Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: July 1st through July 7th

June 30, 2018 JanF Community 105

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!
 
– Page Two of Comments are HERE!
 

 
 

48 Comments

  1. Good mid-morning, Moosekind! Having a little girl here means I’m busier than ever in the early morning. We are now washed and brushed, ready to take the shuttle to the main clubhouse, where she will go swimming in the indoor pool.

    It’s too hot to go out, but I’ll pop out later in the afternoon to do a little grocery shopping. I’m to bring fruit salad to the barbecue tomorrow at Miss Pink Cheeks’ house.

    Current temp. in Ashburn is 80 F. at 10:10 a.m., going up to 94 F. today! It’ll be hotter than that, though.

    Wishing everyone at the Pond a good day!

  2. Good morning, 60 and sunny in Bellingham. Our summers are always busy with visiting family so ready or not we’re in B&B mode again. It’s always nice to see everyone, but this year, in deference to my creaky knees, we’re not doing so many family dinners on the patio. We’ll join Ron’s brother and our dear SIL at their hotel for dinner tonight, and our son will host the 4th barbecue at his house tomorrow. We’ll all bring food and the dogs will be safe in his fenced yard so it should be fun.

    Take care everyone.

  3. July 4th Meese

    70 degrees here in Saugerties NY going up to 93. This is a trying time for my pets who freak out about the local fireworks

    Meanwhile – Puerto Rico

    • Our poor doggie had a difficult time – heck, _I_ had a difficult time! It was easier when we had the deaf dog although I think she could sense a disturbance in the force. Buttheads blowing off fireworks (and often hands and toes) and disturbing their neighbors and their pets seems a fitting symbol for a country that respects the right to commit mass murder over the right to fair and honest elections.

  4. Morning meeses! Wednesday that will feel like a Saturday …

    It is 72 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 88. Sunny skies are in the forecast but there is a chance of thunderstorms this afternoon. I hope it rains into the night and causes neighborhood fireworks to be cancelled.

    To the surprise of exactly no one, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report concludes that Putin personally intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump “win” the presidency. That it comes out on the afternoon before a national holiday when Congress is in recess and most of America is caught in a traffic jam for two days is no surprise, either. At least one of our institutions is doing its job of oversight – now we need to see some concrete steps to protect the next election. And, really, we need smarter people. The people voting for Trump because they believed the bot lies about Hillary – or who stayed home figuring that both parties would be the same – are ignorant. There is really no other word for it.

    The good news is that there are still more decent people than terrible people (Q Poll: “American voters disapprove 58 – 39 percent of the way tRump is handling immigration”) – now we need them to vote on decency in 2018. If the poll had shown that a majority were pleased at the images from the baby detention facilities, I would be more discouraged.

    What is it about privileged white male Republicans that pedophiles in their midst deserve protection instead of jail? Catholic priests, Joe Paterno, Denny Hastert and now Jim Jordan. How difficult is it to say “I don’t care if he is my buddy, this is wrong” unless you have no moral compass? Jordan’s constituents won’t care – he is royalty in his district – but every dollar he spends having to defend his seat is a dollar less that can go to a seat we have a hope of flipping.

    Today will be a quiet morning and a quiet day and I am going to see how far I get towards getting organized for the July project push.

    See all y’alls later!

  5. Good morning meese. 53 going up to 81. Yesterday was the longest travel day I’ve had in a long while and I finally got home at 1 am Pacific time. Now I’m on my way to SFO to return the emergency rental car I rented last night to drive 120ish miles home.

    Hope everyone has a pleasant day.

    • {{{basket}}} glad you got home safely but you’re going awfully short on sleep. Hope you can get some naps in today. Healing Energy. moar {{{HUGS}}}

  6. 73 & 98% humidity heading for 90 (heaven knows what the heat index will be) and sunny at the moment. Only got 13.7 KWHs yesterday – last several days have been sunny in the morning but clouding up in the afternoon. Not good as that’s my “peak” production time. The m-t-d is 37.7 – considering it’s the 4th, that’s not a great start to the month. We shall see what we shall see.

    I can’t seem to muster energy for much of anything. Probably part of it is the sinusitis exacerbated by dust and pollen – for the last couple of weeks it’s manifested in a tight chest and a dry/unproductive cough with a constant “tickle” in my throat. sigh. I drag myself online to check in at Moose, RT Aji’s and Denise’s tweets, hit my timeline to see if there’s anything I can RT to keep the #ReuniteTheFamilies & #ReturnTheChildren hashtags trending – repeat in the evening with the check in at a different site. That’s about it. Haven’t called my only mildly deplorable senator’s office since having that discussion with the heretofore nice staffer about calling this activity genocide & the perps nazis equivalent to the RW saying Obama’s a Muslim. i’ll have to get some energy back before I can deal with that. Heck, I haven’t even vacuumed this week! Definitely need to do that – I’m almost ankle deep in cat hair and dust bunnies. But I’ll keep on keepin’ on, even if I have to drag myself to do it. For now, I’d best get my walk in before it gets any warmer. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  7. Nice to sleep in in the middle of the week. We’re supposed to get rain this afternoon, which will cool things off nicely. They haven’t canceled the fireworks, they think it’ll be done by then. Going to do some cooking & stuff around the house. Just a nice, low-key day. Have a Beautiful Day — this is the one from the Super Bowl, where Bono had that Stars & Stripes jacket.

  8. Good late morning, Meese! It’s 83 F. here in Ashburn at 11:20 a.m., going up to 90 F. Wonder if there will be a thunderstorm. We had one yesterday afternoon—it just blew up out of nowhere, fueled by the twin engines of heat and humidity—and it resulted in quite a bit of heavy rain. At 7:30 this morning, when I went for my solo walk, it was already like a steam bath outside. I did see a brown cottontail bunny enjoying an early morning grass salad, so it was worth going out early.

    After cooking a proper breakfast for three (dear Goddess, that’s time-consuming), I’ve been tidying up a bit and doing laundry. Next up: making the bed, now that it’s aired, taking a shower, followed by making the muffins and rinsing the berries so they can dry on paper towels. We have to leave here a little after three to drop the dog off at his hotel and go to the barbecue hosted by Younger Son, the father of Miss Pink Cheeks.

    Very pleased to say that Dearly Beloved is hanging the paintings, which will mean we can get the last cardboard boxes out of our flat!

    Wishing a happy Fourth to all, with the only bangs coming from fireworks.

  9. Good morning, 67 and sunny in Bellingham. Family phone calls and visitors have made for a busy morning.

    Happy 4th everyone!

        • they’re expecting another 6 inches today – in Austin, we just got some rain, though there was a tornado one county north

          • {{{ad}}} – stay safe. (and Damn! but NM & CO could use that water!) moar {{{HUGS}}}

      • Thursday Meese
        71 here in Saugerties NY going up to 90 with rain

        Have decided that most folks on the mainland don’t give a damn about Puerto Rico,

        Don’t care about Flint either

        • 27% of the mainland are hardcore Deplorables and another 10% are Deplorable-Lite (civil as long as POC know and keep “their place”). But the real problem is MSM is owned by 5 RW corporations in consortium. Most folks on the mainland would care if they knew about it, if it were presented daily – basically if your tweets and the counter, if a counter on Flint, were running in the corner of every TV screen, well, by now they wouldn’t need to be.

  11. Good morning, meeses! Thursday that feels like Monday …

    It is 70 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 88. The forecast calls for sunny with a chance of thunderstorms, same as yesterday when we got some menacing clouds but not much else – other parts of the state got severe storms. I was hoping for rain all night to (literally!) dampen the enthusiasm for fireworks; instead, I had another night with a scared dog. I hope they are done shooting them off but they will probably go into the weekend. :(

    I think I am finally done reading all the End of The Republic stories relating to the Supreme Court. I am going to save off this one (“Democrats: Prepare to Pack the Supreme Court – If Republicans refuse to let the other party govern, all options should be on the table.“), which is actually from May, as a reminder that we would be within our rights to blow up the courts if the Republicans attempt to overrule our governance via extrajudicial means. But that is in the future – right now we have to assume that Roe will be overturned because everyone on the tRump list has expressed an interest in doing so. Here is what activists are setting up to get women safe abortions:

    Kentucky pro-choice activists have prepared for the day when the court rules against them and makes abortion inaccessible — a possibility the country at large is now reckoning with since Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement last week. Kentucky’s last remaining abortion clinic is only open right now because a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order in March 2017 and blocked the state from revoking EMW Women’s Surgical Center’s license. The judge’s final ruling is expected any day now.

    “We have a contingency in place,” said Kentucky Health Justice Network’s Marcie Crim, should Judge Greg Stivers ultimately side with the state, forcing the Louisville clinic to shutter and leaving the state’s residents without access to abortion. The plan also works if, let’s say, Roe v. Wade is overturned in a post-Kennedy court.

    If a person can’t access abortion services in the state, Kentucky Health Justice Network will drive or fly them to where they can get one. […]

    “The best thing you can do is — [because] it’s going to take 10 or 18 months or some amount of time before a justice is seated or case gets there — the most important thing people can do is go vote for candidates who are not going to vote to pass laws that restrict access to abortion,” [NARAL Pro-Choice Texas’ Blake] Rocap told ThinkProgress. That’s because if Roe is overturned, it’s still legal but left to states. Although, four states have “trigger laws” in place, meaning they automatically ban abortion if Roe is overturned. […]

    There are a handful of volunteer-led organizations that either drive pregnant people to the clinic (like the Bridge Collective), find them a place to stay (like Fund Texas Choice), or pay for the actual procedure (like the Lilith Fund) — all responding to state laws that make it especially challenging without an advocate.

    Here is the big one and the one that has the most promise: getting people educated about self-managed abortions using medication:

    “One of the first things that I thought of when Justice Kennedy’s retirement was announced was our work on self-managed abortion has never been more important and that every person in this country deserves the right to information about how to safely and effectively end a pregnancy with medication,” [Reproaction’s Erin] Matson told ThinkProgress.

    Smart people will have to tell us what we can and can’t do legally to get these drugs to the women who need them. If states start passing laws that charge the mothers with murder if they use drugs to end their pregnancies, it becomes trickier. The reality is that in a lot of places, abortion is already not available – we need to see what works there and build on it:

    “I think we need to look to other countries where abortion has been totally banned and be prepared that that’s a reality we will see,” Matson told ThinkProgress. For larges swaths of the country, abortion access is also just a theory. So it’s wise to look there and build on that foundation, she added, and it starts now.

    See all y’alls later!

    • For those women who have money, “medical” tourism will get a boost. For those women who don’t…we’ve been there before, are mostly there now. Most women will survive. Most. Some permanently physically damaged. All emotionally damaged from the systemic and legally authorized hate that counts their lives, health, and well-being as nothing.

      • Our laws and all religions except one exalt the human male, placing him far above alleged “inferior” beings such as women, children, and animals.

        If we had three branches of government staffed entirely by women, and if patriarchal mainstream religions opted for gender-neutral language, what might happen?

        • The religions are what they are – and they aren’t about to change because their core & power base would desert them if they did. But law, government – that we can change. Have been slowly changing. That threat to their power is why they’re fighting back so hard. Sooner I hope than later we’ll get enough power to recover lost ground and make some more progress. But even if it’s later, it will happen. Too many women will die in the meantime but it will happen.

  12. Ugh, that alarm was early this morning. I hope our call volume is reasonable today. Taking a day off in the middle of the week is almost harder.

    So, this song is Love Is Bigger, but it’s where he tells the story about the gardener of Aleppo that’s in Summer of Love.

  13. Good morning, Moosekind! It’s 8:30 a.m. here in Ashburn and I’m about to cook breakfast for Dearly and me. Miss Pink Cheeks is at home with her mother the rest of the week because DIL telecommutes on Thursdays and Fridays. The current temp. is 74 F., going up to 90 F. with the possibility of pop-up showers.

    Should have gone for a walk but I simply don’t feel up to it. Don’t feel up to much of anything, in fact—not sure why. All I did yesterday was make cinnamon-sugar topped muffins (from a mix), along with fruit salad for the barbecue. The get-together with our extended family was wonderful, with the most frightening part occurring when Miss Pink Cheeks drove off with her cousin in her little jeep. She drove down the sidewalk all the way to Centreville Road, causing the parents racing behind to almost have heart attacks. Order was restored, however, and all was well.

    Dearly Beloved is going to pick up the dog from his hotel this morning. I think I’ll just catch up on paperwork and correspondence. Apropos of Jan’s comment above, you may be interested in an article from The Guardian by Suzanne Moore about how the fundies are coming for women:

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/03/fundamentalism-is-coming-for-us-and-women-as-ever-will-be-first

    Wishing a nice, quiet Thor’s Day to all.

    • Yes, the weakest among us will always be the targets. Women of childbearing age, people of color. It is up the the rest of us to build a bulwark against what the fundies can do. From your linked article:

      We are told we have come a long way and that we are free. We look at other parts of the world, where women are not allowed to vote, or dance, and we see ourselves as modern and liberated. But all our “freedoms” are fairly recent, from being able to get a mortgage to being protected from rape in marriage.

      The narrative of progress is one that too many liberals imbibe, but it is untrue. Progress is not linear. In many of the areas to which we turn when we measure gender equality, we have not moved forward for the past 10 years – income, political engagement, education. Nearly one-fifth of women over 75 are at risk of living in poverty. […]

      The sun is shining and some women have never have had it so good – so maybe you don’t want to think about all of this right now. I don’t blame you. But maybe you should. While you still can.

  14. 72 with 98% humidity heading for 91 and heaven knows what heat index. Got 21.3 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 59 so starting to bring the average up. We shall see what we shall see. Managed to get the vacuuming done, finally. 😂😂😂 Not that it will stay “barefoot friendly” for long. Not with 2 cats in the house. 🐈🐈 (Cloud has taken to sleeping sprawled over my entire “dining” table – it’s under the ceiling fan. I have to move him when I want to eat. heh.)

    Routines are good for some things. Like eating. I’m mostly not hungry these days. Partly heat, partly what’s going on in the world. Not the reflux, thank Goddess, just not getting any signals telling me “time to eat” – so having my routines mean I’m not making myself sick. The sinusitis isn’t helping any either. Oh well. I can’t do much but what I can do I am doing. Tweeting/RTing what I think needs a signal boost and channeling Healing Energy everywhere. (Ya know, it takes energy to channel Energy – the physics of metaphysics.) Give a few bucks here and there (very few) and attend (another very few) meetings/protests when I can. I hope, combined with what everybody else is doing, it will be enough. It doesn’t feel like it.

    I’m counting vacuuming as my day’s exercise in lieu of walking today. It’s not hot (yet) but the humidity is already sticky. Summer time. Living’s not particularly easy, the bugs are appalling, and everything is as sticky as cotton candy. But the peaches are in. 👍👍 Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

    • Ah…peaches. Peeled, sliced peaches under a dollop of sour cream (or Greek yogurt), dusted with cinnamon and dark chocolate shavings. Peeled sliced peaches drizzled with raspberry sauce. Peeled, sliced peaches mixed with blackberries, flavored with nutmeg and grated lemon peel, baking aromatically under a crumb crust. How wonderful our kitchen used to smell at Barky Manor in the summer!

      • {{{Diana}}} – or peaches just eaten messily out of hand. 😁😁😁 (Those do sound lovely.) moar {{{HUGS}}}

  15. Good morning, 66 and partly cloudy in Bellingham. Our family 4th was fun and I was happy to come home early and go to bed. But the city firework explosions over the bay woke me up and then I had trouble going back to sleep. So per usual I’m tired and slow this morning.

    My SIL has plans to visit a few favorite places today and we have an easy taco dinner planned for tonight so if I can keep up we’ll have a fun day.

    Take care everyone.

  16. Good morning, meeses! Friday …

    It is 63 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 79. Sunny skies are in the forecast. It looks like we are done with the 90s until next week.

    Scott Pruitt is gone but not forgotten – he is likely to charged with a few crimes from his tenure at the EPA. There are 15 outstanding investigations and the 16th just concluded with evidence of a crime. The only question is if the “Justice” Department will choose to indict Republican grifters – they would have to charge 90% of their electeds! Of course, Wheeler will not be an improvement from a policy standpoint – he will do his destruction more stealthily. I believe he can only head the EPA for 150 days before a new director has to be confirmed. There is likely to be quite a bit of scrutiny of any replacement and the Republican margin in the Senate has shrunk by 2 since Pruitt was narrowly confirmed.

    The Trump Trade War started at midnight. My best advice for people is to avoid looking at their retirement portfolios because it is going to be rough for a while. People who voted to “shake things up” are getting what they wanted.

    See all y’all later!

  17. Friday Meese
    78 and very muggy – rain today here in Saugerties – temps going up to only 83

    Headed to the eye doctor this afternoon to have measurements taken for my cataract lenses.

    I’ve been collecting these – not that any of this is new – cell phone cameras have simply made these incidents a shareable reality

    Puerto Rico

    • Thank Goddess for cell phones. This is the only way a large chunk of white people who did not know this was still going on have found/are finding out. And are shocked, horrified, and starting to do what they can to help. Not always (not usually even) very competently, but starting. GOP gave the haters license to “go low” – but the majority of the nation are busily shaming and shunning those they find out about who do. Therein lies a bit of hope.

  18. Insomnia sucks. I woke up about every 2 hours last night, it was awful. I gave up at 4:40, because it was too depressing to keep trying to sleep & failing — but because “insomnia” I can barely hold my head up now & my face hurts with the effort of keeping my eyes open. Using City of Blinding Lights to give me energy — this is from the concert I was at, and this guy has a vantage point close to where I was. omg that Adam smile, I might feel somewhat better now.

    Oh, and it’s 81 degrees already at 6am.

    • {{{ad}}} disturbance in the Force again I think. Healing Energy & moar {{{HUGS}}}

  19. Good cloudy morning, Moosekind! At 10:20 a.m. this Friday it’s 76 F., going up to 83 F., with rain expected this afternoon.

    This is Day 2 of the Mystery Malady, which makes me feel like not moving very much, not eating much, and drinking only ONE cup of coffee this morning! (This is unheard of.) The backache, dissipated by a night’s rest, is back, and if it’s here, can the headache be far behind? I can’t imagine what this is, but I hope it’s not Lyme disease (unlikely), and that it’s gone tomorrow.

    Batch, over there in the Village section this morning, referred to an article stating the unlikely possibility that HRC might very well run again. I doubt that. I think she’s sick of the whole bloody thing—the misogyny, the Russian villainy, the Rethug propensity to suppress the vote.

    I fear that Judge Amy is going to be the nominee for the Supreme Court. She’ll be an even more Extreme Supreme than Gorsucks, or than Scaly was. She has seven children and hates abor-shun. Kiss it goodbye, folks, and while you’re at it, wave farewell to contraception too.

    My Goddess, you should see Tom Toles’ editorial cartoon on the editorial page of the Washington Poop this morning! Uh—wow! I don’t know how to grab it to reproduce here but if I did, I would.

    I’ll probably go back to bed this afternoon. Got washed, brushed, and dressed, as I hate slopping around all day in dressing-gown and slippers, but I can tell I’m fading.

    Wishing all at the Pond a good day and please, Goddess, no bad news.

        • Twitter is a great platform for sharing images and stories without worrying about copyrights and attribution. The embed code can be easily copy/pasted onto a web page and renders nicely. I just searched for TomToles, found TomTolesToons and voila!

    • I don’t think that it will be Amy Coverture Barrett – her anti-Roe statements do not have any plausible deniability and even Susan Collins can’t ignore that. It will be between Kavanaugh and Kethledge. Kavanaugh has the pedigree Trump wants but he is a Bushie. Kethledge seems more reliably regressive – he has been called him a John Roberts clone. Kethledge is also a fundie. Someone yesterday said that “internal deliberations” suggest that tRrump wants someone who “looks All American, handsome and white.” That he is having another “unveiling” on national TV shows you how serious he is about this. Either of those men would be about as bad but I think neither would be as sociopathic as Gorsucks – he has a damaged soul.

      • Diana (hopefully) Y’know, there have been conservative Supreme Court picks who later turned out to surprise the pickers! Remember Souter?

        • I think that “Remember Souter” has been the battle cry of the right-wing since, well, since David Souter weighed in on his first case. The fear of selecting someone with a beating heart or not reliably conservative has been driving them nuts for years. That is why the vetting has been turned over to the Federalist Society. They have been nurturing these pods of fundies since they emerged and have been examining their stools for the past 50 years to make sure that they won’t stray. Gorsucks was perfect – his mother was one of the first heads of the EPA (under Reagan) and provided the template for dismantling good government. Kavanaugh – the front runner – is not as perfect because the kind of cases the DC Circuit gets don’t often involve human beings except in the abstract. The fly in the ointment is his Bush tenure. That the Bush administration would not be considered a good breeding ground for regressive judges is pretty funny on the surface. It is the personal loyalty requirement that he is stuck on.

  20. Good morning, 68 and sunny in Bellingham. Our summer visiting shuffle continues on……Ron’s bro, SIL, and small dog leave after breakfast, then our son’s small dogs arrive for their grand puppy visit while the family goes camping, and tomorrow our Oregon daughter and her family arrive for a week’s visit. Lot’s of fun, but oh my.

    Best wishes to all.

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