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 got rain yesterday! Not enough to break the drought, but it was awesome anyway. I had my alarm set to walk this morning, but my 1st alarm was late going off, and I incorporated my watch’s vibrating alarm into a dream; so I ended up not walking. I’ll do an indoor workout this afternoon. Anyway, getting ready for wfh, watching astronomy.
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 73 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 93. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast with a chance for rain most of the day reaching 90% by 6pm. Hurricane Hilary helped us meet and surpass our monsoon rain expectation.
Great news for us!
Hahahaha! Guiliani may flip on TFG in Georgia!! Bleeding cash as he tries to protect himself from the numerous charges against him, apparently he begged for money from tRump, got no help, and appears to be ready to testify against his mob boss. No honor among thieves, as the saying goes.
I will be limiting screen time again for about 4 days starting tomorrow. This time I am not going to autopost the Sunday Welcomings – last time I did that I forgot when I had set the timer and ended up with a double post that messed up my drafts. I will set it up but should be able to click to Publish before Sunday morning.
See all y’all later!
Good Wednesday morning, Moosekind, and a jolly good morning it is too, in Ashburn ze Boring. It was 64 F. with low humidity when we woke up and even now it’s only 66 F., according to the thermometer on my desk. It’s so beautiful and nonwindy, with breathable air, that I may sit on the porch this afternoon to study my script.
I hope everyone shows up for tonight’s rehearsal, because having to read two parts really threw me off. We have a budget of $200 for this play. I’m playing the part of a Raging Granny, so I looked for a “Raging Grannies” t-shirt, could not find one, and have abandoned the attempt. I still have to get my picket sign made. I have the stick, but am not sure how to go about making the sign.
The UU dinner was fun last night but I was exhausted when I arrived back. Had an Awful Night (could it have been the vegetarian Black Bean Chili?), but was awakened very nicely by Dearly bearing a large mug of Early Morning Tea. One good turn deserves another, so I cooked breakfast for him and burned my finger in the process. That certainly put a damper on my plans for the day.
For the rest of the week we will have imaginary showers. Some may turn out to be real, which will be good, as we’re 9 inches under normal rainfall for the year. The short, sharp rainfalls we’ve had have kept the woods looking very fresh and green, so that’s interesting.
Did I mention the head of the Drama Club wants me to appear on the in-house TV show on Friday, September 29th? The interviewer wants us to talk about resident-written plays. Well, Rob’s done a couple and I’ve written two, so it should be interesting.
That’s enough from me. Trying to avoid the news as much as possible. I’m sick of it. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
It’s 81 heading for 97 and the heat index is “only” supposed to get to 106 today. We only generated 11.7 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d at 323.9 is not on track. We’re getting an awful lot of clouds on these supposedly sunny days. sigh.
Fineena was too tired Monday to think about much but sleep. Yesterday however she realized that not only did she not live in the house any longer, she didn’t even have to go back to it, and in fact it most probably wasn’t there to go back to. And that felt really good. She found her teapot yesterday morning and was able to make (instant) coffee and (instant) grits for breakfast. She said it tasted soooo good! First meal she’s actually cooked in the apartment. Her “helpers” showed up in late afternoon so not a lot got done. Her friend found some quiche dishes so she’s now able to bake stuff. Mostly they broke up boxes for recycling and took out a lot of stuff she would have had the “crew” throw out at the old place if they hadn’t been so busy throwing out stuff she needed. (Trash & recycling pickup is today.) They’ve promised to replace the microwave. It hasn’t been replaced yet. Maybe today. The “labor” she was stuck with not only charged her almost 3x what we estimated (and we estimated 50 person-hours at $20/hour) but they’re also costing her for stuff they threw away that she’s going to have to replace. (Aashirs nani says that’s “normal” these days. Same thing happened to her when she hired someone to clean out her garage a few years back and to a neighbor when she moved last year.) But step by step, boxes are being opened, stuff is either being put away or thrown away, the apartment is becoming home. It’s already more home than the house ever was in the 7 years she lived there.
If I weren’t so groggy I could probably think of other stuff to say. LOL I’m OK. Just spent the morning being derailed by cats every time I started to do something and haven’t reassembled my thoughts yet. But time to get to my boosting chores on all 3 platforms I boost on. (I still only have 4 followers on bsky, and am only following 8, but all it takes is for one of them to boost what I post for their followers to see it.) Holding the Good Thought for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Wednesday Meese. 68 going up to 78.
Puerto Rico
Good morning, 61 and partly sunny outside my window today. The air quality seems better which is good because I’ll be working in the garden this afternoon. We need to finish the area we were working in last week and a shrub under the high window that needs repair needs to be pruned so we’ll be busy. Feeling very tired but grateful to have Bri’s assistance and to be getting the garden back in order again. Best wishes to all.
Thursday Meese. 61 going up to 70and raining here in Kingston.
Didn’t watch the fascist fakers debate last night – went to sleep.
Puerto Rico
Back downtown and it’s a million degrees (79 F 26.11 C) but I ran a little on each of my laps around the garage. 30 minutes. Maybe this time next month the mornings will be cooler. Getting ready for the workday, I hate how loud it is. I watched a house flipping show last night instead of the news. Did listen to the first five minutes of Lawrence O’Donnell. But I am happy with my complete ignorance of the “debate”.
Posted.
OMG,that’s awful!
It’s 80 heading for 98 with heat index of 108 and sunny at the moment. We’ve been getting afternoon clouds lately that are decreasing the electricity generation by about a third of what I should be getting. Yesterday we got 12.9 KWHs. The m-t-d is 336.66 – not on track for 460 and losing ground. sigh.
Fineena told me, with a certain amount of wonderment, that she feels like she’s home. She hasn’t felt like she was home for decades. Certainly never at the last place she lived. She apparently hasn’t thrown anything out in decades either. Mostly because at the last place the city was hit-and-miss about picking it up but johnny-on-the-spot about charging $250 code compliance fines if anything was left out after the trash collectors had supposedly done their pickup. She can’t find her 32″ TV. She doesn’t know if it’s in another box, stolen, or thrown away by the gang of vandals she ended up having to use for her move. She did find in the 32″ TV box (which she hadn’t thrown away because it probably wouldn’t have been picked up and she’s not physically up to hauling trash out and back in weekly) a small TV that she’d never thrown out because. . . So at least she does have a TV at the moment. Also in happy wonderment she told me the trash and recycling collectors had been there on time and picked up everything. She didn’t have anything to bring in but the cans themselves. Which is hard enough on her and she was dropping things for hours after she did. So. Things are getting better, day by day. Prayers up (or whatever) that the job manifests and she can stay happy, comfortable, and feeling like she’s actually home.
Bad sinusitis flare overnight. Started yesterday afternoon and hasn’t really let up yet. Sigh. Oh well. Things will take more time to get done but I have the time to do it in. I guess I’d best get started. It also takes longer now that I’m boosting stuff on 3 platforms. Holding the Good Thought for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
I am glad to hear that Fineena at least has a place to rest that feels comfortable. What a nightmare with the packing and moving! Things can be replaced but the feeling of comfort and “being home” is priceless.
I was lucky in that the movers I had were reputable – I only had a couple of things broken and none lost or stolen. I packed everything myself except for the kitchen stuff because that is the most difficult and time consuming. My first move required emptying my house but with the overlap between renting and selling, I was able to do it more slowly. I will say one thing: the donation/junk people were the hardest to manage, I had to stay on top of them so that they would take the right things for the early pickups (when we were still living there and then after the first batch of stuff moved to the apartment but there were still some things we were sorting to move). It was needlessly stressful. But the memory of pain is short – I look back on it now and wonder how I did it but it got done and the last batch of household chemicals and paint cans that the junk guys wouldn’t take (and needed to go to the county dump) were packed into the back of my car the morning before the pre-closing walkthrough on my house.
I guess I can say I was even luckier. I’ve never had to hire labor for a move. Anything I couldn’t do myself – and in my younger days I could do most of it myself – family or friends helped with. But Fineena was stuck. She can’t lift over 20 lbs on a good day and can’t lift more than 10 repeatedly. And she’s got an abusive, delighted to not be helpful, family. An unfortunate number of people in our society mouth “protecting” disabled elders while actually seeing them as prey. And those people are very good at finding prey.
Good Thursday morning, Meese. It’s 72 F. in Ashburn and cloudy. We’re waiting for the imaginary rain that didn’t start at 1 a.m. and probably won’t at any other time today.
Apparently, someone hacked my Facebook account. I can’t change the password because I don’t know what the last password was. FB says I changed it on Aug. 30 last year. I have a little password book with the password for FB in it, but it won’t accept that. So here I am, deprived of FB (I’ll never know what my friends and family are doing), deprived of Twitter (can’t bear to waste time on anything of Melon’s), and bored by Threads. Soon I will migrate back to a world in which social media didn’t take up so much time. I might actually get something done for a change.
I have a horrible suspicion that I went through last year’s Witches’ Datebook, looking for passwords to write down in my new password book, and then threw the Datebook away. Goddess help us.
Meanwhile, I still have the short story to finish. It’s due a week from today. I also have the Bio Book Club to lead tomorrow afternoon. Dearly asked Stanley Steamer to come in on Monday, but did not get a time from them. Duhh!
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
You should be able to recover your Facebook account via the email you used to set it up. A worse problem is when your email is also hacked. That happened to someone I know and it took him quite a while to recover his access. The most difficult part is to find someone at Meta who cares to help. He finally convinced them that he was not logging in from Vietnam and they gave him his account back. They should be able to recognize that you are trying to log in from the same place you always have. Good luck!
Good morning, 71 and the air is still smoky so my eyes are burning. I’m slow today but it’s well earned because I worked in the Garden with Bri for 5 hrs yesterday. We are making good progress and I am very grateful re how easy she is to work with. She did the pruning yesterday and I did finishing tasks in the areas we have been working in. Next week we can move to the other side pf the house and that work will go faster.
I watched some of the debate analysis last night and none of them are proper presidential material. Lots of loud angry mean talk is not comforting and/or inspiring to me. I’ve kept the news off but will tune in later this afternoon. As always, my best wishes to all.
Is it only outside that the air is so bad? Can you at least get respite indoors?
I thought the debate was Thursday night so I was surprised to see all the debate news Thursday morning. I read one analysis later in the day and they said that DeSantis sucked, Vivek stole the show – until Nikki Haley harshed his buzz – and that Chris Christie is angling for VP in a Mike Pence administration. No, none of them are suitable presidential material but sadly for us, 48% of the country thinks that tRump is. That 8 of the people on the stage promised to support tRump even if he is convicted is a sad indictment of the political party that once included Abraham Lincoln. Goddess help us if the fossil fuel industry ratfks the economy to tank Joe Biden.
Good morning, meeses! Friday …
It is 79 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 99. Mainly sunny skies. Slight chance for rain. Our heat dome is coming back at the beginning of next week but we should have a couple days of nice weather before that happens.
I am not sure what tRump was going for with his mugshot – if he wanted to look like a mob boss being charged in a racketeering case, he succeeded. He is playing his indictments like it is a reality show but the reality is that a lot of people he suckered into doing his bidding are going to go to prison and most will lose everything that they have defending themselves. I wish I could say that there might be a MAGAt change of heart but once you are in a cult, it is difficult to break free.
I have limited screen time this morning and should spend it on things that can’t wait until the weekend.
See all y’all later!
Ridiculously hot, blah blah blah. I can just keep saying that for another month or so. Did my 30 minutes and even ran a little (8 segments 0f 30-40 seconds). Downtown, getting ready for work. I hate the noise. Anyway, counting the minutes till 4:45 when I can dash out of here.
I was shocked to see that some of the Texas heat is setting records – I always thought of Texas as hot. Are the records being broken because by now the worst of the heat in Texas should be over with?
Worst won’t be over for another few weeks, it always stays hot here well into September. We’ve even had 100 degree days in October. But these records are 102-103, and we’re having days of 105-108.
Friday Meese. 63 here in Kingston, going up to 80 – and it’s raining.
Puerto Rico
“The feds have detected a dramatic increase in money laundering activities in Puerto Rico, especially among beneficiaries of Law 60 (formerly Law 22) and in international banks, also brought in by Luis Fortuño.”
Good Friday morning, Moosekind. It’s cloudy and humid in Ashboring, 76 F. now, 90 F. later. Constantly being lied to is stretching my tiny, quivering nerves to shreds. “It’s going to rain at 1 a.m. No, 7 a.m. No, at 4 p.m. No, 7 p.m. No, it’s going to be bedtime rain.” I realize this is awfully First World, but there it is.
My late sister had a habit of naming her house plants. The Boston fern was named Frondsy, the mint plant Araminta. This morning I discovered that my Araminta was dead on the porch. Well, whaddaya expect when I forget to water it and it never, ever rains?
I am so beside myself. After another AWFUL night, during which I tossed and turned, fretting about the title for the short story, I finally fell asleep. At first I was going to use the last line of the story as the title, but that would be giving the show away. So what to do? There should be a verb in the title. The title should arouse the reader’s curiosity.
Also, today at 1:30 I have to lead the Biography Book Club, in which we have to guess the subject of the biographies we’ve read. My subject danced naked in Paris, then took a lover. She danced naked in Germany, and took a lover. London and Brussels came in somewhere, and so did lovers. To compensate for a truly horrifying childhood in St. Louis, she made up stories about her past. She also had a male cheetah named Chiquita who was allowed to jump off the stage and roam through the orchestra pit. I bet that caused a few heart attacks!
However, as I mentioned previously, she had a good heart, worked for the Resistance, was awarded the Legion d’Honneur by her adopted country, and—get this—came back to the USA so she could march with Dr. King down the Mall on August 26, 1963! Considering the vicious, stupid racists in this country wouldn’t even let her rent a hotel room because she was Alive and Talented While Black, that was a wonderful thing to do. There’s going to be an anniversary march tomorrow in honor of the one in 1963.
I really didn’t need to spend yesterday fuming and fretting over the Facebook thing but, lawks! I could still get in on my phone, so I thought I’d try it on my Kindle. Behold! FB obligingly asked if I wanted to change my password, so I said yes. I did that (it certainly does help when they show you what you typed), and yay! Kindle kindly informed me that the change would occur across all my devices. So I can see FB on both laptops now. The thing is, I download funny pictures and sayings from FB and blogs to email to my friend, who is confined to her apartment and unable to participate in community life.
That’s more than enough from me! Thanks for putting up with it! As always, wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
It’s 82 heading for 100, heat index 107, and sunny at the moment. Yesterday we managed to generate 13.48 KWHs and the m-t-d at 350.19 is not on track for 460 and losing ground. At least it IS equal to what the 2.5K system generated in 2014 and we’ve a week left to improve on that. We are still on track to generate more than last year or the year before so that part’s good.
Fineena was in a lot of pain yesterday and didn’t accomplish much. (I think the adrenaline she’s been running on these last few weeks finally ran out.) She hasn’t found her jewelry or her 32″ TV and she’s beginning to think she’s not going to. The TV at least. Direct TV came out but couldn’t hook her up because there’s never been Direct TV at her apartment so they’ve got to get with line finders to locate the gas and electric lines before they can dig to put in their own. On the bright side, a friend is giving her a bedframe so she’ll just need a 6″ foam mattress for it and another friend is supposed to come over today and do a little more unpacking.
Everybody is really tired and dragged down by the heat in the “heat dome” areas. I keep reminding myself that winter’s coming soon. And hoping it actually will. (See: heatwaves in the Global South right now – in the middle of their winter.) We’re all trucking along as best we can. And ignoring TFG as much as possible. Off to start my boosting day. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Saturday Meese. 68 going up to 83. Glad to see it won’t rain for the March today in DC
Puerto Rico
I saw that race! It is great that Puerto Ricans can compete under their own flag – if they had to compete under the flag of their colonizer, that would be a slap in the face.
Good morning, meeses! Saturday …
It is 82 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 99. Mainly sunny skies are in the forecast with a chance for rain this afternoon. Yesterday evening clouds rolled in and left literally three drops of rain. It did not cool things down and a heat dome arrives tomorrow. The local weather guy promises that by Thursday, we will be done with the triple digits and won’t see them again until next June. I am not so sure – he promised the same thing last week!
The 14th Amendment movement is gaining steam and I wonder if it has any hope of succeeding. A group of constitutional scholars, including ones affiliated with the Federalist Society, are claiming that Trump is barred from seeking federal office because of his part in the January 6th coup attempt. Now, some individuals are beginning the process to force election officials in their states to deny TFG a spot on the ballot. I don’t know how far it goes, especially since SCROTUS is a bought and paid for arm of the Republican Party but it if it is another way to make tRump sweat, I am all for it. I think we can beat an ordinary despicable Republican but it is really challenging to be running against an armed death cult. Trump not being on the ballot might cool things off a bit.
It is Saturday and I have all my weekend projects laid out in front of me. I have some accounting work to do and then I have to gather notes for my final August push. It is hard to believe that it is almost September and next weekend is Labor Day! I was able to push back a project that I had planned for the first week of September to the first week of October but I have another project that I have been promising to complete all summer and here we are, at the end of summer.
See all y’all later!
Good morning. I slept in, will maybe go to the gym this afternoon. Yesterday at work was exhausting. No especially awful calls/people, just a lot. And the guy in the cubicle next to me talks so much. Anyway, today: groceries, housework, and exercise.