state legislatures are dismantling rights, and the worst attacks of all – on free and fair elections (our only way out of this mess) – appear to be winning more than losing.
I am going to put my head down and work on my stack clearing. I added two new things to the top and I need to make sure that nothing got buried.
See all y’all later!
Good morning. Great big storm here last night, thunder & lightning, and it was almost nighttime dark at 5:30. Hail fell in lots of nearby areas, but not in my part of town. This morning, it’s cool enough for long sleeves to go get my groceries. Today: make pasta salad, exercise. Oh, and vote – we’ve got a very important local election with a police oversight proposition and a fake one drawn up by the cops.