Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: July 8th through July 14th

July 7, 2018 JanF Community 96

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!
 

 

41 Comments

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

    Morning low of 59 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 82. Sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. Sunday Meese

    55 here in Saugerties NY, going up to 86.

    Woke up to a leaking pipe downstairs – the perils of living in an old farmhouse,
    Put some temp tape on it till I can get plumbers here tomorrow. They charge double for weekend emergencies.

    PR – Bobby is okay

    Beryl won’t hit PR – however it is worrisome to see hurricanes, tropical storms starting so early in the season.

    Not ignoring other islands – which people here on the US mainland ignore completely

    PR

    Talking about the plight of the evacuees living precariously here on the mainland in today’s Sunday DKos post

    Have a good day

    • Hello, Sis, thank you for the updates. Yes, we here on the mainland are completely self-absorbed. White male journos are interested only in topics that might conceivably affect themselves,so of course we never read anything about other places.

      After the race will pop by DK to read your post and Jan’s Fighting Back post here.

  3. Good glorious Sunday morning, Moosekind! It’s another unbelievably beautiful day here: the temp. right now is 57 F., going up to 83 F. later, with low humidity again. This kind of weather in July is almost unheard of, although we had a day in August years ago that was so chilly I had to put on a sweater.

    Still feeling under the weather but recovering, thank Goddess. Yesterday while sitting on the screened porch enjoying the weather and the view I realized that after three and a half months I still don’t feel at home here—I feel more as if we’re having a long stay at a residential hotel. I still feel that our real home is the house we left behind. However, it’s true that if we’d stayed we’d have had to continue renting out the basement flat because between the property taxes and the repairs we’d have started running out of money.

    Enough about the home front. Have been afraid to look at the news for fear of finding out the race results but Dearly just looked at his iPad and said that three kids have been rescued from the cave! Thank Goddess and thank ALL the brave Navy SEAL divers and support people who have been helping. Let’s all pray that all the cave parents and the border parents will be reunited sooner rather than later!

    • This is not surprising!

      I realized that after three and a half months I still don’t feel at home here—I feel more as if we’re having a long stay at a residential hotel.

      You lived in your old house for a very long time and I am sure the “muscle memory” is strong. I suspect that when I move (I plan to stay in the same general area, short term), I will turn the wrong way “home” more than once but I have lived enough different places over my lifetime that it will not be difficult to feel that a new place is home. My daughter will have it harder, I suspect, as this has been her main home for 3/4 of her life.

      I hope you get more and more comfortable as time goes on!

      • Thank you! My friend the poet offered a post on Facebook yesterday about the transitory nature of our life here on earth, and I realized my intense feeling of homesickness would dissipate in time. It’s just unfortunately very strong right now.

  4. Slept in — only woke up 3 times again last night so that’s 2 good nights in a row. Watching Le Tour. The one who had the crash yesterday started this morning, he is at the back but he’s there. Yesterday on twitter, he said he’s donating for every stage he does & challenged other Houston sports figures to do so — and the regular people in the thread said they would, too. Today: church — the Westboro Baptist protest is at 8am so I’m missing that, and some cooking. I need to make tea for next week and lunch. It’s Sunday morning so why not gospel: When Love Comes To Town from the Apollo show. Y’all know I’m no evangelical, but this performance had me doing the raised hand thing. She was definitely in the room for that one.

  5. At least one of Trump’s SCOTUS shortlisters believes that that 14th Amendment should be overturned. Amy Coverture Barrett said that the former slave states were “coerced” into ratifying it and as such, it should be stricken from the Constitution. This is what passes for “originalism” for Republicans – returning to the original constitution.

    • I take it the stupid bitch doesn’t realize that returning to the original constitution will also remove her right to vote and hold office. Among a whole lot of other things of course but those 2 seriously impact her ability to be on the Court and vote to remove rights from everybody not male cis WASP.

  6. Good morning, 68 and sunny in Bellingham. Our daughter and her family are here now so it was a 3 dog night with lots of territorial “dog talk” She is walking them now and I’m slowing waking up. Milo and Maggie go home later today :)

    Best Sunday wishes to all.

  7. It was in the mid 60s this morning right after dawn (my hands were not happy) and is 79 now, only 57% humidity, heading for mid 80s. It’s humid enough to feel sticky. I’ve got the house closed up for the rest of the day. Still not using the A/C, but got every fan going. Got 21.6 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 117. 500 for the month is still possible but iffy. Since I baked last Monday and have eaten yogurt most of the week, I won’t need to bake again until next weekend. Hopefully we’ll still be having cool mornings then.

    Very late getting online but I’ve read & tweeted out Denise’s diary and every tweet in it. I’ll see whatever else I can find to RT for Puerto Rico or the stolen kids. Need to get lunch though. Blood sugar starting to drooble down. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  8. Good morning, meeses! Monday …

    It is 70 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 88 (heat index 102). I managed to keep the air off yesterday until about 2pm when the cool breezes stopped being cool. I’ll see how long I can hold out today.

    I keep waiting for “surely THIS will make the Republicans turn away from their unfit leader” but it never happens. That a seat on the Supreme Court overrides decency and a stable economy and America’s place in the world makes it clear that the Republicans have a long term plan to weaponize the high court to dismantle any progress made by the Not Thems. We really aren’t very smart, assuming that “precedent” would protect us. I read an article in our paper showing what will happen when Roe is overturned – the controlling state law says that life begins at conception (say bye to many forms of birth control!) and that doctors will face 6 years in prison for performing abortions. No exceptions for rape or incest and a very narrow one for “life of the mother” that does not include the health of the mother. One of our gubernatorial candidates said she would pardon any doctor convicted under that statute so it might become a campaign issue. I hope people realize what they did by staying home or writing in Bernie Sanders or voting for Jill Stein instead of voting for Hillary Clinton. Stupid stupid people.

    I won’t be watching the “announcement” nor will I be on Twitter. It makes no difference, the 25 person list has been pre-vetted as anti-Roe – they will all suck, just in different ways – the carnival barker will again cheapen our democracy by turning what should be an important Constitutional transition into a gaudy reality TV show episode.

    See all y’all later!

  9. Monday Moose
    57 going up to 91 here in the Hudson Valley of NY.

    Another day – another racist creep shows his ass

    I hope people in CA get him kicked out of office

    Puerto Rico

    • One good thing about Maxine Waters becoming the “face of the Democratic Party” for the Republican base is that it leaves no doubt about what motivates them and what they intend to run on. My heart tells me that most Americans don’t support out-and-out racism but my brain is not as certain. In Montana, skin-head Catholic priests go to Trump rallies and cheer when Elizabeth Warren is called “Pocahontas”, when #MeToo is mocked, and when Trump talks about the “infestation” of non-whites crossing the border. The christianists have picked their moral leader – I hope their afterlife is the reward they deserve.

  10. Good morning, Meese! It’s another beautiful Moon Day here in Ashburn, with a current temp. of 60 F., going up to 87 F. When I took the dog out this morning at 5:30 it was positively chilly. A fellow dog mom was wearing a jacket over her pajamas. This weather is very unusual for July, so I’ll lap it up.

    Just heard that a fifth boy has been rescued from the cave! On the other hand, the horror of what’s happening to the border children overrides the happiness I feel about the rescue.

    Nancy Northup in the WaPo has a thought-provoking op-ed this morning, to the effect that if Roe is overturned, a lot of other rights will follow. Rights that we thought were over and done with, enshrined in law. Here’s the link:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/roe-isnt-just-about-womens-rights-its-about-everyones-personal-liberty/2018/07/08/527d8548-8160-11e8-b658-4f4d2a1aeef1_story.html?utm_term=.157771c3d6a9

    Jan is betting on a Thing clone to be the new judge: I’m still thinking Judge Amy, which would be rubbing feminists’ faces in the mud because Amy is female too.

    Why did we bother to get up this morning?

    • It will be interesting – the bigger insult to women would be to elevate a woman-hating woman to the Supreme Court to be the 5th vote to undo a woman’s right to control her body. But he will be unable to overcome his innate belief that white males are the only ones who should be put in charge of important things.

      Northrup is right – Roe is not just about “women’s rights” it is about personal liberty, the right to control your body, choose the size of your family, ensure your own economic well-being. Forced birth is not in anyone’s best interests. It is punishing women for refusing to be dependent on the largesse of men for their subsistence.

  11. Wow, I only woke up twice last night! WooHoo! We had intermittent rain yesterday — I eventually rotated all the plants out to get watered. More rain expected today, and it won’t hit 100. The drawback is the mold levels are record-setting. But I’ve got benadryl, so I can deal with that. Meanwhile, it’s Monday. I love the background in this Love Is Bigger video — they use it a lot. I wish whey’d make a t-shirt of it, I’d wear it every day.

  12. The widget said 70 but it feels chilly to me. We’re at 100% humidity at the moment but hopefully that will go down as the temps go up. Heading for mid 80s which I find quite comfortable if the humidity is low – and not if not. Got 19.4 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 128 at the moment. Need to get that average up to make 500. We shall see what we shall see.

    I’ve been having problems with my laptop locking up but when I took it in the techies couldn’t find anything, couldn’t replicate it. With the help of some wonderful friends I got a cool mat on the chance that it could be the heat but while it’s a good idea it didn’t stop the lockups. I seem to have an Inspiron (I thought I had a Latitude) which is known to have lockup problems but this only started a few months ago and I’ve had it for over 2 years. The other possibility basket found was that it could be a Microsoft 10 upgrade in April having interface problems with Chrome. So I’m using Edge for the next few days to see if that helps. After basket did a “Quick Assist” with me and set up my bookmarks bar so I can find stuff. LOL.

    The Deplorables want to take us back to 1840 – women have no rights but are at least sort of considered human, POC aren’t considered human. Black folks are chattel and the only good Indian is a dead one. Chinese for some reason or another are considered Indian. White America is totally racist and largely sexist to one degree or another. A chunk of white America is misogynist and genocidal. The latter is in power right now. So we shall see if their obvious misogyny and genocidal actions are enough to get them voted out of power. Because that’s what we have to do – get them out of power, clean up the damage, and try to stop that particular lot from getting power again. Meanwhile we have to do whatever we can to slow them down. We can’t shame them. It doesn’t help to show they’re killing people. That’s the point. But sometimes massive responses, when televised, slow them down a bit.

    Shade’s a star horse now and everybody at Aji’s place is devastated and grief stricken, especially Mishwaki, the one remaining horse. His herd has died one by one over the last 19 months. As with a bunch of other deaths, human and other, Shade’s is one more that shouldn’t have happened. But did. The day may or may not be bright but the night sky has a new star. {{{HUGS}}}

  13. Good morning, 65 and partly sunny in Bellingham. I have a fun day planned with the pool this morning, time with my grand girls and daughter in Fairhaven this afternoon, and a family dinner on the patio this evening. Everyone is thoughtful and helpful but it’s a lot of activity for my creaky knees!

    Time to find my swim suit and get going. Take care everyone.

  14. Good afternoon, Meesefolk; straggling in, late as usual. I finally got out in my gardens on Saturday. Actually only one of my gardens, which was so overgrown that I just started digging everything out. I was able to salvage my Amsonia, some of my ferns, and an assortment of different Rudbeckias, but everything else is compost. Unfortunately, my biggest issue with this space was the “gifts” of black walnut and mulberry volunteers, which are an absolute bitch to fully dig out. I had some success, but as a result, I spent Sunday with back spasms which left me tethered to my heating pad for most of the day. It occurs to me that maybe I should start recognizing that I’m not a youngster any more, but most days I don’t feel a day older than 45, so it’s a hard reality for my brain to wrap around.

    The weather is going to be too hot to work much outside for the balance of the week, which is probably good news for my back. But I so want to finish that one garden; double dig the soil, put in some perennial division from my other gardens, and get the mulch laid. Not likely, but I can dream…and it sure beats focusing on the political news of late.

    I really hope there are some Dems in both the House and Senate who are having their staffers work on tightly-written bills to put forward once we have some power again. Tightly-written, because with a hostile SCOTUS, we’re going to do our best to eliminate loopholes and drafting errors. And written now (subject to the usual sausage-making, of course) because if we do regain a toehold or two, we need to be ready to show people who we are. We may not be able to get them past a veto, but we need to have them ready. Which leads me to my question for today: if we regain the Senate and/or the House, is there any reason the draft of the immigration reform bill from 2013, which passed the Senate, couldn’t be brought up again? Not all of the 14 Rs who voted yea the first time are/will be still in the Senate, but several are. Is there a reason this isn’t a viable plan?

    • {{{DoReMI}}} – be careful there – you only get one back per body you know. Black walnut is really hard to get rid of and it pretty much poisons the surrounding soil if you don’t so good luck on that. Mulberry’s invasive as all get out but it also really good wild bird food in the spring. In the years I actually get cherries, the birds leave them alone until the mulberries are gone. (But clear the cherries off the tree in a single day once the mulberries are gone.)

      We have definitely got to be ready to hit the ground running the next time we’ve got the majority, so yes, very solidly constructed bills ready to bring to the floor as soon as we have the power to do so. No problem I know of bringing back the “gang of 8” immigration bill. They could look it over, tighten it up even, then reintroduce it. They do it all the time with bills the “clock ran out” on. Healing Energy and moar {{{HUGS}}}

  15. Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …

    It is 72 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 84. Sunny skies are in the forecast. The heat index will still be in the high 90s and I can’t imagine we will be able to turn the air conditioning off. I am not looking forward to the next electric bill!

    I wandered through Twitter before and after the SCROTUS announcement and found a few rays of hope. I think that of the 4 finalists, Coney Barrett was the scariest because of her lack of intelligence and her tentherism – a Mike Lee in skirts. Kavanaugh will provide Democrats with a lot of moments during the hearing that will be usable in campaign ads and relitigating the Kenneth Starr investigation, the Terry Schiavo order, and the Bush years will not help the Republicans in the midterm. Will he get confirmed? Probably. George W. Bush issued a statement praising the orange dotard so the establishment Republicans, just like the fundies, are getting in line (p.s fk George W. Bush, the Bush family, and all the ignorant liberals who have been lionizing them). For Republicans it IS the Supreme Court because they know that the only way they stay in power is to kill the franchise and make honest elections impossible. Fortunately, we have a way around them – there is still a lot of power in the states and Democrats need to take a page from the Republican playbook: win back the states, put firewalls in the state constitutions to protect voting rights and womens rights and LGBTQ rights.

    I will read the hot takes after I get accounting projects done.

    See all y’all later!

  16. Tuesday Meese

    61 here in NYS going up to 91 with rain. The plubers will arrive around 8 AM – I’m praying that fixing the pipes will not wipe out my bank account. Sigh.

    Really pissed about this:

    And about the latest power outage in PR

    • How is that people are so effing stupid nowadays? Is it because “social studies”—whatever the hell that is—has replaced old-fashioned “geography”? How do they not know that Puerto Rico is part of the United States?

      Of course, Thing has made it possible to be publicly rude and hateful again.

      • Social studies, geography, civics… sigh – I really have no clue anymore about what people learn in school

  17. The rain is gone & we’ll gradually go back to normal temps. Work has been sooooo busy…. I want to know who all these people are who don’t read, because they are for sure not in Texas. Every day I can think of last week & all day yesterday, our queue light was blinking so fast it was practically a steady light. I didn’t watch much news yesterday, the SCOTUS nominee was going to be someone evil, and the Tour de France had the team time trials — which is gorgeous and scary because the least little thing goes wrong & the whole team could crash. Listening to the Blackout: when the lights go out, don’t you ever doubt the light that we can really be.

    • Hi, another, I’m curious to know too! My own daughter told me that she doesn’t know anyone who reads nowadays, they’re all too busy with social media. After I recovered from fainting dead away (my last name happens to be Read, and no one ever in the history of the world has had a more appropriate surname than I), I was driven to put up a diary on Orange asking if anyone still reads.

      Had numerous comments on that one! :)

  18. heh

  19. 72 and 100% humidity heading for mid 80s which will probably actually be upper 80s – and feel like upper 90s with this kind of humidity. I did a bit of pruning in my yard yesterday and have been reminded why I usually hire that done. My face is broken out and itches. sigh. But the guy I usually hire has managed to break his shoulder (end of May) and his hip (last week) so I did it before it got too big for my loppers. Not that he does a particularly good job anyway but if I’m there pointing to what needs removing he manages to get the worst of it. He’s really not capable of doing a good job at much of anything but he’s a widowed, partially disabled, retired vet so…

    Back in Nov 2016 I likened our situation to being under siege. I wasn’t kidding. I knew they’d be hitting us from all directions. I thought then and think still that we’ll survive it as a nation – that we’ll still be the democratic republic of the (more or less) United States of America with the kinds of goals/Dreams we’re famous for if only in myth once this is over. But the further they push us back, the longer and harder it will be to recover. My suggestions then and now are to pick a few issues to focus on, do our best on those issues, and trust our friends/allies to cover the rest. (Which is what we do here on Moose – we have overlapping concerns but each has one or more issues she focuses on.) And to take care of ourselves. The “walls” have to have a full battle complement at all times, but we can only do our “share” – we must rest, eat properly, stay hydrated, spend time with loved ones, and find a few things each day to smile about. We cannot carry the load by ourselves, it’s too big. We cannot be at battle stations 24/7, we’d burn out and not be ready when we need to be. But when we’re “on duty” we put all our energy into being on duty. The SCOTUS of course is key to a whole lot of our issues – and we can/will certainly lose most of the progress made in the last 60 years. But we can/will certainly fight back. And the road has already been cut. We know the way. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  20. Good morning, Moosekind! The cicadas are buzzing this Tuesday morning, which is once again sunny and blue-skied. The temp. in Ashburn at the moment is 69 F., going up to 92 F.

    We awoke shrieking at 2:22 this morning after the sound of a heavy crash in our bedroom. When I blearily opened my eyes at 7, I discovered that the nice picture called “Summer Treasures” had crashed to the floor behind my nightstand. Dearly had used a plastic stick-on thingy to hang it rather than hanging it properly. There are marks on the wall now. We’ll have to trot to Michael’s to get a new glass cover for “Summer,” as the old one is heavily damaged. He promised to hang it up properly.

    Another delightful surprise was a small green puddle on the bedroom carpet where Monty Beagle had barfed up the grass he ate at 5:30. Extrac-Vac to the rescue! Hope it works.

    SO GLAD to hear that all the boys and the coach are out of the fearsome cave! Now—can we get the BABIES back to their rightful parents instead of putting them in the witness stand, sucking on bottles, before a judge? The Thing administration is depraved.

    Did not watch the announcement last night. I can’t stand hearing Thing’s voice.

    Jan said:

    (p.s fk George W. Bush, the Bush family, and all the ignorant liberals who have been lionizing them)

    Yeah, what is all this “I miss Dubya” I keep seeing on Facebark? I hated Dubya for starting a war of choice and causing the death of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. They were not the ones who hijacked the planes on September 11! Most of the hijackers were Saudis, but oh, no, Dubya smarmed up to them. My own personal ranking of the Stupidest POTUSes: 1. Thing. 2. Dubya. 3. Ray-gun. ‘Course, some would argue that Dubya and Ray-gun should switch places, considering the state of the latter’s mental health.

    That’s enough from me this morning. I need to tidy up this place and take some more cold pills. Everyone have a good day!

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