Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: January 28th

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?

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.

27 Comments

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

    Morning low of 41 degrees in the Desert Southwest ???? with an expected daytime high of 68. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. Good Sunday morning Meese. 35 degrees here in Kingston NY – my weather forecast says it is snowing here but all I see is rain.

    Puerto Rico

    SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico’s government narrowly avoided an indefinite strike at the U.S. territory’s biggest public health institution after reaching an agreement Thursday with union leaders.
    The looming strike at the Medical Center in the capital of San Juan was scheduled to start Friday at midnight. It would have been the newest blow to Puerto Rico’s crumbling health care system given that it provides care not available at other institutions on the island. The center also cares for patients from other Caribbean islands with limited health care infrastructures.
    The deal was reached after health workers, who had been demanding better working conditions and a monthly salary increase of up to $2,000, agreed to an increase of up to $800 following months of negotiations.

    Washington D.C. – Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) co-sponsored Senate Bill 3231, seeking a federally binding plebiscite between sovereignty in free association, independence, and statehood.
    With Butler, S.B. 3131 has now 24 Democratic Senators sponsoring the measure introduced by Senator Martin Heinrich (New Mexico) and which is the Senate companion bill of H.R. 2757, which has 94 co-sponsors, but only 12 Republicans.
    In a Senate with a 51-49 Democratic majority, advancing the measure requires 60 votes and no Republican Senator supports it.

    USVI

  3. Good morning. Yesterday was gorgeous here, today should be the same. Watching the news, the new MSNBC weekend show is okay. I’ll never love Michael Steel, but can tolerate him. Anyway, today: church and cooking, will squeeze in a walk/run.

  4. Good gray Sunday morning, Moosekind. Our current temperature is 42 F. Rain began falling heavily at 9 p.m. last night, and continued until 7 a.m. The woods are full of water because the ground is saturated, and I can see brown water moving in several streams. Our high today is supposed to be 45 F.

    Would you believe at this point in January we are already 2 inches over normal rainfall? El Nino seems to be bringing the precipitation we didn’t receive in 2023. Well, it’ll be interesting to see what happens in February.

    This is my last restful weekend before the onslaught of rehearsals and editing begins. I hope I can keep up with the physical demands. I really want to write a blog about my friend, whose passing has left such a hole in my life, but I have other obligations to dispose of before I can do that.

    Biggies on the to-do list today: write down the names of the cast members in the acceptable format, give my Catered Living article a last look before I send it off, and transfer all my physical therapy appointments from my desk calendar to the wall calendars. I have an “Ethan” calendar in my office and Dearly has an England calendar in the kitchen. With only one car, we have to make sure we don’t have appointments on the same day.

    We’ll have warming, delightful onion soup for lunch this cold, damp day. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!

  5. It’s 33 heading for 51 and the sun is trying to come out. I think it’s going to make it which is a very good thing. Both for my electricity generation and for my mood. Yesterday we generated 2.3 KWHs and the m-t-d is at 118. We’ve got 4 production days left in January. We shall see what we shall see.

    Got my Sunday chores done. First Sunday without Charlie. It felt odd picking up only 4 food dishes before vacuuming. I am now eating oatmeal and starting my boosting day. Holding the Good Thought for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}

  6. Good afternoon, 59 and cloudy in Bellingham today. I seem to need a day of rest so that’s all I’ve done today. I wanted to be working in the garden but that can wait for another day. Best wishes to all.

  7. Monday Meese. 35 degrees here in Kingston – scattered snow showers this morning, then cloudy going up to 38.

    Puerto Rico

  8. Good morning. I made it to 6 rounds of 2 minutes run/2 walk. Grabbed some planting pebbles on my way out the door and moved one from one pocket to another to keep count. Did think I was gonna die, it was really hard. Anyway, happy Monday. Diana Butler-Bass spoke at my church yesterday, on being amazed & astonished. This link is mostly what she said. You can read around the request to subscribe. (I will, some day when I’m not in a financial crisis any more; for now I don’t subscribe to things.

  9. Good Monday morning, Moosekind! The wind is blowing at 15 miles an hour in Ashburn. The rising sun is shining on the many pools of water in the woods, and the tops of the trees are swaying in the wind against a cold blue sky.

    Have a dentist appointment in Herndon at noon. Hope to meet Darling Niece at 10:30 in the Starbucks at the shopping center near where I used to live. Great-Nephew’s birthday is Saturday, so I have a couple of presents to give her so she can hide them somewhere until then.

    I never seem to get as much done as I want to. Possibly it has something to do with my age. “Mah boyz,” as Princess Diana used to call her sons, are planning a birthday tea for me on March 10. As little as I like daylight saving, I’ll be grateful for it, as it won’t be completely dark at 6 p.m., when the tea party is over. Have y’all noticed that the sun is setting a little later every day?

    The news is so bad that the only way I can stay sane is not to pay much attention to it. There are problems that I can’t solve. Some problems I can do a little to mitigate, so I’ll do that.

    Just made banana bran muffins and gave some to the neighbors. They’ve learned by now that a tap on the door at 8 a.m. means the Muffin Lady has arrived!

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.

  10. Good morning, meeses! Monday …

    It is 50 degrees in Tucson ???? with a expected daytime high of 70. Partly cloudy skies are in the forecast. It was cloudy this morning and I saw only one star very high in the northeast sky. The waning but still very large moon was beautiful last night surrounded by some wispy clouds – I have not seen her this morning and likely won’t.

    E. Jean Carroll says that she plans to spend the $83 million from tRump “on a good cause.” I hope it is to donate to a fund to help red state women escape from places that want them to die. It is wishful thinking that she will see any of that money – tRump has a way of escaping any accountability for his grossness: he was elected to the presidency after his “grab ’em” tape was released, for crying out loud! But it is a nice thought. Someone pointed out that the post-verdict social media complaints railed at the “rigged” justice system and refrained, for the first time, from attacking Ms. Carroll.

    I have many things to do today as we have three days left in January and tax reports are due on the 31st. I think I have everything done but I need to go back and make sure. I also need to send off emails to clients who have been ignored for most of the month of January because of end of year/beginning of year projects.

    See all y’all later!

  11. It’s 40 heading for 60 and sunny. So nice. Yesterday we generated 10.79 KWHs and the m-t-d at 128.9 is almost to what the 2.5K system did in 2015 and we’ve definitely got a chance to reach the 150 to do better than last year.

    It’s a lovely day and I haven’t a clue why I’m so tired. Except the world situation of course. The only way to find anything good is to keep my eyes looking closer to home. Even that has issues (my son’s got an expensive home repair neither of us – or even the two of us together – can do) but at least we’re trucking along. Anyway, started boosting over at bsky and now I’m late for boosting at Xitter so I’d best get over there. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}

  12. Good morning, 53 and raining in my winter weary garden. I wandered around with my clippers yesterday and had to stop because seeing so many storm damaged plants was to dismaying. I think it’s best to wait and see if new buds emerge before I start removing plants. looks like I may have some new planting opportunities though :(

    Best wishes to all.

  13. Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …

    It is 51 degrees in Tucson ???? with an expected daytime high of 70. Mainly sunny skies are in the forecast. Yesterday’s “high of 70” turned into a high of 79 degrees which was delightful. We are about to be brought back to reality (this is not typical winter weather, even for here) with temperatures plunging back into the upper 30s for overnight lows (and 50s for daytime highs) as a front moves arrives on Friday and lingers into the weekend. We are happy for the rain part of the front.

    I am steadily working towards a to-do list that does not include any hot projects. Now that the end of year / beginning of the year rush is over, I am going to think about how to implement my new plan of not being available to clients on either Monday or Friday. I am leaning towards Friday as Mondays often involve pent-up demand for services. Also, with Friday as the off day, I will have 4 day weekends on weeks that have holiday Mondays! Genius!!

    See all y’all later!

  14. Good morning. Slept in, will log off work early and walk/run this afternoon. It will be gorgeous — probably in the low 70s. We didn’t have a lot of applications yesterday, so I’m going to work on some older ones and do some continuing ed. Still thrown by the Cecile Richards news yesterday, and it’s bringing up memories of glioblastoma killing my best friend, damn cancer.

    • Oh, my GODDESS! Cecile Richards, of all people! I will send her gratitude for her work and energy for her illness immediately.

      Glioblastoma is not always an automatic death sentence. My cousin’s husband (they live in Midland, TX) has lived with it for nearly six years now. Yes, the treatment and testing are rough. But he’s still here and still rejoicing in the experience of watching his grandchildren grow up. I hope to see him in late April so we can both enjoy our favorite breakfast.

      Ann Richards was so cool. I did a book report on her biography. She once went to a Halloween costume party dressed as a giant Tampax.

  15. Good Tuesday morning, Meese. It’s ugly-cloudy ouside, with a temperature of 40 F., and will not go up much higher. Would you believe we have had 6 inches of rain this month (twice as much as normal), and 10 inches of snow (10 times what we had last year)? Land sakes and curly snakes.

    Well, I am totally stunned by the news about Cecile Richards, whom I adore, and by the soul-shrinking headline I glimpsed in the WaPo this morning, about how Wall Street is beaming at the idea of another Thing presidency!

    If Thing, despite being the subject of numerous trials, regains the presidency, that will be proof there is no such thing as God. I mean, I already believe that, but considering what would happen to this country…naw, I can’t go into it.

    Had a wonderful coffee morning with Darling Niece yesterday, got through my teeth cleaning in record time, and went to Rehearsal last night. It was a music rehearsal. Oh, how I wish I could still sing! I once had such a nice singing voice that I sang in the choir at the Episcopal church and even signed up for Glee Club as a subject in junior high and high school. Anyway, the man who plays Curly has a beautiful voice. The problem is that the cast members are highly educated and keep compensating for perceived deficienies in the dialogue and lyrics: for example, they pronounce “modern” the way it’s spelled instead of the script’s “modren” and supply the missing “n” in “the corn is as high as a elephant’s eye.” Oh, dear. I do think Oscar Hammerstein was a genius at writing lyrics: he captures all the joy of nature in “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.” James Whitcomb Riley did it too, with “When the Frost is on the Punkin’.”

    Anyway, we were able to escape at 8:30 or so, and I staggered home. Forgot to take my sleeping pill Monday night so yesterday was horrendous. Went to bed at 9:30 last night, fell asleep at 10, and was awakened only by the butler bringing me a cup of early morning tea at 6:45. Bliss.

    Wishing a good day with no bad news to all at the Pond!

  16. It’s 44 heading for 60 and sunny again. January seems to be going out showing us what it could have done all month. If it weren’t for the clouds. Yesterday we generated 10.3 KWHs and the m-t-d is at 139.1 so we’re not likely to reach 150 today but it’ll be close.

    Hands are cold and stiff. Both climate and society are collapsing around us and there’s not a single thing I can do about it. So I’ll do my boosting. And pray a lot. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}

  17. Good morning, 53 and cloudy outside my windows today. It is unseasonably warm now but winter is not over I’ll be cautious re pruning. I should work at my desk today, and I want to sew another needlepoint pillow so I’ll see what happens. Best wishes to all.

  18. Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …

    It is 50 degrees in Tucson ???? with an expected daytime high of 68. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast. February will come in like a lion with rain and “cold”. The historical average is a high of 70 and a low of 43 so I hope that means that this will be the last blast. The rain is fine but the daytime highs of 50 are unpleasant.

    I did not think it was possible but the news is getting more depressing. There are no rays of sunshine it is all doom and gloom splattered with orange from TFG. I tried to read more local news but that is depressing also – the incompetent jerks running the University of Arizona made terrible decisions that will impact our local economy as paycuts and layoffs begin. Lesson: do not give people who have no friends and no personality other people’s money to spend. They will use it to make friends and show how brilliant they are rather than for the mission. There was a “businessmen love Bobby” rally for the embattled president of the university at the same time that the guy put in charge of fixing the mess was telling everyone that Southern Arizona is a literal desert and the U of A will never be able to generate the kind of revenue needed to sustain any sort of excellence. People here were livid – too bad none of them were Bobby’s friends who have been protecting his incompetent ass. Sheesh.

    Today feels like a Friday because after I finish one last accounting project, I can put 2023 aside and start working on productive things. I may take the rest of the week off.

    See all y’all later!

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