Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Oct. 15th through Oct. 21st

October 14, 2017 JanF Community 109

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 is here

  • Page Two of comments is here

46 Comments

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

    Morning low of 55 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 52. Rain is in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  3. Good Sunday morning Meese
    59 going up to 76 here in Saugerties

    I’m sleepy – stayed up watching the Puerto Rico telethon last night. Looks like they raised a ton of money – which will also benefit USVI Mexico, TX, FL and California
    We should not have to depend on charity. big-hearted individuals and groups to do what needs to be done for disasters.
    My morning “news headlines” have zero mentions of Puerto Rico USVI
    which is depressing and pissing me off.

    I’ve gathered info on Puerto Rico statehood/status quo/ independence issue as a backgrounder education piece for this Sunday morning at Orange.

    I don’t know what else to do but keep on attempting to speak out – even though the media is all Weinstein Weinstein – Hurricane Harvey victim still need help as well

    Need moar coffee

    • I am looking forward to your post. I want to understand a little more about the politics of gathering Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands closer to us and giving them some power. I was surprised to read that the mayor of San Juan and the governor of Puerto Rico are on different sides of the issue: the mayor wants independence and the governor wants statehood!

      Charity doing what the federal government should be doing is exactly what Republicans have been pushing for for years. What a terrible sloughing off of responsibility!

      Right now I am angry reading about the 500+ people wounded in the Las Vegas massacre. They face steep healthcare bills while Rep. Steve Scalise – who refuses to support any bans on firearms – gets his million dollar hospital and rehab bill covered by us. That should be a bigger outrage than it is but everyone wants to tiptoe around Scalise because he got hurt. Fk that! He is an enabler. That he got caught in the crossfire he created by his sucking up to the gun lobby is meaningless – he goes back to having the security force that saved his life and his government paid healthcare that kept him alive while the people he is sworn to protect are supposed to get their healthcare funded by the charity of strangers. The Republican Party is terrible. Charlie Pierce’s latest, talking about the new Trumpcare plan:

      The important thing to remember here, if you’re commenting on the obvious fact that this action borders somewhat on the sociopathic, is that it has the unanimous support of the Republican Party, inside the Congress and out. Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver, is all-in, and so is his caucus, including the Freedom Caucus maenads who very likely are dancing naked and tossing peeled grapes into each other’s mouths.

      The Republican president is doing Republican Party things to us. Trump the man is ignorant, vulgar, and disgusting but Trump the Republican is exactly what his party wants.

      • The political parties of PR are complicated – and are basically organized around the status question. Carmen Yulin Cruz is not an independentista – she is a popular – member of the Popular Democratic Party – Partido Popular Democrático (PPD) However she is part of a faction within the PPD – she is a “soberanista” – not to be confused with a smaller political party with some of the same goals.
        Some PPD’s want to stay the same – others want more freedom – though not independence

        Not all of the Statehooders are allied with the US Republican Party – and not all Independentistas are the same – there was a major split between the Puerto Rican Socialists and Puerto Rican Nationalists …sigh – this gets so complicated I get lost.
        The current head of the Independence Party, Reuben Berrios, was scorned by the very left socialists.

        I usually look at colors – Red for the Populares (Commonwealth) , Blue – the Statehooders, and Green for Independence

      • Yeah, my friend’s friend – who has finally woken up – is still in the hospital because she is still having seizures despite anti-seizure meds. I hate to think what her bills will be

  4. Will have a busy afternoon — making lentil-artichoke soup for dinner & sweet potato-black bean-avocado dish for lunch, but this morning I’m just watching the news & waiting for Joy Reid’s show. Cold front coming through, the 74 degrees we have is the warmest we’ll have for the day. And it looks like there’s several days next week I’ll have to wear shoes. Anyway, happy Sunday!

  5. Well, one weather station says it’s in the 50s and another says upper 40s – we got .8″ rain early this morning but it’s clearing off now. We’re heading up to the upper 60s early afternoon then a steady drop to the mid 30s just after dawn tomorrow. Got just over 10 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 129. Maybe and maybe not on 300 for the month – but it’s still possible. Part of the problem this month and we’ll see about the rest of the year is that the angle of the sun is such that the oak tree shades the east half of my system until noon, after noon to get the entire system out of the shade – if/when we get a hard enough frost the oak tree will drop its leaves. If not, the dead ones will stay on the tree until next spring when the new ones push the old ones off.

    Nothing new about the R response to disasters of whatever nature. Leaving it to charity – saying it is charity’s job to do it, not the government’s – was exactly Herbert Hoover’s attitude towards hurricanes, floods, and the entire Depression. Americans have been protected by FDR’s safety net as expanded by later Dems for so long they don’t realize that’s what’s under them. The libertarian types especially don’t even notice they are standing on a solid platform that keeps them above water. So increasingly as the generation that remembers quite well what it’s like to not have that platform dies off, the kids who think they did it themselves get louder and louder about having to pay for “others” getting the benefit. And increasingly we have to save their nasty entitled little asses to save our own. sigh.

    I gotta get a few more things done around the house – just taking a coffee break – but will check on the British Breakfast first. Once I’m finished I’ll get back online and visit Denise’s diary at DK. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

    • Tell you what, bfitz, I’ll give naysayers an even wider berth than I already do. The idea that anyone would be so peremptory toward you, who work tirelessly on the behalf of others, is very upsetting.

      Everyone admires and respects you for your diligence and most of us applaud your efforts. Wish I could donate to everyone, but my next payout I’ll be sending some $$ for Puerto Rico. Breaks my heart what’s happening there.

      • {{{Diana}}} – it is upsetting. But you’re right – most folks really are very encouraging. And thank you for any help you can send. It is so totally wrong, what’s happening in Puerto Rico. moar {{{HUGS}}}

  6. Good morning, 50 and sunny in Bellingham. Yesterday was so quiet for me I can’t remember anything about it! Oh well, I guess that means nothing bad happened in my small world. Can’t say the same for tRump America :(

    Best Sunday wishes to all.

  7. Monday morning Meese
    56 here in Saugerties NY – going up to 57
    Just finished listening on facebook to David Begnaud’s full interview with the Captain of the USS Comfort and the head of the ER. The Comfort arrived in PR on Oct 3rd.
    My response

    Comments on facebook and twitter echo mine – sounds like serious red tape is making the ship underutilized

    • I was following that for a while when I was up in the middle of the night with yamsomnia. I can’t believe that it is up to the sick to “find their way to a hospital” – why aren’t people out there actively searching for people who need help! What a mess! I need to call my human Senator again and let her know I still care about this. The other one has no soul and I would be wasting my time.

      I wish I could say that the Republican Party will pay for this neglect but their base is made up of two groups: the religious right who believe that god picks the winners and the losers and if you are not born with wealth and privilege you are a loser; the white nationalists who would prefer that brown or black people die of neglect. You could see this hate train coming for 8 years but I hoped there would be enough good people to derail it before it slammed into us.

  8. Good morning, meeses! Monday …

    It is 43 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 59. Sunny skies are in the forecast. I turned the heat on this morning to take the chill off and will turn it off shortly. I have been lazy and have not gotten this winter’s furnace filter yet so I don’t want to run it much until the new one is in place.

    I can’t look at the news today. There is too much awful and we seem to not be able to make a dent in it to find a glimmer of hope or a light at the end of the tunnel. I really did not need to hear about the sh*tgibbon hoping that RGB and Sonia Sotomayer die so that he can appoint FOUR new Supreme Court justices. He knows that the thing that keeps the religious right on his side is the Supreme Court and that his Gorsucks appointment is the only thing he polls favorably on. I can’t live in a country run with a 7-2 majority theocratic court. There will be no “hanging on and hoping for the best” – the handholds will be gone.

    See all y’all later!

  9. I should have worn a sweater this morning. 57, brrrr! Eating oatmeal & drinking tea. Was cooking till after 7 last night. Anyway, welcome to the working week.

  10. Good morning, Moosekind! We woke up to delightful wet streets, courtesy of the post-5 a.m. showers, but all that has stopped and now it’s merely cloudy. Will clear later. Today’s expected high will be 71 F.; current temp. in NoVa is 59 F.

    We woke up to wet streets yesterday, too, but those weren’t in the forecast. Anyway, it’s not what you’d call real rain—it’s just drizzle.

    Yesterday morning I left the house at 9 to look after my youngest grandson in neighboring Arlington County, while his beleaguered parents unloaded the U-haul and returned it. The addition to the house is starting to look more finished, although it still needs to be painted and to have the appliances installed. My son and DIL look absolutely wrung out. Mr. Toddler is going through a growth spirt and did nothing but eat.

    By the time I came home I was too exhausted to do anything but nap, read a spy thriller, and make dinner. Had a really rotten night, so hoping for a nap after lunch.

    Like Jan, I just can’t take the onslaught of bad news, going to give it a rest for a few hours. Wishing everyone a nice, quiet day.

    • I see talk of the possibility that Ed Gillespie could win the Virginia governorship! The problem with us in Librul World is that we see people HATING what the Republicans have done – and are doing and will do in the future – and we can’t imagine people still voting R. But the hate that got them to the voting booth last November has not gone away and the election will hinge on turnout.

      Make sure everyone you see knows that this is the last day to register to vote for governor!!

      I am hoping for a nap. I don’t get my afternoon naps when my daughter is not in school and on both Thursday and Friday I had errands that would not let me take a break. I am dragging right now.

  11. One weather widget says 39 the other 48 (but “feels like” 44) – either way it’s chilly out there. My feet are cold but at least I can feel them. My hands are cold and stiff and they ache – it’s taking me twice as long a usual to do anything. sigh. That’s the main part of winter I don’t like. But the fire in the wood stove dried the laundry quite nicely yesterday even though it did take all day. Got 11.6 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 140. Making 300 for the month is still possible but getting less likely.

    The Deplorables are perfectly happy with the Deplorable-in-Chief and the theocrats have always believed the end justified the means. As to the corporatists – they are the modern day colonial masters perfectly happy to “spend” our lives to make themselves richer. And we are currently surviving because the 3 groups are fighting over who gets to eat us for lunch. We can only take ourselves off the menu by regaining Congress.

    Gotta get some work done. Secretary is leaving in about an hour and I’ll be soloing the rest of the day. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  12. Good morning, 55 and cloudy in Bellingham. I slept late today, waking up with just enough time to find a cup of coffee and get to the pool. I’m still to dizzy to drive so RonK is taking me and we’ve cut the time to just a half hour because fatigue triggers even more dizziness….grrrrr!!! So now I’ll sort out the rest of the day.

    Take care everyone.

  13. Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …

    It is 52 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 66. Sunny skies are in the forecast. We will have a couple of days in the 70s over the weekend but then temperatures will return to normal. Whatever that is!

    I was heartened to see that the coverage of Puerto Rico is having an impact. Yesterday CNN released a poll showing that the sh*tgibbon’s approval on “hurricane response” dropped 20 points because of the terrible situation in Puerto Rico. The Texas and Florida photo ops worked for him but the drumbeat of criticism over Hurricane Maria landed a blow. This is good news because it means the the American public is not completely stupid and that “tossing paper towels at a crowd” does not count as hurricane relief. That poll also guaranteed that Puerto Rico will stay in the news for a while.

    John McCain, whose party enabled a nazi to take over the presidency, haz a sad. Yes, it was a nice speech but the day before the speech he was praising Trump for pushing the Middle East closer to a nuclear Iran! And he gave Trump wins on every single cabinet position and completely unsuited judicial appointment!

    “To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain the last best hope of earth for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history,”

    Not half-baked – you supplied the ingredients and heated up the oven and started it baking in Philadelphia MS. When Trump showed everyone what it looked like fully cooked, you did not shrink in horror as a decent person would have – your party and your congressional leaders turned a blind eye. Your legacy, John McCain, is tied up in the Republican Party that gave us Donald J. Trump and I consign both you and them to the ash heap of history.

    See all y’all later!

    • Thanks for the poll link Jan! Was looking for it and couldn’t remember where I saw it.

  14. Hard to believe it is 35 degrees here in Saugerties NY. Going up to 59. Got to go dig out my boots and a warm jacket.

    El Charlatán stepped in shit when he decided to again diss Barack Obama and the other ex Prezes – re response to military deaths.
    Pete Souza had an immidiate response

    as did military family members.

    I grinned when I saw this tweet

    • Great tweets, thanks for sharing! I have not been on Twitter yet this morning, I was still in the process of saving off news stories from my feed in between work projects.

      The lie about President Obama, by the way, came from a story the sh*tgibbon read off a right-wing conspiracy site. Shocking NOT. He gets these things embedded in his wee brain and they refuse to be dislodged by facts. You can see it in his responses to questions – he is a 71 year old retiree who watches Fox News all day. I did not watch or read the transcript of the presser (I value my sanity more than that) but I did follow it on Twitter. My favorite response was the one from President Obama’s deputy chief of staff who called Trump a “deranged animal”. I am sure that Steve Bannon will claim that is “epic disrespect, never before seen against a sitting president!” Right.

      • That one was great –

  15. It’s cold in Austin — I had to wear a jacket! A jacket, I say! Craziness. I went to AIDS Services’ office yesterday to have my picture taken, so the article will be coming out soon. And I did a new video in my new shirt. Ugh, we have a staff meeting today, which means all my contacting new people will get squeezed into another part of the day. Turning up the music in my head louder.

  16. Good Tuesday, Moosekind. It’s a glorious blue-and-gold October morning here in NoVa with a chill in the air. Current temp. is 37 F., going up to 62 F. I brought in the green tomatoes last night. Eventually they’ll turn red.

    Well, at least one source of stress has been laid to rest. Younger Son found an album in his house that contained pictures of our wedding day on 21 October 1967. Yesterday a very nice neighbor spent three hours helping my husband restore Picasa to working order: together they scanned the photos into what will be a slide show for the 50th anniversary party our sons are giving for us on Saturday.

    Daughter-from-Austin is flying in on Friday. So looking forward to seeing her! Son-in-law is in the middle of a huge project so he’s unable to come with her, but his mother and sister, who both live in this area, will be there.

    Plans for the day include going to the gym this morning, making a fresh apple cake with the last of our apples, and three hours of child-minding this afternoon. M’daughter says the term “child minding” sounds as if I “mind” being around children: I say the American term “babysitting” is ridiculous when the children in question are eight and nine years old.

    Hoping it will be a good day for all!

    • {{{Diana}}} – congratulations on the 50 years. That shows a lot of stamina if nothing else. :) Also work and caring and all the stuff that goes into making a long-term relationship long term. (Try the term “child-tending”. You’re definitely tending the children whatever their ages are.) moar {{{HUGS}}}

      • Thanks, bfitz! Marriage is give and take, ups and downs, as we all know. That said, I do think that marrying him was the best day’s work I ever did in my life. :)

        “Child-tending”—thank you for the suggestion! I shall use it from now on. “Child-minding” sits easily on my ear because I’m so accustomed to Britspeak, but “mind” doesn’t have the same meaning over here.

        You’d think it would, though, because the first thing you see when the train doors slide open in the London Underground are the words, “Mind the gap!”

    • Cheers for Fifty Years! And a big relief to find the elusive photo. I hope you have fun celebrating with your friends and family.

  17. 41 in Fay., AR heading for 71 – a bit hazy which I hope will clear off soon. Got 10.6 KWHs and the m-t-d is 151. It’s still possible to reach 300 for the month but we’d have to average at least 10 KWHs/day for the rest of the month to do it. Holding the Good Thought on that.

    I’m glad there’s at least pushback on mad king donald’s lies when they’re about President Obama. There certainly hasn’t been much against his lies about other folks of color. Or women. Or other countries. Or… Seriously trying to channel Energy from the Primal Will to Good in all directions – folks in the Caribbean trying to survive willful neglect, folks in CA trying to survive the wildfires and more willful neglect (at least CA has some resources of its own that haven’t been siphoned off over the years), and everybody in harm’s way of whatever kind.

    Need to get to work. Didn’t get much done yesterday as I kept getting interrupted every time I’d start something – and by the time I got back to it the application was timed out. sigh. Holding the Good Thought on that, too. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  18. Good morning, 53 windy and raining in Bellingham. The trees are still full of leaves so I hope the storm doesn’t damage them. October winds usually blow leaves around the neighborhood, not branches!

    It’s a traveling day for RonK so he’s packing his bags. He’ll be in Arkansas for the rest of the week, visiting old friends and arranging for the last of my parent’s belongings to finally be shipped here. Life has just kept happening so the family furniture has lingered in a storage locker for more years than I want to count. I had hoped to go with him but BCH has me grounded so we’ll sort the boxes and drawers via face time. Amazing we can do that! And if schedules allow he and bfitz may meet for coffee….another reason I wish I could be there too.

    Hope it’s a safe and peaceful day for all.

  19. Good morning, meese! Wednesday …

    It is 54 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 68. Sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Quick check-in … I was up early with yamsomnia and started a small project that will keep me too busy to read the news.

    Last night, I was glad to see the Murray-Alexander bill get to the proposal stage but I don’t see it getting a vote in either house of Congress. The problem with the CSRs is that, based on everything I have read, losing them increases the subsidies and most people won’t pay the 25-35% increase in premiums. So when the renewal policies are offered, there will be sticker shock, most people will click on the button that says “see what you will pay” and, unless the subsidies are whacked, no politician will pay the price for tRump’s sabotage. I am not sure how insurance companies can adjust the increases that they have already put in place even if a fix is passed. The signups start 14 days!

    See all y’all later!

  20. Wednesday morning Meese
    Been up since about 3 AM. Had to get more quilts to put on the bed.
    Weird temps – is 38 right now but will be 71 later.

    Was looking at these numbers – which will swell

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