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. #MotleyMoose
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 Wednesday morning, Moosekind! I think anotherdemocrat has the right idea. The news is so unspeakably sordid that one doesn’t want to contaminate one’s mind.
Cloudy to begin with here in Ashburnikins, 63 F. going up to 71 F. Tomorrow it will be quite cold in the morning, 40 F., which is a blow. Will I have the courage to get dressed up and interview the head of the walking club? They meet at 8:15 in the morning. I’m eager to do an article called, “The Walkers of Ashby,” because I read an Agatha Raisin mystery called “The Walkers of Dembley” and liked the title.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Dearly was at the surgeon’s office ALL DAY and came home black and blue, poor darling. The surgeon said to put a bag of frozen peas on his eye, which was black and swollen. Rubbish! I made him a temporary icebag and immediately ordered a real one from Amazon. It should be here today. I like to give Amazon a week, as a rule. Naturally, I am waiting on the poor darling hand and foot, as he looks so beat up. Do they really have to carve and mutilate the face of a 92-year-old man? The dirtbags. His black eye already looks a little better.
Daughter is spoiling me! Yesterday two Mother’s Day presents arrived, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. She sent me a spinner to hang on the porch, saying that her elder child had sent her one a few years ago, and Daughter has had a great deal of pleasure from it. In the afternoon three string bags arrived from Amazon. They hold an enormous amount of groceries, it’s amazing. She made me laugh when she texted that she’d told Bella, the senior chihuahua, that she and paterfamilias were flying to New York this morning and that Bella would be in charge of the household (another chihuahua named Sadie and Olive, the disdainful black beauty of a cat) while they were away. She added that Bella understood perfectly.
Sent the article on vegetarians off to the people I interviewed for review and they all seem so grateful that I wrote it! Actually, they all have to be pescatarians, because if they didn’t eat fish they wouldn’t get any protein at all from the “vegetarian” meals here. Waiting to hear from two more, but if I don’t hear by the afternoon from the late one, I’m sending it off anyway. The Pubs meeting is tomorrow afternoon.
This morning I received “mah Social,” as my cousin refers to it. Wonder whether I’ll receive the one for June? Would have liked to dig into my IRA, just in case, but the market keeps acting ugly, so I haven’t yet.
The Voice returns a little more each day. Isn’t that nice? Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
It’s 62 heading for 75 and cloudy. It’s supposed to clear off this afternoon. I hope so. AND that it clears off in early afternoon. Yesterday we generated 4 KWHs and the m-t-d is 237.8 – definitely not on track for 480.
Today is my Social Security “payday” so I’m about to go to the Credit Union and get cash then to the Co-op to stock up on supplements and the grocery store on the way home to get stuff I’ve opened the last package of. Amelia/earicicle thinks she may have COVID. Again. And after all the mostly very positive things with medical and so for that moving to the Sacramento area it was a very depressing shock to get hit with the same ol’ same ol’ when it comes to social work programs. They’re very happy to tell her what she’s eligible for. Which she already knows. But they aren’t going to help her apply/be advocates in the application process which is the help she needs. Suzanne/aashirs nani tripped over something and fell yesterday. No damages but bruises but her legs are so weak that it took her 20 minutes to get up off the floor. I don’t know about anybody else.
Meanwhile, I need to get going. The sooner left the sooner back and on to my boosting chores. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
I am separated from my weather widget right now but I think it is about 78 degrees going up to 88. Sunny. We got some heavy rain for a brief period of time yesterday afternoon – it was like a monsoonal downpour, short and furious, but we are not in the monsoon so maybe that is how all the rain here is. I saw a very thin waning crescent moon over the mountains this morning – she will be new in a few days.
I have to run to an appointment this morning and another this afternoon. My theory is to put them all in one day so that the one day is miserable and the rest of the days are simpler and less stressful. :)
See all y’all later!
Thursday Meese. Well, we have a freeze warning in effect, though we are now up to 34 degrees here in Kingston. Sigh. When it’s daylight will go out to check to see what damage was done to my roses.
Puerto Rico
“Andrés “Andy” Guillemard, husband of Caridad Pierluisi and the Governor’s brother-in-law.”
I hope your roses survived! Crazy weather for this time of year.
Good morning. Nice one, it’s been muggy so a non-muggy one is welcome. Preparing for in-office day.
Caribbean Matters posted:
Good Thursday morning, Meese, and a beautiful day it is, too. It’s nice change not to have cloudy skies that never do anything. Right now it’s 55 F. in Ashburn, on its way up to 70-something. Earlier this morning it was 45 F., so I didn’t get dressed up to go with the Walking Club. I don’t like cold.
I’m going to send the Vegetarian article off to the Managing Editor this morning. Managed to work in a reference to the Roman Army in the last paragraph, which makes me giggle bigly.
Debating whether to get a pedicure today. If only it weren’t so boring! On the other hand, my shoes will fit better if my long, prehensile toenails are trimmed.
Dearly’s icebag arrived from Amazon and he likes it a lot better than a Ziploc baggie filled with ice cubes. I still have half a bottle of hyaluronic acid left, so I shall take it to the very last drop. My voice has improved from Croaky to Squeaky to Hoarsy.
Pubs meeting today. I’ll feel bad about having only one story in the summer issue, but honestly, whatcha gonna do? The Olympics will fill most of the issue.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
It’s 64 going to 80 today and sunny at least for the moment. Yesterday we managed to generate 8.2 KWHs. The m-t-d is 246 which isn’t on track for 450 much less 480. We can catch up but I don’t know if we will.
Everybody is trucking along. Not much of anything seems to be getting better but at least it’s not getting worse. We think. We hope. Today’s my older son’s youngest son’s graduation from high school. Lang’s going to pick me up around 5:45 so I’ll be getting offline earlier than usual. Fortunately slacks & polo shirts are appropriate wear these days because that’s the most formal wear I’ve got. ???? I’ll probably be the only person in the entire place wearing a mask. I knelt during the anthem at the last graduation but my knees aren’t going to let me do it this time. Unless my younger son moves to NW AR I won’t be able to attend his sons’ graduations. Which won’t be for 4 and 7 years respectively anyway.
Hands are stiff & cold but otherwise I’m OK. Off to do my boosting chores. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Good morning, meeses! Thursday …
It is 68 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 82. Sunny skies but expected to cloud up and possibly rain. We got some rain – with lightning and thunder! – yesterday evening. The trees and plants are happy. I still need to get to a local park and view the Saguaro Cactus blooms. Last year they did not bloom because the year before was so bloomiferous. I see the ones that are in the boulevards but there is a park nearby named Bee Canyon that has hundreds of Saguaro cacti and I want to see that.
I am going to ignore the news because it is so depressing what is happening in the states. Florida, Texas, North Carolina – it must be awful to live there.
I was handed a large project yesterday and I am working on it now. I wanted to be less busy but the reality is that as long as I have clients who have projects to work on, I should forego my naps and work on their projects. Every day that I can avoid tapping into my retirement savings for living expenses puts off the day when my savings are depleted.
See all y’all later!
Good morning, 66 and partly sunny outside my window today. The leaves on our old maple trees are big again this year and are a lovely color of green. So relieved to see then looking healthy again. Last summer they were struggling with the blight that infected big leaf maples in the PNW but deep root fertilizer, a steady trickle of water, and perhaps the luck of the tree fairies seems to have given them a another season.
Best wishes to all.
Friday Meese. Just put up a quickie – wanted to give Rep. Stacey Plaskett her due
Friday Meese. 45 going up to 72 and cloudy here in Kingston. I haven’t been able to use my wireless printer now for a month. Geek Squad is actually sending a tech to my home to fix it – YAY!
Puerto Rico
Here we go – again
Good morning. Got my walk done, it’s muggy out but I still did it. I got a “thank you” from one of my favorite writers (J. Michael Straczynski — Babylon 5, Sense 8, several comics, movies, other TV shows…), so my day is starting off nicely. Just have to remain awake till 5.
Good morning, meeses! Finally Friday …
It is 63 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 82. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast. The morning air smelled like rain washed desert from the rain storms overnight. Our morning lows will be cooler again for the next couple of weeks and the daytime highs will be back to normal (low 90s).
The debt ceiling negotiations are taking an interesting turn as the MAGAt Republican Congress members are now changing the terms of their agreement with their “leader” and want to add border security and other right-wing fever dreams to the mix. So the “Republican solidarity” begins to fray and it becomes less likely that McCarthy can reach an agreement that he can pass with only Republican votes. When Boehner was faced with the same choices, he resigned rather than pass legislation with Democratic votes. If McCarthy needs Democratic votes for the debt deal, the next vote in the House will be a vote on his removal. I almost feel sorry for him – he could have just been an ordinary terrible Republican who hates the poors and loves his wealthy donors but now he has to go full MAGA and destroy the world economy on his way out the door. Nice legacy! I am glad to hear progressives complaining loudly about the deal that Biden is negotiating. The more they complain, the more Republicans will see their position as a victory and the more likely they are to accept whatever deal is done. From what I understand, the deal will be a debt limit increase being passed and promises related to a budget framework. Since the Republicans will surely add more poison pills to any budget framework, the promises (I hope!) are just words. There is a zero percent possibility that there will not be a government shutdown on October 1st when the rubber will meet the road on the budget.
Yay for the Disney mouse! I hope that DeSantis’ Florida becomes more and more unappealing to business interests. I am old enough to remember when transgender bathroom bills caused people to boycott North Carolina and Indiana and make them cave. We have certainly come down a long dark road when so few seem to care about what Florida is doing to LGBTQ+ people and their families.
I am hoping for a short day today after having a couple of hectic days. My baseball team is playing in the Eastern Time Zone for a few days which means the game today will be at 3:30pm which is a very civilized time to watch a game.
See all y’all later!
It’s 63 going to 75 and while it was sunny when I got up, it’s lights-on cloudy now and we’re supposed to get rain. sigh. Yesterday we did manage to generate 16 KWHs. The m-t-d is 262. Not on track for 480 but still on track for 450.
Welp, I was the only person (I could see anyway) wearing a mask at the graduation ceremonies. Including my own family. sigh. They “humor” me – but don’t protect themselves. Or others from them. The graduating class was about 950, of whom about 900 showed up for the ceremonies. There were at least 5000 people in the audience. Considering the scented everything I’m not sure how I managed to do it, but I did. Other than that, it was long. Frequently boring except for visiting with family I haven’t seen since Yule, and worthwhile to be there for the kids doing the graduating.
One more thing for this busy week – Lang will be here in a few minutes to take me to Tractor Supply – and then I can go back to being a hermit for the rest of May and 1st few weeks of June. I’ll see if I have time to start my boosting but mostly it’ll be when I get back. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
The mask issue is so sad. Sorry to hear that. :(
It really is. Admittedly all the guys have full beards so it’s hard for them to mask. And I guess if the guys aren’t, my DILs figure why bother. But it’s still sad.
Saturday Meese. 48 here in Kingston and raining, going up to 68.
Puerto Rico
Good morning. Slept in, I was confused when I woke up & thought it was a week day. Watching the news, later I’ll make pasta salad for a couple of weeks. Glad that we’re going to help Ukraine more.
Good morning, meeses! Saturday …
It is 61 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 90 degrees. Sunny skies are in the forecast. After a week where my schedule was dictated by planned events, appointments, and client project deadlines, I am determined to get to the city’s Saguaro Cactus park and catch the desert blooms before they fall off.
Debt ceiling negotiates off, on, then off again. It is a fools errand because even if the negotiators reach an agreement (unlikely) whatever results from it will not be approved by the Republican majority – there are already a dozen legislators who are having serious vote remorse about supporting the suicide pact they passed, both on the moderate side (endangered freshmen Republicans who voted to hurt their constituents) and the right-wing (who vowed to never raise the debt limit and realize that they are going to be primaried from the right). Biden has apparently ruled out the Constitutional Option – invoking the 14th Amendment as cover to continue to pay debts – so the chance of default is now about 99%. I have not heard yet how it impacts ordinary Americans who live paycheck to paycheck (and SSA deposit to SSA deposit) and don’t have money in the stock market. I assume that banks won’t collapse and businesses won’t shutter – I guess we find out! There are still a bunch of Republican Default Deniers who are claiming that Janet Yellen is lying and that there is no X-date for default. Wishful thinking – I hope they suffer financially. The really really sad thing is that even if we get past this crisis, we have to deal with the annual budget and the very real specter of a government shutdown at midnight on September 30th. To the people who craved “divided government” fk you with a rusty anvil.
I have four projects that I am working on at once right now and I need to finish at least two of them and then make notes on the other two so I can pick up the threads tomorrow morning.
See all y’all later!
It’s 56 heading for 73 and at least sunny at the moment. Hopefully it will stay sunny because we’ve some lost ground to make up. Yesterday we generated 5 KWHs and we’re at 267.8 for the m-t-d.
As far as I know there’s nobody coming over and I’m going nowhere today. AKA normal. This week just ending I got a lot done – and spent a lot of money – but I interacted with more people than I normally do in several months combined and counting the graduation ceremony was around more people than I’ve been in the last several years combined. Equally as far as I know everybody’s trucking along in their versions of normal.
So. Off to do my boosting chores. Holding Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Good Saturday morning, Meese. It’s 70 F. and sunny in Ashburn right now, going up to 81 F. The predicted heavy fog failed to materialize, of course. We are now SIX inches under normal rainfall for the year, although they’re predicting rain tonight.
Yesterday I had to rush around to buy groceries for the weekend—we usually don’t eat their awful food on the weekends—and then I had to lead the Biography Book Club at 1 p.m. We had such a good time! We want to meet again in late August. I felt unusually stupid yesterday, so did not guess anyone’s book correctly. It took them quite a while to guess my book, Spare, and we had a stimulating discussion about it, and royalty, and so on.
Was so exchausted afterwards that I just took a nap and vege’d the rest of the day. This morning I went to karate class and this afternoon at 2 I will attend a lecture on how to write a play.
On Thursday I went to the Resident Pubs meeting. The Managing Editor came in late, slid into a chair beside me, and accepted one of the dark chocolates I’d brought so no one would fall asleep. He had just read the article I submitted on vegetarian residents. “Do you think I’ll get into trouble?” I asked hopefully. He thought for a minute, then shook his head and said, “Borderline.”
Wouldn’t it be hysterical if I became the Gadfly of the Home for the Aged and they expelled me for rabblerousing?
I know people whose sole source of income is Social Security. I would like to feed Kevin, Mitch, and Marge to the Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades. I’ve heard the pythons are hungry and don’t much care whom they eat.
Well, I’m going to have a well-deserved cup of tea after all that punching and kicking, so will close now. Wishing everyone at the Pond a good day.