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?
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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.
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– Page One of Comments are here.
Good morning, meese! Wednesday …
It is 57 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 79. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.
Sigh. I am not sure what I find more upsetting: that the orange dumpster threatened to nuke North Korea and risk the lives of 53 million people or that Republicans are saying “this is fine”. I am concerned that most of the people running our government right now devalue the lives of people who are not white and will allow them to be collateral damage in a pissing contest between two deranged narcissists with daddy issues.
Today is the 3rd anniversary of the murder of Michael Brown. Instead of reflecting on how far we have come and the promise of a country awakened to the injustice of the treatment of people of color by law enforcement, the country has elected white supremacists and installed a KKK member as the Attorney General to roll back every initiative the Justice Department had been working on. Poof! Disappeared because the United States still uses an election system designed to placate the slave states – and elects those who want to revert to the white male landowner franchise.
See all y’all later!
Another non-walking morning. Feet still unhappy — I may have irritated bones in one ankle, I’ve broken them before & they’re always a little touchy. Anyway, tonight at the gym: medicine ball workout. It is hot & muggy at 6am. But global warming isn’t a thing. Hey, at least our bratty 7 year old POTUS & the loon in North Korea haven’t actually exchanged shots yet. (n.b. I’m writing this at 6:32 central time, in case things change later). Here’s Ultraviolet, and not just for the feminist stuff. This:
Oh, sugar, don’t you cry.
Oh, child, wipe the tears from your eyes.
You know I need you to be strong
And the day it is dark, as the night is long.
62 at dawn – although the moon is still enough of Warrior to wake me before dawn – and sunny today. We can use the electricity generation. With those down day, the average isn’t even 10 KWHs/day yet. There’s a long way to go to reach even Aug. 2016’s 455, never mind Aug. 2015’s 533. But we’ve still got almost 3 weeks so there’s time. m-t-d is 73 at the moment.
We’re still here and Congress isn’t packing lower Courts with Nazis so that’s good. Or at least better than it could be. I’m not worried about the NK situation – if Kim really had a delivery vehicle (as he’s been blustering and bragging for years), he’d have used it already. And pvl45, even if he has the real nuke codes, doesn’t know how to use them. A tweet isn’t an order much less the nuke process and tweeting out the codes will do nothing except get the codes changed immediately. So I’ll continue doing my fundraising stuff and posting my political lists (in the DK Village diaries mostly) – and basically keep on keepin’ on.
Need to get to work – faculty comes back next week and a few have started showing up and needing stuff. Which of course is part of my job, but it tends to interrupt whatever I was doing with other parts of my job. sigh. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, Meese. It’s a spectacularly glorious day here in NoVa, proclaimed by the weather people as “the best of the week.” Currently, at 10 a.m., it’s 65 F., on its way up to 81 F. This is far more like September than August! I am grateful.
Went out to the garden right after breakfast, nabbing a yellow squash, several tomatoes large and small, and no potatoes at all. Bummer. We will get no zukes this year, to my great disappointment. The raspberries, for reasons as yet unclear, have chosen to ripen now rather than mid-June or early July. Why? I caught that dreadful little dog scarfing the ripening berries on the canes within his reach.
After tea yesterday I temporarily forgot Thing’s pronouncement on NK while Dearly Beloved took a rake to knock down some apples. Miss Pink Cheeks and our tenant’s little girl, also aged eight, ran after them. I gave some to the tenant and Younger Son, but I’ll make an apple tart with the rest.
Was SO pleased to actually wake up this morning and realize we haven’t been nuked yet! We’ll probably go see “Dunkirk” to celebrate.
Wishing a BETTER day to all at the Pond and Beyond.
Good morning, 59 and less hazy in Bellingham. It’s good to see the sunlight on my old maple trees. I’m going to the pool this morning and will tend to my desk this afternoon. Sue, my 2 x’s a month housekeeper, will be here today too so it will be a busy day.
Best wishes to all!
posted a picture at the orange place – me in the t-shirt & skirt I’m going to wear in about 42 days:
https://www.dailykos.com/comments/1685841/67398158#comment_67398158
They look amazing! I’d like that skirt myself.
it isn’t cheap, but it has a zipper pocket in the tummy & pockets in both legs — it’s designed as an athletic thing, so it has short leggings under the skirt.
Good morning, meese! Thursday …
It is 68 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 77. The forecast calls for thunderstorms.
It is not as if no one told us this was a strong possibility:
Good news from Wisconsin! Even the captive Republican legislature thinks that it would be a terrible idea to give a Chinese company $3 billion to build a plant when the payback to the state is projected to be 25 years out. You see, once you cut taxes to the bone – to the point where your roads and bridges are crumbling and schools can’t stay open – “investing” money with the return being TAX REVENUE results in a tiny revenue stream. It is like your interest-bearing checking account making .01%; it takes years to earn enough for a cup of coffee. Plus the 25 year “payback” is based on 13,000 jobs which is unicornism – even the most optimistic estimates suggest 3,000 over 10 years. An unpopular president, the ravages of 7 years of Walkerism finally exposing that the Wisconsin economy is in a Brownbackian funk may finally be worrying legislators who have had a free ride running against the tyranny of Barack Obama without having to run for anything other than tax cuts, transvaginal probes, and pee-testing the poor. The best and the brightest are already leaving; sucking taxpayer dollars from K-12 and upper education will accelerate that. Of course, we have seen Republicans claim to be sensible and then show their true colors after the donor class arm twists them so I am not celebrating yet. I believe the deal has to be inked by September 30th.
See all y’all later!
Fer gawd’s sake, Jan, is Walker governor-for-life now?
Wisconsin sounds like the Son of Kansas.
Goddess help you all.
Sadly, we don’t have term limits like they do in states like New Jersey so we are stuck with him as long as he gets to run in low-turnout mid-terms. Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson was only replaced when he was named George W. Bush’s HHS – he had been governor for 14 years and probably would still be governor. When his promoted lieutenant governor ran in the next election, a Democrat, Jim Doyle, finally won. Doyle won two terms but decided against running in the election of 2010 because he saw the tsunami coming. Bad idea, in my mind, because Wisconsin has a tradition of electing incumbents and he might have survived.
We have a few Democrats who have filed papers for next year’s primary but the only ones that can win a statewide race will probably be driven out by the berners here – they are very rabid, one reason tRump won Wisconsin. They would rather lose an election than give up an ounce of purity.
Woke up at 4 freaking 45, but decided against walking. Eating oatmeal, drinking tea. Being happy POTUS hasn’t killed us. I don’t want the world to end till after Sept. 16. I brought my skirt & the shirt, may change into that instead of workout clothes for after work & get someone to help me do a Walk video. I could do one using the 1st chorus of I’ll Go Crazy:
It’s not a hill, it’s a mountain
As you start out the climb
Do you believe me, or are you doubting
We’re gonna make it all the way to the light
I’m going to try posting my picture here – it’s me in the t-shirt & sparkle skirt I’m going to wear
http://motleymoose.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20170809_174407-e1502367386938.jpg
Good morning, Moosekind! It’s a lovely day with light more silvery than gold. This is our last day of nice temperatures before humidity and thunderstorms take over again. Current temp. in NoVa is 61 F., going up to 81 F. later. Clouds will move in tonight, or so they say.
The Moose has been very skittish yesterday and today. Yesterday I had to “clear history” before it would let me post, and today I had to sign in again.
After reading some of the remarks uttered by The Occupant’s supporters in this morning’s Washington Poop, I truly, madly, deeply believe that Thing actually could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight and get away with it. Nothing, but nothing, will tear the wool from their eyes. Their devotion to this sleaze reminds me of the adulation accorded the late Marion Barry, sometime mayor of DC.
In the few seconds I have left over from worrying about North Korea and ferrying my granddaughter to her art camp and back, I’m pissed off that teen pregnancy programs for Baltimore are being cut by the theocratic Rethugs. They moan about women on welfare but deny that contraception enables women to work, thereby obviating the need for welfare.
Gawd, I despise Rethugs. And I’m also beginning to feel frantic that if The Occupant is removed from office, we’ll be left with Pence. All “females” of reproductive age will be required to report their periods to the police. Pence and the Kochs will suspend the Constitution, impose martial law, fire women from their jobs, and take over their bank accounts.
Goddess help us ALL.
I am of two minds about Pence. On the one hand, he would be terrible for every decent person in the United States. On the other hand, his demeanor would be unlikely to get us into an unintended nuclear war. He would still be warlike but in private where he won’t be poking at an unstable dictator. Nor would he consider it “great” to go down in history as one of the few presidents to launch a nuclear attack just because he could.
The silver lining with a Pence presidency is that I don’t think he would win a second Trump term because the people who like Trump will be angry at him and he is the type of Republican who can’t win national elections. The shitgibbon’s coalition will not transfer to Pence. I don’t have enough faith in my fellow voter to believe that they won’t re-elect the orange garbagedump in 2020.
That’s comforting, Jan, thanks!
62 at dawn, a humid 80 now – I hope I don’t have to turn the A/C back on tonight but I’m afraid I will. It’s been overcast enough since I got back online that I’m still not at the 10 KWH/day average yet much less the 18 kwh/day I need to cover running A/C – m-t-d 88 at the moment.
We’re neither dead or at war – which I didn’t expect anyway. Blustering tweets do not a war start, but they do so diminish our standing in the world that we’re pretty much a laughing stock right now. All over the world people are storing up twittler stories so that once we’re out of this mess if we go back to our “normal” self-righteous sanctimonious stances, they can pull out a twittler story and say “yeah, right, hahahahahahaha!” Meanwhile MaureenMower’s got a car and jan4insight’s August mortgage is met so W00t! on the fundraising – now maybe I can get off the screaming urgent and get back to the “merely” important.
Very in and out day – I’m home at the moment doing the laundry I couldn’t do Sunday because of the rain while I wait for a phone call. Should be back at the office by lunchtime. I hope. I’ve got stuff to do there – open registration starts Monday and the faculty comes back – need to get my desk clear before then. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 63 and still eye burning hazy in Bellingham. My morning news reading is suffering from tRump loathing and aversion to Dem infighting so I’m reading about dragons instead. Three more episodes of Game of Thrones and then a long wait to see how the story ends. Sure hope the tRump saga ends sooner.
I’m going to work on making the deer fence around the vegi garden a reality today. Just a few more decisions to make and we’ll have a working design that will keep the deer out and won’t look like an eyesore. The experts recommend a 7′ fence but Ron thinks that’s too high, and I don’t want to build something that might not work. So we have a few issues to resolve before we can start digging post holes.
Hope it’s a good day for all!
Princesspat, my friend Brenda, a keen gardener, used the following product this year:
http://www.plantskydd.com
You can order this on Amazon as well. Brenda says this is the first time she’s had flowers in years. The deer have been driving her nuts.
Ugh, hope the smoke stops. How unhealthful and annoying for you!
Thanks Diana. We haven’t tried this so I’ll order some. The fence will protect the vegi’s but not the flowers. What would have been a pot full of blooming paprika colored hydrangeas is now leaves and stubs…..damn deer!
Good morning, meese! Friday …
It is 63 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 73. Partly cloudy skies are in the forecast. We had a line of storms move through yesterday afternoon into evening and they brought periods of heavy rain in between sunshine – and rainbows!
Good lord, someone needs to put a muzzle on the shitgibbon. He had a rambling press availability and exposed his ignorance, insulted career diplomats who put their lives on the line for our country, and rattled his limp saber at not only North Korea but Iran! Nice pivot, General Kelly. The first thermonuclear war will be on your head and the heads of Republicans in Congress: may you roast in the hell of your god for allowing this to happen. On Fox “News” yesterday, a military “expert” said a nuclear war would be okay because it would “only kill Koreans”. JHC on a pogo stick!! These people are the worst of the worst. There used to be agreement that dropping a nuclear bomb was a bad idea – now it is considered option number one and the value of those who would be killed is being debated on TV.
If anyone comes across a video of Stacey Abrams from NN17, please post it. It sounded like she was quite impressive. I have been following her for a while and would love to see her break the glass ceiling in Georgia.
See all y’all later!
I think I have a stress fracture on my left ankle. Taking this week off from walking has not helped the pain. Sigh. I’m trying to lose weight so there will be less stress on the ankle. So I have 4 tabs open with articles about exercising while you have a stress fracture. Oh — there’s a cholera epidemic in Yemen that has not even made the news. At all. I was going to post Little Things, with the lyric “sometimes, the end is not coming, the end is here”. But I’m going to post You’re the Best Thing instead & aim for positive.
Good morning, Meese, on an overcast Friday. Rain is expected later today. It sounds like a roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and homemade apple pie sort of evening. Current temp. in NoVa is 68 F., going up to 80 F.
As Keats said, “My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains/My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk.” The news is so rapid and so disquieting it’s hard to keep track of it all. I’m sure the stock market is going to crash again. It doesn’t like this “let’s nuke North Korea” thing. Part of my brain urges me to stock up on tea, sugar, coffee, and cooking oil, and the other part says, “Why bother, DC is the first place they’d nuke.”
All I can hope is that behind the scenes the Resistance will quietly obliterate Rethug plans. If Mueller starts bringing about the Great Fall, I’m willing to bet that Pence, McTurtle, and the Vampire will fall too.
Going downstairs to take some aspirin. I need it today. Hope everyone will enjoy a quiet day (remember when Fridays used to be dull?), and a quiet weekend.
No, the stock market is NOT happy about talk of war. But the Angry Apricot wouldn’t know anything about that because he is the most ignorant man in the world. That the Republican Party chose to ride him into power instead of doing their patriotic duty and kicking him to the curb will be a permanent blemish on their soul. Of course, a party that rode white supremacy into power in 1968 and again in 1980 has not had a soul for some time. One of these days people will wise up and stop returning them to power. I am really sick of their death wish impacting the entire country and the world.
75 and dark this morning – was raining fit to bust itself as I was leaving for work but it’s just misty now. (We got just over an inch of rain in that cloudburst.) Had to turn on the A/C last night but turned it off again this morning as it isn’t supposed to get above 80 today. We shall see what we shall see by the time I get home again.
Tweets aren’t orders so as long as the two narcissistic nutjobs are blustering at each other via twitter, I’m not gonna worry about it. The Stock Market paying attention to it is more concerning. Until i retire I can’t move my Cref into something more secure. (As in TIAA-Cref itself offers more secure option plans but they aren’t on the university’s list so I can’t get into them until I am no longer at the university.) If pvl45 hasn’t crashed the Market by January, i will be very grateful. Not that I’m retiring on my Cref, I’m retiring on my Social Security. But that money is my “rainy day fund” for when I have to replace the HVAC system or do other expensive maintenance on house or car. And maybe a bit of a “slush fund” for a vacation sometime somewhere. maybe.
Meanwhile my most urgent folks on teh community needs list are OK. Next funtony needs to repair his car rather urgently and it will be much less money if we can do it while it’s still drive-able, Aji needs Home Depot (flooring and cabinetry) and Lowes (appliances) gift cards, and MaureenMower needs rest of August living expenses. I’m already starting to add “not urgent but important” to my list (like the AIDS Austin Walk – and fineena’s backyard dog-proofing will probably go in that category as soon as somebody drops off the urgent list). We’re slowly but surely clearing out the debris and blockages in the Channel of Good and the flow increases the more we do so. Blessed Be.
Gotta get back to work. Academic year starts next week – new faculty, new graduate assistants, and open enrollment for Fall classes – so I need to clear my desk to be ready to deal with whatever comes up then. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 66 and mostly sunny in Bellingham. The air seems clearer today and rain is forecast for the weekend so relief from the awful fire haze may be coming.
We finally made the necessary deer fence decisions but it will be better to wait until we start the garage renovation project this fall. The garden is next to the garage and I want the wood elements to be integrated so it won’t look added on. So for now Ron has draped netting over all the remaining plants and the deer are not bothering to remove it.
Time for some coffee and then to the pool. Hugs to all!
Princesspat, did you see the link I sent upthread about the anti-deer product?
I did see the link, and have saved it. Thanks Diana!
Good morning, meese! Saturday …
It is 54 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 77. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
Congress is on recess and Nancy Pelosi’s blog does not have any links to the Weekly Democratic Party address yet so I am going to wait and see if something shows up later today or tomorrow. If not, I may pull together some things on Stacey Abrams. There are lots of videos but nothing with transcripts and I need transcripts!!
I am going to ignore that the Angry Apricot waved his limp saber at Venezuela yesterday. I am certain that he does not realize that if he threatens military action against everyone he diminishes the effectiveness of the “stick”. He also needs to STHU because diplomats are working to find a way for North Korea to deescalate without losing face and the more the shitgibbon blathers, the more difficult that will be. If the baby dictator does back down, there is no doubt in my mind that Herr Twittler will take a Twitter victory lap and undo all their hard work. Sigh.
See all y’all later!
Good morning, Meese, and a misty, moisty morning it is, too, just like the old nursery rhyme. I’m sure the fog will dissipate later. Right now it’s 69 F. in NoVa, going up to 80 F. We have a lot to do today, getting ready for the birthday party tomorrow. The cake has been ordered; the food for the vegetarians has been bought; tomorrow we’ll pick up the sandwiches and fruit, etc. This is the third birthday party we’ve hosted this summer. After this we won’t have anything to do until Christmas, if plans for all work out.
Feeling very tired, too tired to pay much attention to the news. I, too, wish The Occupant would STFU. He’s just making things worse.
We’ll have a leisurely breakfast, and then—to work! Hope everyone at the Pond and Beyond will have a good day!
The news is making me alternately angry and embarrassed. Why are the Republicans rallying around a man who speaks like this??? Are they willing to sacrifice every last bit of dignity for that marginal tax cut on the top .01%?
From the conversation with the governor of Guam:
Notice that the most important thing to him is how “famous” Governor Calvo has become. tRump will probably nuke Guam himself so as not to share the limelight.
Holy Mackeral! I just opened Twitter and saw that there was a KKK rally in Virginia at the university.
Republicans, clean up your mess!
So, I’m having a lazy day. Got breakfast & lunch in the freezer for next week so I don’t have to cook. A friend suggested getting a pool noodle & “running” in my complex’s pool. So that’s really it. Thinking of my friend who lives in Charlottesville. This week has been so hard for him, and of course the Nazi rally ended in violence, because “Nazi rally”. We need Love & Peace.
Lay down
Lay down
Lay your sweet lovely on the ground
Lay your love on the track
We’re gonna break the monster’s back
Yes we are
Lay down your treasure
Lay it down now brother
You don’t have time
For a jealous lover
As you enter this life
I pray you depart
With a wrinkled face
And a brand new heart
I don’t know if I can take it
I’m not easy on my knees
Here’s my heart you can break it
64 at or around 6 am – can’t really call it dawn – 70 now and maybe getting to 80. Indeed a misty, moisty morning – lousy for the solar generation of course and this whole summer has been confusing as heck to the poor trees around here. I saw a couple of maples trying to color up already and there were Jonathan apples on the square today! That’s a good 6 to 8 weeks early. (Yes, of course I got some. heh) I appreciate not having the A/C on much – all the more because of losing those 2 weeks (in total) of generation when my system was down – but this is a weird year.
I don’t pay any attention to the tweets of pvl45 – and more and more of the world is agreeing with me as far as taking them seriously or granting much of any importance to them. Laugh about them, snicker at how low America dropped due to one pretty-much stolen election. They’re snickering about that, too. American pomposity and sanctimoniousness about free and fair elections has rubbed a lot of countries the wrong way. Now they’re snickering. And with every insistence by pvl45 that he really won the popular vote they snicker more and louder. I wish I thought America would learn a lesson about self-righteousness out of this. But I know better. sigh.
Don’t know how the fundraiser for funtony went last night – he hasn’t been online since Thursday afternoon when he kosmailed me to let me know when the diary would hit. Between his chronic pain and the chemo he’s pretty wiped out. Hope we raised something for him – after the early good wishes mostly from folks who don’t have anything else to give, the diary devolved into a discussion of why he needs $700 to replace oil gasket covers and seals. Since I don’t know what kind of car he has, I couldn’t answer that but that kind of discussion derails a fundraiser big time. sigh.
Need to get some stuff done around the house, then get the community and political lists into the Village diary and finish tweaking my Sharing Saturday diary at DK. I’ll check back later for the Pushing Back. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}