Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: July 14th

July 13, 2024 JanF Community 85

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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39 Comments

  1. It’s 72 heading for 82 heat index 87 and raining at the moment. It’s still July so this break won’t last – but the 10-day forecast is showing all highs in the 80s and all lows in the 60s. Some days are showing low enough I won’t have to have the A/C on at all. Which is good since my PV system is still down (3 full weeks now) & the Ozark Solar guy still hasn’t given any indication of when he can “get to it”. (I just emailed him and said that if he can’t “get to it” to please give me contact information for someone who can. We’ll see how/if he responds to that.)

    It’s been a full week since Fineena passed. I’ll get used that. Sometime. But she’s out of pain and at peace – or as much peace as one can have with that many dogs – and I’m glad of that.

    Even if I don’t have solar electricity (which I wouldn’t at the moment anyway as it’s too dark) I do have electricity. And internet. Obviously. So I’d best get to my boosting day. Holding the Good/Healing Thought for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}

  2. Good Wednesday morning, Moosekind! It’s already 84 F., marching straight toward 100+. Yesterday it was 104 F. in DC. Here, it only got up to 100 F. but we had a nice thunderstorm at 9 p.m. with plenty of lightning. As with the day before, the rain didn’t last long but it was enough to wet our whistle.

    Yesterday was busy with getting hair done, shopping, and exercising. My phone said at day’s end I’d put in 3.6 miles. My fellow actor met me in the library so we could have a “read-through” of the script. His wife showed up when we were about half done reading. If she’s going to show up at every rehearsal, it’s going to have a most inhibitory effect. Sniff.

    Then I went to a postcard-writing party. This time we wrote to voters in Michigan, asking them to please make a plan to vote on Tuesday, November 5. We didn’t have any particular message. It was gratifying that the recipients of our first postcards, which were mailed to Arizona, elected Ruben Gallego (sp.?) in the primary! After an hour of that, I went home because The Young’uns were expected.

    Younger Son, DIL, and Nora came over to view the San Diego photos. Nora finally remembered to bring my birthday present with her. She gave me a molding of a palm cris-crossed with lines and a little book explaining palmistry. There was a nice bottle of cologne, too.

    Today I need to concentrate on cleaning up this place. Tomorrow, too. Luckily, I don’t have any appointments, but I will run out to the Farmers’ Market at 10 to see whether they have any more of those delicious, ready-to-eat peaches.

    That’s all my news, Moosekind. I refuse to watch telly or to read the WaPo. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!

    • I received one of those postcards, maybe it was from your group! It was addressed to “Dear Voters” and the reverse side had a script Vote with rainbow shadowings.

      Ruben Gallego is up 15% over the laughable Kari Lake in the latest general election polls. His ads are very good and focus on what he has done for Arizona and his military service.

      He was running unopposed on the primary ballot I just filled out and will mail later this morning, a testament to his early work to lock in his support and clear the field so that money and energy is not wasted fighting other Democrats but saved to beat the Republicans. It will be nice to not be “represented” by the ridiculous Kyrsten Sinema in the Senate.

  3. Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …

    It is 78 degrees in Tucson ???? with an expected daytime high of 102. Sunny skies this morning with a very slight chance of rain this afternoon and into the evening. It is too muggy and my legs hate it; they love the 10% humidity. I saw the waxing gibbous moonrise yesterday afternoon over the mountains against the clear blue sky, she will be full in the early morning hours of July 21st.

    I am glad that the DNC is continuing their plan to nominate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in a virtual session before the convention opens in mid-August. The plan has been in place since earlier in the year when some red states were refusing to put Biden on their ballots because the Democratic Party’s nomination convention was “too late” for their rules. There will be shrieks about “rigged” by people who do not have ours or our party’s or the country’s best interests in mind, the vote will take place on August 5th and we will have a nominee for the November 5th ballot that can’t be overturned. The Democrats who think there is a headwind against Biden can go sit in a corner with their pacifiers. Biden is our best candidate and he is even better with the “new” Republican Party being formed by Silicon Valley vulture capitalists with JD Vance as the vessel for their new “populism” which includes no taxes on billionaires, no regulation on their rights to pollute and the repeal of all the Good Government policies that keep people like me alive. The guys who failed to get Blake Masters elected in Arizona did get JD Vance elected in Ohio and they are beyond delighted that he is considered the future of the Republican Party, win or lose.

    I was reading a few articles yesterday about the “assassination effect” on tRump’s ratings and I found these two quotes):

    From an Atlantic author: “Anyone who claims to have already figured out precisely how Trump’s bloody ear will influence the 2024 election or strain the nation’s civic bonds is lying to you and to themselves.”

    About a Broder article: “We hear that Trump will now be like Reagan who after his attempted assassination, they quote David Broder here, became ‘mythic’ and ‘politically untouchable.’ Trump is no Reagan. But then neither was Reagan. I don’t know what Broder was smoking when he wrote that but after a couple-month poll bump Reagan’s public support actually went back to where it had been and then got super low for the 1982 midterms in which Republicans got walloped.”

    There is no “assassination bump” especially if tRump keeps wearing the phony “bandage” (designed by his makeup artist) wherever he goes. It will just remind people that he is a showman not a statesman. It may help sell guns but it won’t make the people who don’t like him want to vote for him.

    An article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this morning reminded everyone that the Republican lock on the WOW suburbs around Milwaukee has been dropping since they helped boot Scott Walker in 2018 and is unlikely to help tRump at all as long as Wisconsin Democrats can kick the naysayers to the curb and get out the vote.

    I have a busy day with some accounting projects and then some errands that I need to run.

    See all y’all later!

  4. Good morning, 55 and sunny in Bellingham today. Erica and her family will arrive on Sat for their summer visit so we need to start getting ready for company. RonK is on his way to Costco and I’ve got two more beds to change over to summer bedding. It’s always busy when they are here but nice to have some fun family time together. Best wishes to all.

  5. Thursday Meese.

    Deeply saddened to hear Bernice Johnson Reagon has joined the ancestors

    • I saw Sweet Honey in the Rock performing several times. Uplifting and inspiring.

  6. Good morning, meeses! Thursday …

    It is 81 degrees in Tucson ???? with an expected daytime high of 106. Sunny this morning with a chance of rain this afternoon. No rain yesterday so we did not cool down at all.

    It is sad that the thing that seems most likely to push Joe Biden out of the race is the donations drying up. I guess it was naive to think that just having the support of the Democratic Party base – the voters – was enough, we really are just pawns that rich people play with. :( I keep seeing the “push Biden out” stories but no one can explain how you can legally just ignore the primary results and “pick someone new” even Kamala Harris who is the only choice that won’t cause a major uprising. But, gosh, will the rich people decide that they don’t like her either and install someone like Gavin Freaking Newsom, or someone unvetted, someone who has not survived a presidential primary? I saw some of the headlines yesterday evening and went to bed worried. I am 100% sure that the olds will not survive a Trump-Vance administration and I have no idea how to stop the train wreck I see happening from occurring.

    I need to pivot to things I can change and immerse myself into work projects.

    See all y’all later!

  7. Good morning. Did my walk/run — even ran ¾ of the way up the hill. It’s 83 degrees. At 5:30am. Blech. Anyway, watching Le Tour. People will start coming into the office soon, I’ll plug in earphones when I hear someone else here. Dem club meeting last night was interesting. Our speaker has been to conventions since 1980, served on committees & knows the rules inside out. He said the only way Biden gets replaced is: someone has to declare & get 500 delegates to sign their petition. (ain’t neither thing gonna happen), then a floor vote. So can we please move on now?

    • That’s the problem people are missing! We don’t have smoke-filled rooms picking our nominees because the smoke is cigar smoke and it is all old white men!! You can’t just say “gosh, the primary process selected the wrong candidate, let’s choose someone new” unless you scrap all the rules which would be illegal and ill-advised.

      Nominate Joe Biden and then the rules for succession kick in which would mean that if he dropped out Kamala Harris is the nominee. She is the only acceptable alternative having been both vetted and already a heartbeat away from the presidency, prepared to take over when Biden eventually retires.

  9. It’s 70, was 67 when I got up, heading for 85 and sunny. Humidity’s low – for us – no heat index at all. Supposedly. It’s the 23rd day of no electricity generation and I just do not know what to do. Apparently they don’t care about the possibility of me complaining to the press, giving them 1-star ratings, or taking it to social media. Either that or they won’t think I’d dare unless I threaten to and then they’ll just ignore me forever in retaliation because I don’t have the clout to actually harm them. If I don’t get it back. . . I just don’t. Another dream gone at the least. They certainly don’t care about that.

    Anyway, I do have power and internet. So I’d best be about my boosting day. Holding the Good/Healing Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}

    • Bfitz, when freaking old Vanguard refused to let me have access to my own money for six months, SBG suggested that I mention Governor Josh Shapiro’s name on Twitter and see whether that got me any action.

      It certainly did! The next day I had worried Vanguard staff Twittering away and inviting me to call them. Access was restored. (Apparently someone had tried to impersonate me so that locked me out indefinitely.) I now have access to my funds, but believe me, if I ever receive a windfall, I’ll get T. Rowe Price in Baltimore to manage it.

      You live in a red state, of course, but yes, I’d take it to social media, mentioning the company unfavorably; call or write the newspapers, and give the company an awful review on Yelp. Emphasize the fact that Rethugs are supposedly BIG on personal responsibility, and here you are, a senior citizen trying to be responsible and not cost the taxpayers anything. You can’t emphasize the nonfossil fuel aspect, of course—they’re all fossil fools who love pollution.

      Bottom line: You can’t win a contest you haven’t entered. You’ve done your best through conventional means, it’s now time to try unconventional techniques.

    • A lot of local newspapers or TV stations have places you can call or write reporting a bad vendor and many have good success in getting people to at least fix things (if not replace them).

      You have been defrauded by the solar company. Period. Someone should start feeling the heat.

      • You’re right, Jan. Here in the DC area, Bfitz would call “Seven on Your Side,” who would then send out a reporter and a camera crew to see why this situation has been allowed to continue.

    • I just submitted an email to company – that seems to be the only ones he pays any attention to – saying that if my system isn’t at least in process of being repaired by end of July (it may take longer to actually get repaired, depending on parts) I will be seeking to place a fraud report and will be posting daily “x days my system’s been down and Ozark Solar hasn’t been out yet” on social media. I’ve given him the warning. I’ll keep my word. But as of August 1 if nothing has been done I’ll be posting the daily count. After having lost an entire 5 weeks of the highest solar productivity of the year.

      • THAT is what’s so irritating, blast it! This is the highest solar productivity of the year and you’re unable to take advantage of it!

  10. Good Thursday morning, Meese! It’s a nugly day here in Ashburn, 74 F. going up to 83 F. and so humid that drops of condensation are crawling down the windowpane. Don’t mind cloudy days if they produce rain, but it annoys me when they don’t.

    But enough of this meteorological chitchat. I’m going to stop doomscrolling on Twitter, in fact I’m not even going to look at Facebark unless I have to.

    There are three empty square days on my calendar—yay! Today we’re having dinner at the main clubhouse with a very influential and amusing couple. I love the way she brings a cavernous bag with her and empties half their dinner into little plastic tubs with lids to eat later. She glances shiftily around to see if anyone’s looking when she does this. It’s all I can do not to laugh.

    Crumbs, I’d rather just cook at home. And we will do that on Sunday.

    Dearly had a terrible night so he’s having a nap. He wants to go out later, so I don’t want him driving if he’s too sleepy.

    Chores to do, exercise to do. I hope to accomplish a lot during my “empty squares on the calendar” days.

    Someone said J.D. Vance is only 5 feet tall. Is that true? No wonder he’s such a git. He probably has a Napoleon complex.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!

    • Ha! I try to not look at JD Vance so it is possible he is 5 feet tall. Although I think I have seen him standing next to tRump in photos and they did not look a foot different in height. His brain is very tiny though, which may make him appear shorter in stature.

      A writer on LGM, Robert Farley, summarized JD Vance’s bs, specifically his Hillbilly Elegy bs. He links to Neema Avashia’s negative review of what he refers to as “Peter Thiel’s Fake Appalachian Messenger Boy”:

      Folks outside Appalachia devoured Hillbilly Elegy because it reinforced what they already believed about us: that we were lazy, homogenous, and to blame for the unemployment, addiction and environmental disasters that plagued us. Vance’s description of a Jackson, Kentucky, where “people are hardworking, except of course for the many food stamp recipients who show little interest in honest work”, allowed liberals and conservatives alike to write Appalachia off as beyond saving, and its problems as self-created, and thus, deserved.

      Harper gladly published, and continues to profit off, his memoir. Major publishing outlets issued rave reviews. The book sat atop the New York Times bestseller list for 54 weeks and Ron Howard subsequently made it into a Netflix movie. (More profits, in case you missed them.) Vance quickly became a go-to for legacy media, appearing on CNN as the Rust belt explainer, and talking on NPR as the Appalachian expert, when in fact he was in no position to do either.

      Vance’s narrative, and the people and institutions who championed it, who profited off it, are why he is Trump’s pick for vice-president. His candidacy rests on the platform that they created for him.

  11. Good morning, 64 and sunny in Bellingham today. I have PT this morning, then some errands, and then the dreaded desk work. We have a few more house and garden tasks to do and then we’ll be ready for Erica’s visit. RonK would like to have a meal plan for next week but people will be coming and going so we’ll just need to be flexible. I’m trying to focus on family with the hope doing so will ease tRump angst but it’s hard. As always, my best wishes to all.

  12. Friday Meese. It’s only going to be 83 here today – yay.

    I stand with my sisters:

    Puerto Rico

  13. Good morning. Did my walk/run- it’s a mere 80 degrees, brrr. Ran one whole song, then as I was finishing, I ran back up the ramp to the roof. Anyway, watching Le Tour, it’s been quite exciting. Glad the R convention is over, it’s too much to hope that the news people might cover some actual news, but at least it won’t be convention coverage.

  14. It was 59 when I got up, 62 now, and heading for 83 with a heat index only 84. We’ll see if that happens or if the humidity comes back this afternoon and ramps it up a bit. I didn’t have to turn on the A/C yesterday and probably won’t today either. Thank heavens.

    The Ozark Solar guy hasn’t responded to my email. Well, he’s got until the end of the month to do something. I’ve made very clear why it’s important to me on multiple levels. I’ve made it very clear I’m not just going to let it go. I am not going to bother to remind him why it should be important to him. If he doesn’t know I’m surprised he’s still in business. I will start gathering my paperwork from 10 years back in case I need it. Sigh.

    I wasn’t watching closely enough when I went to put out birdseed this morning & Freddie got out. Rennie’s running around the house meowing because he didn’t manage to get out too. I hope the little so-and-so comes back soon. He will only come in through the back door and there are wasps building a nest right there. I hadn’t planned on opening the back door again until my son gets here Sunday to deal with that. At least it’s too chilly still, at the moment, for the wasps to be active.

    Another day. I’d best get to my boosting. Holding the Good/Healing Thought for everybody. {{{HUGS}}}

  15. Good Friday morning, Moosekind! I just cooked a nice greasy breakfast for Dearly and self. Should keep us going for quite a while. He’s asleep because some cat from a physical therapy place will come around later, so he has to get his nap right now.

    Dinner last night went very well. They’re a nice couple. I didn’t know she’d been a nun for 8 years! Well, she certainly isn’t now, since she’s the one who arranges the Unitarian dinners. They’ve been married for ages and have two children.

    Four lines of a poem about another embattled leader, long ago, keep running through my mind this morning:

    “Nay, give me my battleaxe in my hand,
    Set the crown of England on my head so high
    For king of England I am
    And king this day I will die.”

    Poor, much-maligned and unjustly vilified Richard III knew he’d been betrayed. He knew there was a good chance he wouldn’t live to see sunset over Bosworth field. But he fought anyway, because it was his country and he loved it.

    Reminds me of our beleaguered President. Donated yesterday because there are those of us who want to money-bomb the campaign to show our support. I had to donate (reluctantly) to our new congressperson, and I donated to Angela Alsobrooks because I so badly want her to win against the reprehensible Hogan, but that’s all, folks. Have gained new and surprised respect for AOC and lost respect completely for the “ride off into the sunset, Biden” screamers.

    But enough of that political chitchat. Right now in Ash-no-longer-quite-so-burned it’s 73 F., going up to 88 F., with manageable humidity. It’s a little nicer day to look at, too. However, if I go for my evening passegiata, I’ll be sure to spray my hat and garments with Off! The insects would eat one alive.

    Enough from me, Moosekind—there is laundry to do, and I must run to Trader Joe’s for wine and roses! Wine for Dearly and roses for moi.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond, and ridicule to J.D. “Guyliner” Vance. Really, his makeup artist and Thing’s need to find a different profession.

    • I have been reading about the mosquito outbreaks from the “too wet” summer and am glad to not be part of it. We do have mosquitos but they are small and sparse and can generally be avoided. Water simply does not stand here for very long, it evaporates pretty quickly.

  16. Good morning, meeses! Friday …

    It is 79 degrees in Tucson ???? with an expected daytime high of 104. It is sunny right now and the humidity is finally coming down. Last night we had a nice lightning show over the mountains, high winds and then about a half inch of lashing rain. It cooled us down about 10 degrees and left everything rain washed.

    The press is really not paying attention. What kind of fool writes a headline “Can Trump Unite the US?” JHC on a popsicle stick!! First, he does not want to unite the United States, his goal is to tear it into warring factions with his tribe, white christian nationalists, coming out on top. Second, the only thing about tRump that makes him a unifier is unifying those who oppose his regaining power – it unifies Democrats and Independents and the few Republicans who are not in the MAGAt cult and who can’t (yet) bring themselves to vote to destroy the country for cuts in the marginal tax rates. The lazy and vile corporate press is the main problem right now.

    I don’t know if Joe Biden will be our nominee but right now I am looking around for where I can complain if he steps down and they choose some safe white guy instead of elevating Kamala Harris. The Phoenix paper said that Mark Kelly is being considered. Keericed! You don’t just plug a guy into the presidential nomination who you think people will like. He ran in two statewide campaigns. He might make a good VP choice for Kamala, though. One of the bonuses with making Kamala the nominee is that the loathsome Gavin Newsom could not be VP because they are both Californians.

    I delayed my walk because when I sat down at my computer there was a crisis I needed to work on. Also, it was way too muggy. I am going to try now.

    See all y’all later!

  17. Good morning, 64 and sunny in Bellingham today. Pt was encouraging yesterday so despite the tRump and Dem election mess I feel a bit hopeful this morning. If I can stay with Keith’s plan I may have less back and neck pain and better mobility. I can’t do anything more re the election so keeping our small world safe and as comfortable as possible is my coping plan.
    I see a new doc this afternoon and if all goes well I’ll have a new lab soon. One of the many reasons for changing docs is to simplify the computer notices so our inbox is less confusing. With messages to both of us from multiple health care systems it’s a lot to sort out. Best wishes to all.

  18. Saturday Meese. Was very pleased to see the response to my diary at Orange.

    Deeply saddened by the loss of Shelia Jackson-Lee

    • Cancer sucks and pancreatic cancer sucks more than most. Sad to see her passing.

    • Sis, my daughter-from-Texas-now-in-Massachusetts was mourning the death of Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee yesterday. She really loved her. The poor lady was dead in one month from pancreatic cancer. What an awful disease! May she rest in peace.

      • The problem is that there are few options for treatment. If you don’t qualify for the Whipple (which only gives you at best another 3-5 years longer to live), you are left with chemo which is generally ineffective. There are too many things attached to where the pancreas is that when they shut down, you are done.

    • Pancreatic cancer is very painful so to that part, it’s good that it’s over for her & she’s in a place where she’s forever strong & healthy. But it’s a sad, sad day for our nation.

  19. Good morning. On my way to my Saturday workout. Just 2 more weeks. Going to try to run as much of the mile as I can, so maybe I can do my mile next week.

  20. It’s 65 heading for 85 and sunny at the moment. Unless the clouds that are expected to move in this afternoon increase the humidity and thus the heat index I may get one more day without having to turn on the A/C. But the overnights, while still in the 60s through next Friday, won’t be low enough for me to be able to keep the A/C off after today. Still, it’s a nice respite for July.

    Well, the word “fraud” got to the Ozark Solar guy. He replied with the mixture of anger and hurt (and guilt trip) that I expected. Family issues, back injury, equipment failure and repair – also mentioned the times he’s come by for some minor thing like resetting a breaker on the inverter without charging me. He’s absolutely right. That sort of thing isn’t covered and he could have hit me with a service call. But he said he’d be out Tuesday to do the diagnostics so he can put in the order for the replacement inverter. So the email did what it was intended to do. I replied that I can understand family issues, health issues, equipment issues. What I can’t understand is a “I’ll get to it when I can” with no indication of what that might be. And said I’ve always tried to support him/his business. I have extoled his virtues to any and everybody I talk to about my PV system. That was why I hadn’t done anything earlier and was giving him 2 weeks warning before I did anything now. I hoped to see him Tuesday, would be happy to contact SolarEdge again on his behalf if that’s what it takes to get their attention as it did before, hoped that my system would be up in a few weeks, and hoped even more that I could go back to extoling his virtues to any and everybody I talk to about my PV system. We shall see what we shall see.

    Off to start my boosting day. Holding the Good/Healing Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}

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