Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Oct. 4th through Oct. 10

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 (every Sunday morning). 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 now 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 and use the link.

45 Comments

  1. Morning all! Another cool morning here in north Florida, but it will get back up to the 80’s today and for the foreseeable future – if it cools down at night, though, the way it has been, the day time temps seem much more bearable.

    I too hope HRC is an Obama Democrat – the DLC influence is one of the main reasons I have always hesitated to support her wholeheartedly. I always thought her politics were somewhat to the left of Bill Clinton’s, and I hope that remains true. I’m afraid no Democrat can expect to win based on how white voters are going to vote – at least 20%, maybe 30% are a lost cause to us. We have to rely on the good sense of African-American, Latino and other non-white voters to vote in their own best interests and in the interests of the country and the world to put Dems in office. We will need that Obama coalition in 2016.

    Have a great day everyone!

    • It struck me while I was listening to Hillary’s excellent speech to the Human Rights Campaign on Saturday morning that a lot of the progress that Obama has made was in undoing the things that the DLC brand wrought on our country: DADT, DOMA, NAFTA, mandatory sentencing, repeal of Glass-Steagall … I am sure I am missing something. It was better to have any kind of Democrat than a Republican (and we got Ruth Bader Ginsburg!) but the price we paid was high.

      The country is going in a different direction now and it is with the coalition that Obama put together: unions, young people, people of color.

      • Hillary isn’t Bill. She never was, although she supported his policies while he was in the White House as she had while he was in the Governor’s Mansion. She’s always been left of him and in fact she’s a sizable chunk of the reason he was as left as he got, just as Eleanor Roosevelt was a sizable chunk of what pulled FDR to the left. Both men were economic centrists if left to their own devices. Both men were very caring people who somehow managed to compartmentalize their actions from the effects on regular people – but if shown in a very personal way (usually by being introduced by their wives to a few individuals who were so effected) could and did change their minds and some of their policies.

        Go back and check out the beginning of that excellent HRC event – where Chad is introducing her. Take a look at the team she put together for her campaign. Hillary has been working for minorities of all varieties for decades. Her coalition overlaps considerably with Obama’s – but it’s her coalition, the one she’s been building since 1976.

        • Here is a series of videos (6 to be exact) from Hillary’s appearance on the Today Show, structured as a town hall event. She speaks to a lot of different issues and, in my opinion, does an excellent job. The videos don’t include ads (yay) so you get full unfiltered speaking by the candidate (and the questioners).

          One of them goes to the foreign policy issue but they run the gamut from likeability, Emailghazi, Trump, guns, college, income inequality … the whole range of important issues facing us.

          • Thanks. She did do an excellent job. She’s very knowledgeable and can handle just about anything thrown at her. Goddess knows she’s had practice. One of the things I like about her policy is that she connects dots. Her plans address multiple issues – an easy example is newable energy – good for the environment, good for dealing with global warming, good for domestic jobs/economy, good for public health – but all of her plans address more than one issue. And she refuses to allow the best to be the enemy of the good – she’ll get the best deal she can for now while she works for something better later. But equally important to me is her foreign policy knowledge and skills. I keep coming back to the Gaza Ceasefire – which held for over 2 years. If she can negotiate with those bitter, bitter enemies and get them to calm down even for a short time, she’s got what I think we need right now.

  2. Good morning, 56 and partly cloudy in Bellingham this morning. RonK is on his way for iPhone assistance….downloading and updating new info iTunes seems to have scrambled it’s brains and fixing what ever happened is beyond us. I was awake in the night, so now I’ve overslept and all the worrisome loose ends that were bothering me still are! So I had best tend to business today.

    A bit of local good news…..

    Land trust buys Lummi Island quarry site for $1.08 million

    “Many islanders have worked for many years on this project and the Heritage Trust is very pleased to have finally purchased and protected the land,” Rebecca Rettmer, executive director for the nonprofit trust, said in an interview.

    “This is a big accomplishment for us and we are excited for the next phase of the project, which will be to determine the best ways to restore the damaged landscape, with an eye toward creating a safe, public access preserve in the future,” she added.

  3. Good morning, meese! Wednesday …

    It is 55 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 69. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    The Obama Administration is releasing 6,000 federal prisoners, the largest one-time release in history:

    The early release follows action by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent agency that sets sentencing policies for federal crimes. The panel reduced the potential punishment for drug offenders last year and made the change retroactive.

    The commission’s action is separate from an effort by President Barack Obama to grant clemency to some nonviolent drug offenders, an initiative that has resulted in the early release of 89 inmates.

    The sentencing panel estimated that its change in guidelines could result in 46,000 of the roughly 100,000 drug offenders in federal prison qualifying for early release. The 6,000 figure is the first batch in that process, the Post said.

    Glad to see the anti-crime excesses of the past being rectified.

    You know, I love Joe Biden in kind of a fun uncle way but he needs to stop the speculation about his running for president because he is in danger of losing the special place he has in people’s hearts. Apparently, he was the one who gave Maureen Dowd the Beau Biden deathbed story for her August column and now he is complaining that it is being misused. Sorry, Joe, you lay down with pigs, you get a stench on you. If you want something to be private, you do not “leak” it to someone with known biases against your potential rivals. It opens your motives up to speculation from the bored press.

    The flooding in South Carolina is causing serious problems as a second wave of flooding is coming from dam failures. The homeless and those living on the edge of poverty are particularly at risk because that state had already shredded the social safety net. Now we hear that repairs on some of the dams (and highways) were deferred so that Nikki Haley could burnish her Vice Presidential resume and give out huge tax breaks to the wealthy. Well, I guess she is going to have to find money to fix the destroyed highways and breached dams. Sucks to live an ideological fantasy in a reality world.

    See all y’alls later!

    • This:

      Apparently, he was the one who gave Maureen Dowd the Beau Biden deathbed story for her August column and now he is complaining that it is being misused.

      Oh, Goddess, this morning on GMA they were gleefully reporting that Biden was outpolling Clinton and beating Rethugs in the polls. They never quit. Biden is perceived as more “honest” than Clinton—Biden, the guy who had to suspend his first presidential run because he plagiarized from Neal Kinnock’s speech? That Biden?

      • I don’t want to burn Biden because I like him as a person but he needs to announce his intentions one way or another. If he is waiting for Hillary’s collapse so he can just come in and scoop up the nomination, he is deluding himself. The PPP polls from yesterday show that no collapse is imminent. She is holding her own in Iowa. If she loses New Hampshire (not a given … NH is a notorious late breaker), that is not the end of the road. Iowa and New Hampshire are the LEAST predictive of the primaries.

  4. Happy Woden’s Day, Moosekind! Saw a fascinating video on the Evening Nudes yesterday about two moose fighting in the driveway of a house in suburban Anchorage. The Subaru was damaged. As usual, the fight was over some girl.

    Cloudy this morning in NoVa, 59 F. going up to 76 F. We have doctor appointments this morning, followed by another hard slog through our possessions. I do hope I have time to make that Banana–Black Walnut cake I’ve been wanting to make. It’ll be my swan song before I have to give away half my kitchen stuff.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and Beyond, especially those two testosterone-fueled moose in Alaska!

    • Your cake sounds lovely. I’ll be very surprised if you don’t manage to continue making wonderful cakes and other stuff even with only half your kitchen stuff. As long as you’ve got an oven to work with – you will have an honest-to-goddess kitchen with a real stove won’t you? Small kitchens are workable. No kitchen is not! :)

  5. 51 here in Saugerties going up to 71. Lovely fall day.

    I’m trying to stay away from a lot of the news – the number of people in this country who love Donald Trump and Ben Carson makes me shudder.

    Was elated about the prisoner release – here’s hoping this is the first crack in the walls of horrific mass incarceration in this country.

    • The other awfulness in the news is that voting rights are still under siege. I don’t know what can be done but we are running out of time before the 2016 elections to get people registered and with valid voter ids unless we start pushing back. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL) wrote a letter to Attorney General Lynch to ask for an investigation in Alabama over the DMV closings. THIS!!

      We don’t want to wake up the morning of 11/9/2016 and find out that people were turned away at the polls.

    • I’m happy about the prisoner release, but I hope to Heaven they are helping these folks get back into society. Just opening the door and saying “Bye” is going to cause some serious problems and put already overstressed safety nets under even more stress. That’s not an excuse to keep them in prison, of course, but just turning them loose isn’t enough. They need jobs and housing – and will be competing for those with the handicap of a record in an already job-poor society. Oh for a “served my time” WPA or CCC program!

      • That was my first thought: what are they being released into? First, the economy is not going that great for unskilled workers which I assume many of these people are. Second, there is still a not subtle at all discrimination against felons even when their crime is drug related (I assume that people who are violent will not be released).

        Smartypants has a blog post on the release: Retroactive Justice:

        Back in 2010, Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act that reduced the disparities in federal mandatory minimum sentences for powder and crack cocaine. But the Act did not address the issue of retroactivity for those who had already been sentenced. Dealing with that issue was left to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The Obama administration has always supported the application of these changes retroactively and former Attorney General Eric Holder testified along those lines to the Commission.

  6. Still allergies. Ugh. Gonna have to switch off from Allegra…. maybe Claritin….

    Earworm is a song I haven’t listened to recently, U2’s Get On Your Boots. It’s a very bass-driven song.

    omg, omg, omg, omg — Pat Rothfuss got a movie, TV, and all kinds of stuff deal!!!!!. Fighting really hard not to “squee”!!!! out loud in my cubicle. In a week of awful news, finally a bright spot. Rothfuss is a really good guy (most recently, been raising money for the Syrian refugees), and Name of the Wind is an amazing book.

  7. 56 supposed to be going up to 80 which I don’t believe and foggy at the moment in Fay., AR. Even though it was really too warm for a fire last night, I built one anyway. So this morning I got up to a house at 68 rather than the 62 of yesterday morning. Funny the difference 6 degrees can make in comfort :)

    Gonna join with folks here about Biden – I like the guy but for many reasons I don’t want him running for the White House, much less in it (unless… – he’s better than any R) . About the best thing I can think of for what he’s doing is it’s got the corporate-owned press fixated on fantasy polls instead of making up more crap about Hillary. (Which could of course be why he’s doing it. The man isn’t stupid, just gaff prone – which is one of the major reasons I don’t want him in the White House.)

    Happy Wednesday to the Meeses. {{{HUGS}}} and I’ll check back when I can.

  8. Good morning, 56 and raining in Bellingham. The tree service is scheduled to prune the hedges and remove some limbs that were damaged in the September wind storm so I hope the rain won’t cause another delay. My old maple trees are still full of mostly green leaves, but the aspen and vine maple trees have their fall colors.

    I always plan to empty the flower pots on a sunny day, but the blooms are still welcome so I wait until they are soggy with rain. Looks like I’m right on schedule again this year!

  9. Afternoon all – it’s a gorgeous day here, warm and sunny but not too hot, so feels like fall is really getting started. My sinuses are giving me hell, and i woke up in the middle of the night with a bad nosebleed – it didn’t last long, and hasn’t returned, but if it does, I’ll call my dental surgeon who did the implant to see if there could be any connection (the implant is right in front.) Fingers crossed it was just a one time thing.

    I like Joe Biden, but I don’t want him to run for President – for his and his family’s sake, and also because I’m just over candidates in their 70’s running for President. I’m almost 65 myself, and I don’t see how Hillary has the energy to do all she’s doing at age 68, but I can see her lasting through 2 terms – I don’t really see that for Biden or Sanders, much as I like both of them. I think part of Hillary’s problem in the polls is Clinton fatigue, plus the unrelenting attack campaign against her, plus some (although this is by far the smallest part of her opposition) honest disagreements with her over policy choices. She’s almost TOO substantive for American politics these days – and we are not yet at the point where the gender of a candidate is a neutral factor. She still has an uphill battle to overcome the hesitancy to put a woman in the White House, which I think many men and some women still feel, whether they acknowledge it or not – I think that is a part of the push for Biden, unconscious perhaps but there.

    • Too substantive may be the problem. In this day and age it is personality or single issue (this hammer will fix EVERYTHING) … there is little space for someone who has specific plans to address every issue, not just shake her fists. It also paints a big target on you because there is so much to both agree with and disagree with.

      I hope the sinus issue is just a coincidence or something that will quickly heal. I have heard that implants on uppers can bother nasal areas for a while; mine was a lower so I did not have to worry about it.

  10. Good morning, meese! Thursday …

    It is 50 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 75! Afternoon thunderstorms are in the forecast. Where is my nice fall weather???

    Well, Rupert Murdoch has the solution to the “uppity black guy” problem: we just need one hand-picked by him! I wonder if anyone has any questions about what sort of demeanor one needs in order to meet Rupert Murdoch’s criteria for “real black”?

    (p.s. Ben Carson does not know what the debt limit is. I wonder if the rich guy who would lose a boatload of money should the United States default on its debt and crash the global financial markets, thinks about that?)

    The House Republicans will meet in secret session today to vote on their new speaker. There are at least three running: Kevin McCarthy, Daniel Webster, and Jason Chaffetz. John Boehner has said that if a new speaker can’t be elected – one needs 218 votes – he will stay on. That makes one wonder if this is a “show vote”, intended merely to shore up his support.

    SCOTUS was arguing about the death penalty … really arguing. We need to find a way to sway Anthony Kennedy to the side of the “abolitionists”. Maybe Pope Francis can send him a note.

    See all y’all later!

    • And just like that, Kevin McCarthy drops out. NY Times:

      Representative Kevin McCarthy on Thursday abruptly took himself out of the race to succeed John A. Boehner as speaker, apparently undone by the same forces that drove Mr. Boehner to resign.

      Mr. McCarthy’s candidacy was damaged when he suggested in an interview on Fox News last week that the House committee investigating Benghazi had the political aim of damaging the campaign of Hillary Clinton.

  11. Good Thor’s Day morning, Meese! It’s 53 F. on a partly cloudy morning here in NoVa, going up to 76 F. Tonight is the Daisy meeting, so I’ll be taking Miss Pink Cheeks there. Her best friend has just joined the Daisies, and the two of them are so sweet. They walked out of class the other day hand in hand.

    All sorts of people are coming to the house today—Paulo the Carpenter, Barry the Electrician, Aggie the Downsizer, and Clear View cleaning service. As Paulo will be putting in a new front door it’s unclear how Clear View is going to bring in the mops and buckets, but we’ll deal with that when we come to it. All this downsizing has made the eczema break out on my left hand again. I have a couple of creams I can use on it but it still hurts.

    To take my mind off the furniture that left yesterday, I made a Banana–Black Walnut cake for tea, frosting it with white frosting. Very tasty! Wonder whether it’ll be the last cake I ever make in this house.

    So how about Rupie Murdoch? If he thinks Ben Carson would be a real black president, does that mean the current officeholder in the White House is an imaginary black president? Carson’s world view appears to be even more simplistic than that of St. Ronnie Raygun. Goddess help us if the Trump-Carson ticket wins!

    Wishing a good day to all, and I hope Geordie’s sinus problems will get better.

  12. Eating breakfast, drinking tea. It is National Poetry Day in the UK (a friend posted David Tennant reciting Shakespeare on FB, it’s quite nice), so here’s something by Seamus Heaney: Digging. And it even has an audio link, of him reciting it.

    Allergies still killing me, I have to get to the store & get a different allergy medicine. Eyes & nose are running so, I’m really surprised there’s any moisture left in my body. (wasn’t there a Star Trek episode where people lost all the water in their bodies?)

  13. I found out what Dee was up to this morning (h/t an offsite friend). Apparently John Lewis endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and that led to some angry words for Rep. Lewis which were very disrespectful to an amazing man.

    Dee replied: The meaning of “life-long civil rights activist,” for me.

    Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Martin O’Malley are not – imho “life long civil rights activists.”

    They are politicians – who have supported a spectrum of issues that can be categorized as addressing civil rights.

    I respect stances they have taken that address the issues that have meaning to me.

    I am refusing to read – over and over again, references to – particularly Bernie Sanders (though I’ve seen it said about Hillary Clinton as well, though not as frequently) that he is a “life-long civil rights activist” without speaking up about it, cause it is pissing me off.

    Attending the March on Washington in 1963 does not make you a life long civil rights activist. (btw – this characterization is pissing off a lot of black folks I know) Getting arrested as a student and bailed out for 25 bucks once or twice does not make you a life long civil rights activist. Hillary Clinton leading a student strike on her campus to get black studies does not make her one either.

    The thousands and thousands of people who marched in the 60’s and 70’s and perhaps got busted at an anti-war rally were great. But that does not make them long term Freedom Fighters, in my book.

    I’m sorry folks, but Bernie Sanders ain’t Fannie Lou Hamer, or Martin Luther King Jr. or John Lewis, or Rosa Parks, or Yuri Kochiyama, or Grace Lee Boggs, or Fred Hampton, or Madonna Thunderhawk.

    You had to be willing to die so that others could live. Period. […]

    Lecturing black people and talking down to us about Sanders is getting more than just mildly irritating. For me, the attempt to place him on the same level as folks who did and do merit the honor, is demeaning the lives and work of those people who earned that label. Many who paid for it in blood, suffering and incarceration.

    Lecturing John Lewis, who the folks who organized the March on Washington thought was “too radical” and censored parts of his speech is beyond my comprehension. […]

    To make it even clearer, I’ve voting for Hillary Clinton – but not because she was a “civil rights activist”. I have my eye on a different prize (SCOTUS) and I think she can win. Do I agree with all the political positions she has taken – hell no. Same goes for Sanders and O’Malley. What I do think is that all of us should be united, no matter our candidate of choice, against the rising tide of right-wing extremists, who are advocating for our deaths. […]

    “The revolution will be slogged, not blogged” A quote from me. ;)

    I did not realize that John Lewis had endorsed Secretary Clinton yesterday. Here is his statement:

    As our former Secretary of State, Senator from New York, and first Lady of the United States, Hillary Clinton is the most qualified person to be President of the United States,” said Congressman Lewis in a statement released Wednesday by the campaign.

    “I know her heart. We need her leadership, not just here in America, but all over the world. She is tireless in her advocacy for those who have been left out and left behind. She is ready to be President on day one. Hillary Clinton has my wholehearted endorsement, and I plan to work and campaign for her to see that she is elected the next President of the United States.”

    He had supported her also in 2007 then shifted his allegiance to Barack Obama.

    • that b.s. is why, while I might be persuaded to vote for someone other than Hillary in the primary (unlikely, because I am also a 1-issue – SCOTUS – voter; but possible), I will never ever be a public Sanders supporter. So many of his supporters are condescending assholes. Not many, but an unfortunately very vocal minority.

  14. Morning all – my sinuses are indeed better this morning, been taking Claritin and it seems to help. No return of the nosebleed so far, so I’m hoping this is not connected to the implant.

    I am going straight over to GOS when I finish posting this to give Denise support – people have just gotten outrageous there about Sanders, who is a good man and frankly deserves better supporters than his contingent at DKos.

    Rupert Murdoch is a corrupt and frankly evil man – if I were Ben Carson, I wouldn’t be happy having his endorsement. But then, Ben Carson is an idiot – he’s obviously intelligent, but like many doctors I have known (my brother the surgeon for one), he’s sure he’s always the smartest guy in the room and is firmly in ‘seldom wrong and never in doubt’ mode, and he’s still an idiot, smarts or no.

    I don’t think any president in modern history, at least since the beginning of the 20th century, has had to put up with public insults the way President Obama has – it’s appalling.

    • It is not just on DKos, Twitter is awful too. I was remarking to one of my friends a few months ago, paraphrasing Ghandi: “I like your Bernie Sanders, your BernieBots are so unlike him”. There are some rude HillBot Tweeters also and some of the ObamaBots (which I usually am) can be a bit ridiculous.

      Ben Carson is a lunatic. I am not sure where he gets his warped view of America from and his denial of his blackness and those who died so that he could say stupid things like “Obamacare is slavery”. He makes Clarence Thomas look like Martin Luther King.

  15. 70 heading for 80 in Fay., AR – some cloud cover – sorry I’m late this morning. Got suckered into some Hillary diaries over at GOS – did enjoy Denise’ rant regarding John Lewis, or rather nimrods likening their preferred candidate to Civil Rights heroes like John Lewis :) Now I have to do some “catch up ball” at work to make up for it. Have a lovely Thor’s day and I’ll check back when I can to read & fierce. {{{HUGS}}}

  16. Good morning, 55 and partly cloudy in Bellingham. It rained all day yesterday, and the tree guys worked with a smile regardless. The laurel hedge had grown very tall and it’s over 8 ft wide so it is not an easy pruning task, but today it looks quite controlled. And the arborvitae hedge by the garden still has a tree like shape but it is no longer taller than the garage. When two skilled men with the right tools and ladders work for nearly 7 hours it is a good reminder that RonK and I are indeed getting older and our hedge pruning days are indeed behind us!

    As I feared my old maple trees are reaching the end of their time in this garden as well. I have loved being sheltered by their branches and the thought of living in this house without them has me in tears. I don’t have to remove them immediately but I do need to think of our safety and that of the neighbors. So I’ll watch the season change in their branches one last time as I come to terms with what’s next :(

    • Geordie, you are right. The way our president has been treated is appalling, outrageous, rude—I’m running out of adjectives. It makes my eyes blood red when I think of all the times we were urged to treat Dubya with “respect,” even though he looked and behaved like a smirking simian.

    • Oh, princesspat, I know how you feel about your maple trees! I’m still mourning the loss of our maple and our apple tree. To me, trees are more than just trees—they’re friends, and when one falls ill and dies, it has me in tears too.

      • Same here – when my pine tree died several years ago (it couldn’t handle a combination of drought and 110 (that was the actual temperature, don’t remember what the heat index was) for 10 days running) I mourned it like a friend or one of my furbabies. The guy who took it down commented on how tall it was and told him the tree was only 14 years old – he asked how I knew, did I count the rings – I told him “I planted it”.

  17. Good morning, meese! Friday (finally)!

    It is 54 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 62. Morning clouds will give way to afternoon sunshine.

    I am having a news hangover from watching “Republicans in Disarray” all day yesterday on my news feeds and Twitter. My guess is that John Boehner stays on as Speaker to finish his term. Paul Ryan is too smart to give up his real power to be a babysitter, fund raiser, and cheerleader for a losing team.

    North Charleston SC will pay the family of Walter Scott, the unarmed black man killed in cold blood by a policeman, $6.5 million. One of these days, citizens will refuse to pay the price of allowing their police departments to shield officers who should be fired. Mr. Scott’s murderer is in jail awaiting trial.

    See all y’all later!

  18. Good morning, Meese. It’s in the sixties heading for 77 with some thunderstorms on the way.

    Hope everyone’s aches and pains are going away. Hope Diana’s downsizing becomes less stressful.

    Am very busy and will be traveling so may not get to check the Pond that often. Stay well.

    Best to the Pond and beyond.

  19. Another hideous night’s sleep. My lying sleep app says 83% restful sleep & 6 hours restful with 1 hr 15 of restless. Yeah… no. I got up at what I thought was 3, then went back to sleep & woke up at what was actually 3….. ugh.

    With it being ACL weekend 2, you’d think I’d have a Hozier earworm, since he’s who I’ve been playing in my car all week, but it’s Disappear by INXS. I wish I had a TARDIS or time-turner, he’s on my list of people to save. Right after John Lennon, who should be 75 today. And now on top of being exhausted, I’m sad.

  20. Good Freya’s Day, Moosekind! We just had a little shower here in NoVa, all over the bathmats I left out to dry on the patio and which I forgot about last night, I was so exhausted.

    After waking up at 4:30 a.m. yesterday I collapsed onto our bed in the afternoon. The electrician had to work around me. I wish I had removed my makeup bottles and tubes from the bathroom before he changed the lighting—he left a layer of red, Martian-looking dust all over everything, which is now my unhappy lot to remove.

    Aggie the Downsizing Lady is straight from heaven. She packs, sorts, discards, and boxes stuff all day long and then takes away the Goodwill donations and so forth. Without her we’d be in sad, sad shape. It is so difficult to downsize 39 years in two weeks! I had originally planned to do it gradually.

    Amused at the Rethugs in disarray. Serves them jolly well right. Can’t believe Ben Carson! He seems like someone from another planet. GOS has become so poisonous I spend only 10 minutes a day there. One of my chief bete noires at that place announced this morning that she “has a sad.” Don’t know why because I never read her diaries. I “haz a disgust” with Berniebots. Some Bernie supporters are nice, reasonable people but many are right over the edge.

    Wishing a good Friday to all and relief from allergies for another and everyone else who has them!

    • This does not surprise me at all: “It is so difficult to downsize 39 years in two weeks!”

      I hope that when you are settled into your new home you will be able to look back on this and say how glad you were that you got it all done with quickly instead of dragging it out. In the meantime, I cannot imagine doing what you are doing. Take frequent naps!

      The problem with the GOS is that every emotion is amplified because the people there are self-selected to be EMOTIONAL about politics. Black or white: no shades of grey; hot or cold: no warm; sellout or purist: no compromise. I don’t think you can win elections (or govern) that way and my bent has always been towards gathering governing coalitions together to win elections and then crafting legislation that can be passed. Which is why I don’t fit in!!

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