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.
…
Good morning, 50 and sunny in Bellingham today. Good news for my community and for our global environment!
A death blow to coal ports in Washington?
Yay!!! Good news for people who care about the earth.
Morning all! Warm here this morning, feels more like summer now.
Apparently a CNN panel of commentators spent time last night discussing Trump’s blather about Hillary being an “enabler” of Bill’s infidelities. I didn’t watch it, but someone posted a clip on Twitter of a young black woman, don’t know her name, firing back at all these men for attacking a woman who did nothing wrong simply for being married to a man who did. It is just disgusting, and I really hope it backfires big time on the Donald. I don’t know if the nation can take 6 months of his bigoted know nothingism – and I wonder how bad it’s going to get before November. sigh.
OK, exams to grade – everyone have a great day!
I am not sure how much lower he can go with the women’s vote.
His “coalition” is white bigots and old Fox News viewers who are being told that Trump is “mainstream” Republican. They will vote R until they die.
Gods, Geordie, that really pissed me off and NO ONE in the media called Trump out on it! They’re such pond scum.
Good morning, meese! Wednesday …
It is 49 degrees in Madison on its way up to 70. Dense fog advisory until 10am then cloudy skies the rest of the day.
West Virginia Trump voters gave Bernie Sanders a victory with Hillary winning the Democratic Party vote. I hope Sen. Sanders is proud that his campaign attracts voters who hate blacks, women, and Barack Obama. He might want to stop and consider that this is not revolutionary but reactionary.
Joe Biden says he is confident that Hillary will be the nominee and the president. Mitch McConnell appears to feel the same way, hoping that “four years of Hillary Clinton will unify the party” for 2020. Too bad for him that in 2020, the Democratic Party coalition will be even stronger and larger than it will be in 2016. Ten million new voters will be added this year and 2/3rds of them are black and Latino.
Is Donald Trump playing the “man card”?
Gender resentment. Check. Racial resentment. Check. Religious resentment. Check. The party of Resentment has found its leader.
See all y’all later!
Happy Woden’s Day, Moosekind, and welcome to the Land of Unremitting Rain and Gloom. Everyone in Washington, DC is getting depressed because of the gray skies and wet pavements. No relief in sight until Sunday, apparently. It’s 54 F. now, going up to 65 F. later, or so they claim.
In a few minutes I have to drive the little girl next door to school. She came over earlier this morning looking for lost homework. Alas, we couldn’t find it.
Have been crawling into bed so early in the evenings that I’ve missed all the good chat going on. I see BS won in WV. Does anyone care? More and more I’m appalled at the intellectual laziness of the media. Hillary was defeated! Bernie still has a path! Jeez.
Have nothing intelligent to say. Wish I weren’t so worn out after that 3,200 miles of travel this weekend. Still seem to be catching up. Wishing a good day to all!
On this: “Everyone in Washington, DC is getting depressed because of the gray skies and wet pavements”. I thought it was because Ted Cruz was back in town!!!
Last night someone Tweeted out a copy of a Sanders fundraising email (post “victory”) that did not include a path to the nomination but instead a chance to be heard at the convention.
Polls are showing that Oregon is not feeling the bern any more. That plus a closed primary may net Hillary a victory there. Sanders is counting on a blowout win in Oregon to set the stage for California. I think the only state they win now is Kentucky, another state filled with Thurmond/Wallace Democrats who will vote for Trump in the fall. Nice legacy you got there, Sen. Sanders!
I hope you get caught up from travel weariness. It usually takes me 5-6 days to get back to feeling normal again.
So, the Tx Attorney general is calling for the resignation or firing of a north Texas school district superintendent because they have a bathroom policy that protects transgender people. A state senator not from Austin has filed a bill negating our pretty darn decisive vote to require fingerprint background checks for services like Lyft & Uber. So much for believing in local control.
We got rain overnight. I set my mint out to get water, but I think it’s a lost cause. I got some parsley & strawberry seeds at Target, maybe I’ll try them. Or is it the wrong time of year to start strawberries?
Sooooo sleepy. Wish I could stop waking up at 3:15 — it doesn’t give enough time to get back to really good sleep.
Rain is good (as long as…) – you can still do strawberries if you get day neutral everbearing types. The varieties they sell in hanging baskets usually work – you won’t get anything in the heat of summer but you should get a couple per runner while the temps are under 95 and again when it cools back down a bit. Same thing for tomatoes, especially cherry tomatoes. (And I call any stretch of sleep longer than 45 minutes good.) No comment about the “yea local control except when it passes something I don’t like” folks – we’ve got the in our legislature, too.
Started the day at 68 and heading for 85 again. A little more overcast – that will increase over the course of the day, darn it – and over 75% chance of rain after dark. We can use the water. If it goes around us – again – I’ll need to water my fruit/nut trees and flower garden.
So B.S. managed to exceed his target by 1 pledged delegate in WV. woohoo. Hillary is going to be our nominee and, please goddess, our next president. And if we can manage to convince our team to turn out in 2018, she will be able to move our nation forward by a couple of leaps and maybe a bound. If not, we’ll have to keep inching along while doing damage control/prevention.
Feeling fuzzy again – don’t know whether it’s the pollen etc or the decongestant I’ve been using so I could get some sleep or a combination thereof – which I hope will pass off when I get around to my 2nd cup of coffee. I’ve got to start entering summer payroll (a convoluted process you don’t want to know anything about). Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Hugs to all – popping in and out – grading final exams – one more to go on Friday and soon I’ll be free!
Here is a bit of good news on a story that I think you were following: West Point Clears Black Cadets Who Raised Fists In Pre-Graduation Photo
Good news. (The Vote Vets people had an online petition out for them that I signed.) I as a white woman can raise my fist in celebration without it being a political statement. Glad the West Point people have decided that black women can too.
Well, thank yew, West Point (sarcastically). Why is it that women of color are punished for actions that white women get away with?
Talk about a double standard!
Is one of the subjects I’m addressing in my Sunday piece – danke!
Morning all – Diana wish I could trade you some of our sunshine for your rain, we need it down here. It’s very summery this week, which means I basically stay inside, which is ok because I have to grade exams anyway.
The WVa result was pretty revealing – Sanders won the “I will vote for Trump in Nov but meantime I can vote against the Woman Who Supports the Black President now!” vote. I do wonder how much money Sanders has left in the coffers – he said he’s not running ads in California which will damage his chances there. I am so angry about the way he’s run this campaign, I not only despise him and his wife and his campaign managers, I also never really want to visit Vermont again! And I already gave up Ben and Jerry’s – good thing I get my coffee from Peet’s in San Francisco.
All right, off to check twitter then on to grading (ugh) – have a great day everyone!
Geordie, you are articulating how I feel, although, given a chance to visit Vermont, I would not refuse. It is, after all, the home of Howard Dean.
Very true – it’s a beautiful state, and if Howard Dean would take on Sanders in 2018 for his Senate seat, I’d go up and campaign for him!
Good morning, 60 and mostly sunny in Bellingham. I slept late this morning, and then family phone calls started so now I’m late for everything.
Have a good day everyone!
Good morning, meese! Thursday …
It is 59 degrees in Madison on its way up to 68. Cloudy skies with occasional rain is the forecast.
Trumped out! Berned out!!
I saw an article yesterday about the Rio Olympics – a public health professor recommending that the Olympics be cancelled or postponed because of the Zika virus. I have been thinking this for a while: what world-class athlete would want to risk their health, maybe their life, merely to compete? The professor pointed out something I had not considered, that those athletes – and tourists – bringing the virus back to their countries will accelerate its spread and set the stage for a worldwide epidemic. Yikes! And of course Congress dawdles over funding.
University students at UNC are suing the federal government for their planned withholding of funds because of the civil rights lawsuit; the governor says it is not fair to call his potty laws “Jim Crow” and maybe we should look at that whole Civil Rights Law, seems wrongheaded if it won’t allow for protecting little kids!! One school district has a fix, though, they are allowing students to carry pepper spray to “take out” any classmate they think might not be in the right bathroom. Including, I imagine, girls who don’t wear dresses like the signs outside the door CLEARLY SHOW!!!
America … now just a beer. Maybe better that way, we obviously suck as a country.
See all y’all later!
Morning all – wayyyyy early for me, but couldn’t sleep – I’m trying to stop taking Prilosec because of the studies showing those kinds of meds may be connected with development of dementia later in life (they’ve now discovered, they think, the actual connection with cell deterioration so I’m taking it seriously now), but of course, I had heartburn in the night, and finally gave up trying to sleep and got up. I also had a disturbing experience at DKos last night which I couldn’t stop thinking about.
Trigger warning – you may not want to read the rest of this, about a diary at DKos on a video depicting gun violence in connection with Hillary.
I was so disturbed last night to see a diary by Meteor Blades on the FP of DKos about a disgusting “video” someone, undoubtedly a Bernie supporter, put together (read it was a student doing some sort of exercise), showing Bernie shooting and killing Hillary. The diary was ostensibly about Ted Nugent, the no talent lizard brain right winger, who circulated the thing on line (although I’m not sure he was the only person) – but MB included a graphic description of the video and a link to it. It just completely set me off – I’ve been held at gunpoint in a robbery, years ago, and this just triggered a lot of stuff. Most importantly, it felt like MB was giving even wider circulation to this awful thing by putting it on the front page of DKos – totally unnecessary. I commented in his diary, asking him why he put the diary there, and then, in the Hillary supporters diary, I said the video in the diary smacked to me of a “guilty pleasure” to some Bernie supporters. Well, MB did not like that one bit, and sent me private message at Dkos (which I just now saw) smacking me down for “accusing” him (which I didn’t do) of attacking Hillary. He also responded to my comment in the Hillary diary, which I didn’t see till this morning when I got up – thankfully, other people defended me, asking him to understand how a woman might have the reaction I had.
But all this makes me just want to never open that site again – as I told MB in my reply to his message, the diary was pretty inescapable as it was right on the front page, and thinking about it was another reason for my sleepless night. It was completely unnecessary, imo, and I cannot imagine that a diary showing violence to Bernie would ever have made it onto the front page. I fully expected, after reading MB’s message, to see myself banned from DKos, and maybe I still will be, but whatever. Ugh. I don’t like being at odds with people, and I have great respect for MB’s work, but I just think he was wrong here, and also wrong for coming at me the way he did.
All right, time to make some coffee, let the dogs out, and get some grading done. Sorry to start out with such a down this morning, but I’m pretty upset about this incident, and you guys are the only ones I can talk to about it. Thanks in advance for your understanding.
Oh, Geordie! {{{hugs}}} Completely understand and sympathize! I, too, have been held up at gunpoint. I know what that feels like. It’s as if time stands still.
I agree that was remiss of MB. To my mind, the Bernie Bros. are accorded far too much leeway on that site, and Hillary supporters far too little (imagine the site owner telling us not to rejoice after she won New York). If it weren’t for the safe threads, I wouldn’t go there. I did post a diary about how to help Hillary without canvassing or phonebanking yesterday and may do a follow-up post.
No wonder you had a sleepless night. And congratulations on stopping Prilosec. My doctor prescribed Nexium for me but it gave me such severe side effects, I emailed him and told I absolutely refused to take it any more. Now, I’m really glad I did! He prescribed Zantac twice a day instead.
Hope you can give yourself an easy day and I’ll send some rain your way.
You have every right to be upset, Geordie. When I read the story about the Nugent video, I hoped that no one on Twitter would link to it or, worse, display it in the open where I couldn’t avoid it. I did not even want to see discussions about it. America is a place where angry people kill each other with guns PLUS I grew up during the 60s when politicians and political activists were killed. So, yeah, just hearing about it triggered me. I did not want nightmares.
I don’t want to say too much about the personalities on DK but suffice it to say that “justice” there is not even handed. Some of the front pagers have been enablers of the worst sort of Obama-hate and it is not shocking that it would become Hillary-hate since the Berner-movement is fueled quite a bit by anger at the president for not delivering the puristas a pony.
There is a disruptive force in the universe right now and it had me unable to sleep as well. I was up at 2am and just lay there until it was a reasonable time to get up.
I hope you can take a nap! I plan to.
thanks for the supportive reactions everyone, means the world to me.
Sheesh – I missed all of that – haven’t had time to be over at orange much Sis – will go back and take a look this afternoon – have piles of papers to grade.
Tonight will be on WBAI talking about Shirley Chisholm
Dee, this is so exciting – I hope I can find WBAI on line to listen to you!
Dee, I listened to most of the show until my brother called at about 9:45 so missed the last bit – you were so great! So interesting too. Great work!
My dogs started barking like crazy while we were on air – lol Perils of phone-interviews
I heard that! The host thought it was one of the other guests’ dogs, but I knew who it was barking!! lol Added a nice touch, I thought.
{{{geordie}}} My first “boyfriend” was shot and killed by a couple of thugs trying to rob the grocery store where he worked after school. My response to your comment at GOS (just saying MB knows better and I was surprised at him but that I’d been surprised at him since the primary started) got a rather belligerent response from him – something about he did put a trigger warning in there and show him where he’d ever written anything anti-Hillary. Sigh. Hope you don’t think I was throwing you to the wolves in my response (that I was responding to your comment and am glad to know there was a trigger warning in there – and also that I stay out of everything except Hillary-positive diaries right now). I’m probably being a coward, because my response should have been something along the line of “why the hell did you FP that dreck in the first place” but I don’t want to make enemies of anyone. Goddess, I hope things can “get back to normal” once the primaries are over.
Not at all, no worries – I have another message from him at DKos I see, but I’m not even going to open it, as I know it will be just more abuse, and I’m done with that. I will take a Dkos break, except for Moody’s WOW diary, and see if I feel like giving them traffic after a while.
You can always visit the Pootie diaries. Primary and rox/sux crap is expressly forbidden. At this point, while you can always post a picture of B.O. with Bo and Sunny, you can’t post a picture of Hillary back in the ’90s with Socks and Buddy much less a picture of Bernie and the bird. Totally a “feel good, we support our Peeps in sickness and health” sort of place. But yeah, the instant attack when even the mildest of concerns is expressed – not worth it. (And not what I would have expected from MB. Guess he’s more like B.S. than I’d have thought.)
It is amazing to me when people minimize the pain a person can feel from pixelated words on a computer screen. “I have another message from him at DKos I see, but I’m not even going to open it, as I know it will be just more abuse, and I’m done with that. ” The abuse is real, the pain is real and you are wise to stay away from it. I spend time avoiding direct confrontation because in my early blogging days, I would often find nasty insults directed at me and I would let them bother me for days – throwing me off completely in my real life (I am a delicate flower!!).
The best cure is to leave it behind and don’t feel tempted to look at again. If it is an important message from site administration, they will find another way to contact you.
My own opinion is that adding the message function to DK was a step backwards as it related to community and online civility. It became too easy for people to coordinate attacks and engage in destructive gossip (previously you would need someone’s email address to communicate with them). It is good that you have other places to be online.
Good morning, Moosekind, and happy Thor’s Day! Let’s see: it has been raining. It continues to rain. It’s another day of fog and gloom. People are ready to depart en masse to Cuber or wherever else they can find sunshine.
Had another “nothing” day yesterday, in which I achieved little except in the matter of personal grooming.
Tonight is the last Daisy meeting, although we have Bridging to Brownies and the end-of-year Troop party in June. At one point Younger Son and DIL wanted to pull Miss Pink Cheeks out of Daisies, but hail, it’s once a month for one hour and I’m the one who takes her there, stays with her, and brings her home. They don’t have to do a thing. And MPC loves it! (Goodness, those little girls have a lot of energy. Wish I had it.)
Still feeling a terrific urge to write a blog entitled “The Weirdness of Planning for Extreme Old Age.” Perhaps I’ll do that today. There’s one telephone call I need to make before I can start writing, though.
Wishing everyone a good day and please, Goddess, no horrible events in the world!
Rain again — I can’t bring myself to complain about it, having been through the drought of 2011. There were a couple of years where, when I did triathlons, you could walk most of the swim leg. Of course, we’ve had floods since, but I still can’t complain about rain. But — Canada really needs rain, it would be nice if they got some.
We’re pulling old files at work, in 1 hour shifts. Sounds short, but man, my shoulders are so unhappy. I keep getting the top drawer when my turn comes, and even on a stool, it is hard for me. I’m leaving work early tomorrow because I made an appointment for a massage. I’m so glad I bought a package, because I couldn’t afford it otherwise & man do I need one. Even muscle relaxers aren’t helping.
Brain is playing Everlasting Love, which makes me happy.
59 at dawn and working our way to 75 (about 10 degrees cooler than yesterday), got 1-1/2″ rain overnight which we really need, and the sun is peeking through the dissipating clouds. We’re heading back into an “Early-Mid Spring” sequence of weather for the next 10 days – highs in the 60s to 70s and lows in the 40s to 50s. If I weren’t going to be baking up a storm on Sunday, I’d have a fire. It’s supposed to be that chilly. And of course I cleaned out the woodstove “for the season” last Sunday.
I’m not sure what’s worse in my life right now – the insanity at work or the insanity of the primaries. At least the primaries will be over in a couple of months. I’m not scheduled to retire until end of 2017. All the more reason to be grateful for the safety of the Moose Pond. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 51 and sunny in Bellingham. Every day this week has been busy with estate sale planning and problem solving, and there’s more to do today. I organized the appraisal in 2013, but memory fades and trying to put all the pieces together is proving difficult. Last night, for example, I found the photos (over 500) were no longer in corresponding order with the written appraisal. Everyone in the family has a cd of the photos and they are sending their choices of items they want to have to me so I can find said items. I think I’ve got the information organized again and today all the photos and the corresponding info is going in an album so they won’t get shuffled again.
The appraised items are all in storage so the estate seller will move and unpack everything but we still have several days work to pack and move the rest of the stuff from the house. Fortunately our sons will be helping us do that, because Ron’s brothers are not able to do so. But between my creaky knees and Ron’s swollen knee we are not as able bodied as we used to be either.
We leave on Saturday, and expect to return on the 25th of May so I won’t be on line very often. Getting the estate sale done and the house sold will keep us busy and tired, but it will be a major relief to have all of this over. I needed a distraction from the primary blues but this is more than I bargained for!
Good luck with it all – I know from experience how much work being an executor can be, but it will be a huge relief when it’s all done. Kind of a ‘beat your head against the wall because it feels so good when you stop” kind of deal. And hopefully Donald Trump will be nowhere to be found in all of it!
Good morning, meese! Friday …
It is 46 degrees in Madison on its way up to 58. Partly cloudy skies and then afternoon rain in the forecast. My Weather Channel desktop widget finally bit the dust. I had kept the old version, refusing to upgrade because I did not like how the new one worked. It was about 5 years old and now it just won’t start up any more. So I will have to go find a replacement because I need something to tell me the temperature at a glance.
Trump daily word salad: racist butler, Paul Ryan, slobbery Senate slobberers.
Another day, another Kill Obamacare lawsuit finds a right-wing judge willing to buy in. It will be struck down by the DC Circuit, appealed to the 4-4 Supreme Court, denied certiori and then the cycle will start again. I am sure there are already a dozen more cases in the pipeline. Waste of time, money, and our judiciary.
The Department of Education has issued guidelines to schools on transgender bathroom access and what federal law requires:
I was a bit shocked to read a story suggesting that President Obama was going to discuss the hard-slog of democracy as a way to address the Bernie Sanders supporters in a commencement speech this weekend at Rutgers. Hello? Did they miss the Howard speech or does that one not count because the graduates were black? Or is the message about pragmatism and slow progress supposed to only refer to civil rights and justice and not “economic revolution”? Still shaking my head over that. I am glad that the media is finally willing to write about the Democratic Party coming together (we are really only in “disarray” in the minds of a few deadenders and the lefty-liberal blogs) but it is frustrating sometimes to read the winding path they took to get there.
It is Friday and I am not done with my targeted goals for the week so off I go!
See all y’alls later!!
55 here in the Catskills going up to 66 with rain – last final exam today – headed down to school and then home to grade the papers and start entering grades.
Haven’t looked at the news yet this morning – will get around to it later. Enjoying my coffee.
Good morning, Moosylvania, and happy Freya’s Day! Wish the day were as beautiful as she. It’s another misty moisty morning in Northern VA, 62 F. now and 74 F. later—or so they say. When Monty and I went out to get the paper there were sprinkles in the air.
Jan, thanks for making my old age blog a featured post! I needed to get that off my chest. We’ve been invited to an event at Gatsby Woods and we’re going. You never know, we might wake up one morning and find we’ve won the lottery, so we can move there.
Appalled that one of the nicest Hillary supporters on GOS has been bojo’d. That site is so prejudiced toward HRC it’s outrageous. Oh, well, another month until the primaries are over.
Haven’t really looked at the news yet. Dilma Rousseff is not faring well in South America. The news here is nothing but a Trump Dump. I’d like “Dump Trump” better, but then who would run against Hillary? I think he’d be the easiest to beat.
A good day to all at the Pond and Beyond!
I’m actually sad about Dilma – she’s catching a lot of flack for problems she didn’t make.
Women are always stuck with cleaning up messes men have made – and getting blamed for the mess itself as well as for not cleaning it up better and faster.
SO TRUE, Dee and bfitz!
I found your post in my email notifications, put in the More tag to split it and then added it to Featured Posts. I have not found time to read it yet (my morning got away from me) but I will. It is a topic of interest to me as I ease into retirement and then plan for my later years. I will save my thoughts for your post!
Thanks, Jan!
I forgot! Happy Friday the 13th, fine witchy day it is!!
What ho, you’re right! I love Witchy Fridays too.
Perhaps something magickal will happen…one never knows.
I’m leaving work early today, scheduled a massage because my shoulder muscles are so tight… I’ve taken muscle relaxers & they did nothing. Like, at all. And I also have that yearly appointment to get squished (though it’s every 2 years now, so that’s somewhat better) Anyway, today is a busy day. Two of my favorite TV shows were canceled yesterday, but I know Nathan Fillion will find something interesting to do.
Love the Obama administration letter to schools. I could hear heads exploding all over my state, especially our lunatic Lt. Gov.
And I had U2 music in my head until I opened a tab for youtube & it had Disappear sitting on the front page. Now that’s what’s playing in my head & I’m wishing I had a time machine. Yes, I’d save the Kennedys & Dr. King, but also John Lennon & Michael Hutchence, try to have a word with Prince if I could. The world needs more good, creative people.
Tight muscles need heat – especially moist heat. Hot tub is best, sauna is OK, warm compresses work. Baths would work better if they ever designed a comfortable bathtub. For showers to work you have to stand in them practically until you use up all the hot water. {{{anotherdemocrat}}}
Yes, you’re right, that’s so annoying about showers! I have to take them now instead of using my bathtub. It seems to me that showers are very wasteful indeed for exactly the reason you mention. :(
Hope you find some relief, another! Does acupuncture help with your shoulder tightness? I’ve always wondered about acupuncture but have never tried it.
acupuncture might help, but I have no money at all right now – I pre-paid for a package of massages so all I’m paying for today is the tip
maybe I’ll go to my gym & sit in the dry sauna
totally right on, and deeply depressing post about progressives & feminism: http://sadydoyle.tumblr.com/post/138860699828/progressive