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!
Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …
Morning low of 21 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 27. Mostly cloudy with a chance of flurries.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Good Sunday Morning Meese
41 degrees here in Saugerties NY going up to 47.
I don’t like Politico much – this however is worth a read
Smart girl
Hahaha! “Seems he fell on his head.” That is probably the kindest thing that can be said about how he ended up as such a buffoon.
I have seen a lot of people pushing back against “chain migration”. I think folks might have thought it was just the technical term for something and you know how libruls like to appear smart! I woke up this morning thinking about immigration and ICE raids and how quickly America changed from beacon of democracy to shithole. I hope this inspires people to vote.
I keep saying that chain migration should only reference those of us whose ancestors were dragged here in chains.
The right-wing is throwing around a term which was actually used by demographers who looked at ethnic neighborhood formations around the world – no family ties necessary.
Glad I got some stuff for breakfast & lunch started yesterday, my friend is back in the hospital. I’ll get as much as I can done before church, visit her, come home & shove the oatmeal in the oven and finish making lunch. Then I’ll go to the funeral while the oatmeal cools. A lot to squeeze in for one day. Now: chopping up thawed-out mangoes while I wait for Joy Reid’s show. Playing sweet, beautiful Little Things in my head.
My Sunday piece up
{{{Denise}}} – because some folks ask for links to help after newpioneer’s diary went up I started putting this link –
https://www.dailykos.com/comments/1710587/68251704#comment_68251704 – to the “box” of helping links from my last diary at DK out there for them. (The links still work, I checked.) I’ve added this link to a couple of the Puerto Rico tweets I’ve seen but I thought I’d better ask you if that’s a good idea before I keep doing it. thanks and moar {{{HUGS}}}
I have to look at the list – thanks. Bobby is getting ready to do a fundraiser – sort of an adopt-a-person diary – you will not believe the conditions he is documenting
Thanks – that’s one more set of helping things that stopped abruptly on 11/6/17 but I can get to it by going to the last diary I published. As to Bobby’s new diary – I’ll believe it. I won’t have experienced it, but I’ll believe it. And of course I’ll RT it as soon as I find it. Thanks again and moar {{{HUGS}}}
24 heading up to 60 and sunny – got 9.3 KWHs (new 2nd highest) yesterday and the m-t-d is 187.6 – producing in driblets at the moment but when the frost is totally melted off the panels and the sun gets higher up we might meet or beat yesterday’s total. Not possible to reach 200 today but if today stays sunny we should reach it tomorrow. Muffins just came out of the oven – molasses spice – but I haven’t done any housework yet. Needed to check something online, had a couple of DM notifications in my email and got sucked in. (That’s the reason I usually don’t get online until after I’ve done my housework on Sundays. LOL) At the moment there’s a purring cat on my lap so I guess I’ll stay online until he gets off. heh.
The Great Distractors (MSM and 3rd-party supporters) are of course out in full force trying to distract from the Evil Ones’s evil – past and proposed. Our team keeps truckin’ on. Our “army in the field” is our elected officials. We as citizens outnumber the Evil Ones but we don’t in the halls of Power. So our current work is to block as much as we can while “beefing up” our army in the field. The progress we are making – getting people engaged, getting people running for every slot possible at all levels, getting support for those running – is quite good. We shall see if it’s good enough come November.
OK – Charlie just hopped down. I need to get back to my housework. I’ll check back in a couple of hours. Bright the day – and the week, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 42 and cloudy in Bellingham. I’m well enough now to start making lists but I don’t have enough energy to do anything so I feel like I’m just muddling along. I did get a haircut yesterday so that’s progress I guess.
I think I’ll sew a few more seams on the new cover for Heide’s dog bed and in between rest breaks I want to start clearing space on the bookshelves in my sewing room. It’s hard to part with my collection of reference books but I want space for the quilting books I now enjoy reading so it’s time.
Best Sunday wishes to all.
Monday Meese
30 degrees here in Saugerties NY going up to 42
I’m never awake for awards shows – so checked twitter to see GRAMMY highlights.
These days I barely know who most of the artists are
However, this was a good tweet
I don’t know who any of the singers or actors or celebrities are and so awards shows are just white noise to me. I usually browse my Twitter feed when I am vegging out at the end of the day but when it fills up with pop culture references – and strangely garbed humans – it requires a lot of scrolling-past. Between Grammy stuff and the tweets about how the people at the Koch retreat were taking victory laps for succeeding in destroying everything decent in America, it was an easy call to shut it down.
Well I did know John Legend, Cher and Hillary in this :)
Ha! I know some of those people too. :)
LOL – I knew Cher (sort of – the hair threw me for a minute) and Hillary. :)
Good morning, meese! Monday …
It is 21 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 25. Clouds this morning then sunny this afternoon. I peeked ahead to Wednesday to see if the sky will be clear for the blue moon lunar eclipse (4:31am CST) and it looks sketchy right now.
This will be a week to give the news a brief glance and little else. The people claiming that Trump will finally pivot to maturity with his SOTU are grinding on my last nerve and it is getting increasingly depressing seeing some of the polls showing that Republicans consider Trump a role model for their children. How do we fit those two halves into a whole?
Busy morning – only 3 days left in January! I have to take one more pass through my end of year notes to make sure that all the reports due on January 31st are completed and mailed. One more pass on my personal tax returns to see if I have everything and then I will get them in the mail so that they arrive at the IRS before the government shuts down again on February 8th.
See all y’all later!
Good morning, Moosekind! No idea what the weather is, it’s still too dark to see at 6:30 in the morning. Currently it’s 43 F. in NoVa, going up to a whopping 46 F. The weather widget is showing a sun with raindrops on it, so I gather the weather will be mixed.
By the time I arrived home last night after a nightmarish journey from The Country, I was too freaked out to eat. Just had a cup of tea and got ready for bed. I hate driving at night in the rain anyway, but throw in isolated country roads and little towns named Nowheresville and Yourebloodylost, and you’ve got sheer panic. Never mind, I’m home now.
The writers’ weekend was an absolute delight! The house was fabulous, each bedroom with its own bathroom, bedroom windows looking out over the lake, fashionably decorated in fifty shades of gray—really luxurious. It was great to do the writing exercises under the guidance of our leader (an old friend of mine) and to have large chunks of solitude so I could work on my new project. The other women were fascinating to talk to as well.
Home again, my first call will be to the dentist and after that to the doctor. Hope my dentist can see me today because the Little Misery I’m experiencing has required constant drugging with Advil and Ora Jel all weekend.
Ye gods, if the government is going to shut down again, I’d better start on my taxes tonight! Hope I’ve got everything. Will watch the SOTU in fascinated horror tomorrow night, although listening to That Voice will make me want to tear my hair out. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and Beyond.
Hahaha!! “I hate driving at night in the rain anyway, but throw in isolated country roads and little towns named Nowheresville and Yourebloodylost …” Sorry to laugh – it sounds like hell! I can barely drive at night and when it is raining, I can’t see at all and just follow the car in front of me. If it were to drive into the ditch, so would I!
You are a much stronger person than me if you will watch and/or listen to a Trump speech. I can’t hear his voice and his face makes me ill. That 60 million people thought that a personally gross and disgusting reality TV show host was “just fine” for the highest elected office in the land is a permanent stain on our nation’s history.
I don’t know if having my tax return sitting in a bin at the IRS when the government shuts down will help it get processed but it feels like having it there at least gets it through the first few steps. I am not sure how many people in the IRS will be furloughed but if it is the mail sorters, I will be past that point. :) I don’t file electronically because I don’t have any confidence in the security – I eFile my business returns because it is required but not my personal ones. I should go see if TurboTax has the updated forms yet – they said to check back after January 25th for the final 1040.
Glad you got home safe after nightmare drive – and had a good writer’s weekend.
I’m trying to figure out what time Kennedy will give the Democratic SOTU response so I can skip Trump and tune in for him.
oh yes – and I want to see/hear this
{{{Diana}}} – Healing Energy and glad you’re safely home. You are a much stronger person than I am. I wouldn’t have gone by myself in the first place. I can’t drive in the dark or any time the light is iffy at all (like fog or heavy rain). Doubly so if you’re gonna watch mad king donald foam at the mouth. I can’t stand to look at him or hear his voice. I may or may not watch the responses live – or may just find the clip the next day.
Wonderful you had such a good retreat though – hopefully that “paid for” the drive home. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Monday. Oatmeal, tea. It was bleeped out last night, but performing Get Out Of Your Own Way last night, Bono said: “Blessed are the shithole countries, for they gave us the American dream”. Proud of my boys. And the performance by all the women in white of Praying…… wow, such a powerful song & performance.
I was still dishing up oatmeal at 7 last night. But I won’t need to cook again for at least 2 weeks, maybe 3. I should try to leave early & visit my friend in the hospital.
25 windchill a bone-cutting 16 and solid cloud cover – no rain, just clouds. Yesterday brought 9.5 KWHs – a new high for the month – which brought the m-t-d to 197 so if we only get 3 for today, an unfortunately probability, we’ll still reach the 200 for the month goal and the last 2 days will be lagniappe.
I don’t know what to hope about a shutdown – I don’t know if we can get anything for the Dreamers with or without one. If we can, it would be worth it – I think. The last one was definitely blamed on the Rs (except by Fox & co) but I’m not sure “promises made/promises broken” will be enough to put the blame where it belongs if it happens again. That early in the month will definitely eff up almost everybody’s Social Security – again the money is there but there have to be employees at work to “run payroll” before it pays out. Meanwhile, I’ve been using TurboTax for several years now – had to use the paid for one due to the special issues dealing with solar energy credit and haven’t been able to get back to the free one. sigh. I’m not sure what I’ll do this year but I’d best do it quickly – just in case.
Not sure what I’m doing in a lot of cases right now. Sort of in limbo – mostly being home and trying to stay warm while cutting back on the fires because I’m going through wood too quickly – RTing stuff for Aji and Denise especially and others as seems good. Hoping that is doing some good in the world because I’m certainly not managing anything else that could be called doing good in the world. I can’t even do phone calls to congresscritters right now – all of them are going into voicemail but the voicemail boxes are full. Oh well. I’ll think of something. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Bfitz, I had mentioned to you before that Social Security payments are not affected by government shutdowns. I wasn’t kidding, they really aren’t! Possibly when there were little old ladies sitting in a back room running an accounting machine (“the money is there but there have to be employees at work to ‘run payroll’ before it pays out”) but first, everything is highly automated and most checks are electronic – no one is ‘running payroll’, and second, the benefits are not impacted by a shutdown, they have their own revenue source via Titles II, XVI, and XVIII of the Social Security Act and it does not depend on Congress for appropriations. Benefits would be impacted by failing to increase the debt ceiling because a lot of the money is in IOUs from the federal government but it is not impacted by a shutdown. There may be some furloughs but a lot of the SSA workers will be there, unpaid. The web site will probably not be updated and it sounds like functions like benefit verification and issuing new social security cards might cease. There is more at this PDF: SSA contingency plan.
Also, benefit checks go out all month long, not just at the beginning of a month. When you start your benefits, you are assigned a day and week, for example, 2nd Tuesday of the month. The days are selected so that they always occur in a month, for example you can’t assign 4th Thursday because there are months that don’t have them (February 28th falls on a Wednesday this year, for example).
I don’t want you to scare the little old ladies worrying about their checks!! :)
Jan, you’re right. My husband’s Social comes on the third day of each month. My friend’s Social comes on the 8th day. Mine comes on the third Wednesday of each month, which is extremely trying.
People who have the later-in-the-month checks have to budget carefully because they come in right before mortgage or rent payments are due on the 1st of the month. For example, the 4th Wednesday is 2/28 – if you have bills due on the 3/1, that doesn’t leave much time for a payment to get there. It is a good idea to have electronic payment plans in place so you can verify that the “check” was deposited and then log on to do an electronic payment.
I would think that having your two family checks spread out would be a good thing. No?
It is—no worries about the mortgage—but it’s a long time between the annuity on the first and the Social later in the month. I always seem to overspend.
This! “I always seem to overspend.” Sometimes it is a balancing act to get from payday to payday. I never carry credit card balances so when I have particularly expensive months, those credit card bills weigh heavily. I have short-term savings that I use to smooth out the peaks and valleys but I hate spending from anything called “Savings”!
Mine come on the 3rd Wednesday of the month, which after 13 years of being paid on the last working day of the month seems early to me. And I know the money is absolutely there. That’s not the issue. Process is the issue. Every place I’ve ever worked – public or private – with or without direct deposit – “runs payroll” – the funds are not kept in the active spending account that the checks or direct deposits come out of. The money is there as in it exists in a separate usually interest-bearing account (the flip side of the “IOU” argument – the Trust loaned money at interest, Congress borrowed money at interest) but payroll is run to determine exactly how much needs to be moved from the interest-bearing account into the spending account and then initiates the process to move that money. It changes from month to month. Payments do not go out until that process is complete.
It’s possible that Social Security does not follow that process. It is not probable that Social Security does not follow that process. That’s where my concern comes from. A shutdown – unless the SSA employees show up and work without pay – means the direct deposits won’t go out for anyone whose payout date comes far enough after the shutdown (usually 5 days) that payroll hasn’t run and the funds and not been transferred to the spending account. A shutdown on the 8th won’t affect payments on the 7th of course, might not – maybe – affect the ones for the 14th, but unless the gov’t opens up within a week will definitely affect the ones for the 21st & 28th. It’s not the money, it’s the process.
Good morning, all. Just checking in quickly before I start my post for tomorrow. I really need to learn to pay attention to the weather forecast; when I woke up it was 20 with a very light covering of snow on the ground that happened after I went to bed last night. By the time I left for work, it was 27, and there was easily 1 1/2 – 2 inches on the ground. The forecast says 3-4″ total, and it’s pretty clear my neck of the woods will hit the 4″. The drive into work was pretty miserable, but going home should be fine since the salt trucks will have been out in force by then.
The only awards show I ever watch is the Tony’s. (I adore musical theatre, and a good number of my daughter’s friends from college are on Broadway.) I almost regret missing the Grammy’s last night, particularly after seeing Nicki Haley’s ridiculous tweet that music shouldn’t be political. Has she been living in a cave her entire life? But Twitter gave me a taste of what was happening, and as usual, some of the hot takes were almost as good as the inspiration. Watching heads explode over Hillary’s bit was a bonus; anyone who didn’t know that she has a wicked sense of humor wasn’t paying attention.
{{{DoReMI}}} – stay safe. Warm if you can, but definitely safe. And amen about Hillary’s sense of humor and the idjits who didn’t know about it. Less said the better about the worse than idjits who attack her for it – or attempt to “prove” with breitbarted videos that she laughs at evil things. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Thanks, bfitz…the 2-4″ has morphed into a new prediction of 6-10″ in my area, so it looks like I’ll be putting on the snow boots and shoveling for a good part of tonight. But I’ve heard the plows go by more than a few times, so the drive home should be pretty straightforward.
Be careful with the shoveling – that can mess your back up in a NY minute. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 53, with wind and rain in Bellingham. I’ve got about 10 mins to decide between going to the pool and staying cozy…..a fortunate dilemma! I made some progress clearing space in the downstairs book cases yesterday so I’ll do more today regardless.
Best Monday wishes to all.
Morning Meese. Back to work and taking on the next problem, but I thought I’d drop in.
Good to see you, basket!
{{{basket}}} – hope the next problem isn’t as convoluted as the one you just – finally – finished. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Tuesday Meese.
21 here in Saugerties going up to 36 with rain.
School today and I have to call my car shop – my inspection sticker expires end of the month and I forgot. Sigh.
Working on Black History month articles – since it is upon us – they will all be Puerto Rican Virgin Islands focused
The fact that friggin FEMA is being pulled out of PR with conditions the way they still are is horrific
look at this slide show
I don’t even know what to do with my anger
In a civilized country, this would NOT be happening!
When someone said electricity wouldn’t be restored “until May,” that person evidently wasn’t kidding.
And what happens if they get hit by another hurricane? JHC, this is a terrible mess.
More disaster – since FEMA won’t allow for upgrades – only patches
No they weren’t. :(
I just saw that about FEMA pulling out! Apparently there are “only” 1% right now who are in desperate straits so leaving them in the lurch – and letting them die? – is fine. Grrr.
There isn’t any place to put our anger! We can’t vote the bums out until November and even then we have to wait until January for them to take charge of the purse strings.
Another Republican congressman in a blue state decided he could not possibly win and announced his retirement – a guy from New Jersey. Even if he did not personally vote to increase taxes on New Jerseyans, his choice to empower Paul Ryan and his grannykillers led directly to the tax scam being passed. People won’t be fooled, they know that Republicans work for the donor class, not wage earners.
That 1% bullshit – is bullshit. FEMA has been lying about the piss poor job they have done from the start – and no surprise – they are lying now.
I know we are powerless till we take back Congress – it doesn’t stop my anger though.
Ha!! Did you see who Kirsten Gillibrand invited to the SOTU?
heh – yup:)
Carmen Cruz is my Women in the Caribbean class topic today – am going to show students the tweets and footage with her
Good morning, meese! Tuesday …
It is 7 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 27. Sunny this morning and then clouding up. Tomorrow a front moves quickly through, gets the temperatures into the 40s, drops some snow, then we go back to the 20s. Friday is Imbolc so it is time to start thinking about spring! The wheel seems to be turn more quickly the older I get – it feels like we just celebrated Solstice. Maybe it was because we kept our tree up until the middle of January. :)
I scanned the news quickly and everyone is fluttering about the SOTU (and no, AP, he is definitely NOT “seeking to rally a deeply divided nation” – he is planning to pump up his base by destroying the hopes and dreams of decent Americans). You could probably write the Chris Cillizza or Van Jones column now. Blah blah presidential blah blah bold blah blah surprising blah blah did not step on dick blah blah blah. I do not plan to watch and may follow Twitter or may do some reading to catch up on the hot stove league.
From the Good News File: House passes bill prompted by sports doctor scandal:
Good. Make those who intentionally cover up abuse to protect their institutions will finally pay a real price, not just “having to retire early”.
See all y’all later!
Good Tuesday morning, Moosekind. Still dark outside at 6 in the morning, and the streets look damp in the lamplight, not snowy (as predicted by the excitable online newspooper, The Patch). The weather gadget says it’s 35 F., going down to 34 F. Duh.
Yesterday I went to see my dentist, a lovely woman whom I know well. She couldn’t do anything for me because the tooth is DEAD. She did prescribe an antibiotic for the infection and Motrin for the pain. She also got me in to see the young, curly-haired endodontist who did my root canal in August. I texted my husband, “Have to have another rootie with the cutie tomorrow,” and drove home with the prescriptions, singing “I haven’t got time for the pain.” Ugh, wouldn’t you think a dead tooth would be dead to all feeling? It is slightly better this morning, after three doses of penicillin and so on.
Scott Dworkin on Twitter said there’s a rumor afoot that Thing is going to fire Rosenstein and Mueller before the SOTU tonight. Can this be true? We’ll watch the SOTU on C-SPAN so we don’t have to listen to pundits yapping over the actual horrible speech. I hope it’s the first and last SOTU Thing will give before he’s hauled off to prison. Next year he and Bernie Madoff can play checkers while someone else gives the speech.
Gym this morning, after which stew ingredients will go into the slow cooker before Dearly drives me to the dentist miles and miles away. I feel too drugged to drive. I’m buying his lunch for driving me there. Wishing everyone a good day!
The only thing that all the Trump-Russia-Mueller pundits agree on is that the flurry of activity yesterday definitely means that something big is going to happen. That is the pattern, start a dustup over something – the memo, McCabe – have all eyes turn there, then the news that we should be paying attention to gets lost. Looking at yesterday’s news, I think that it is that the White House has flatly refused to impose sanctions on Russia as required by law. Now the question is whether or not Republican Russia-hawks like Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio will even care. Unified Republican Control of our government is a terrible way to run a country. There is literally no one willing to enforce the laws.
Hope it is just a rumor
Oatmeal, tea. Will be clearing out the dvr tonight while the Shitgibbon speaks. Working on cleaning up my apartment. Last night there was so much McCarthy talk that my earworm is Exhuming McCarthy. Sad that times that felt so dire then we now look at as the good old days.
28 windchill 20 – which is better than it was an hour ago – and overcast again. So far the clouds have been clearing off by noon though – yesterday started really cloudy but we ended up with 9.5 KWHs – the latest “high for the month” total – and the m-t-d is 207 so surpassed the 200 for the month goal with 2 days left in the month. While it’s not possible to meet January 2016’s 236 total, we’re well ahead of 2017’s 182. :)
Since Russia basically put mad king donald in the white house for the purpose, my bet is the really bad thing all the noise yesterday was supposed to cover is the refusal to enact sanctions. Fastest way to get everybody to take their eyes off the prize is to “leak” something about firing Mueller. We have got to take Congress back. period. Anything that distracts from that helps them and hurts us. We can’t actually do anything about whatever Mueller finds until we do. We can’t do anything to really help Puerto Rico until we do. We can’t stop the deportations until we do. We can’t stop the voter suppression until we do. Our team, goddess bless them, can and does throw as many “sabots” into the Rs machinery as possible to slow them down and block whatever’s on the front burner – but they cannot make any kind of progress, do anything that actually supports “the general welfare” or does systematic progress on “freedom and justice for all” however you define that until they have the helm of the Ship of State. And way too many of our team is depending on that “Blue Wave” to magically happen because of how evil the Rs are.
Need to do a tour of the internets then do some stuff around the house. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 42 and raining in Bellingham. Yesterday was an exhausting news day so I’m going to try to focus on other things today. A waterfront restaurant we like has a winter incentive coupon so we’re going to dinner tonight instead of watching the SOTUS. Good food in pleasant surroundings with no tv is a better plan!
Take care everyone.