Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: July 22nd through July 28th

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?

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.

 

Page One of Comments is HERE!
 
Page Two of Comments is HERE!
  

 

48 Comments

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

    Morning low of 64 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 77. Rain is in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. Good Sunday Meese

    65 here in Saugerties NY going up to 87 with rain.

    I’ve been really really pissed about Bernie Sanders and Ocasio going to KS to campaign for a white guy against Sharice Davids
    Hope everyone will give her a follow

    This mornings Sunday Sermon from me over at Orange is about #VoteLikeBlackWomen – which is going to piss a few folks off :)

    The trauma continues

    • Ha! “#VoteLikeBlackWomen – which is going to piss a few folks off .” I may have to make a point of checking it out later after the comments section gets “ripe” – I am up for reading a good knock-em-down-drag-em-out fight about white bro privilege and women and blacks “knowing their place.” It is the unwritten subhead on the site and one that they will never be able to shed.

      I am getting an itchy feeling about the Ocasio-Sanders wing of whatever the hell party they are in. I hope they don’t screw the pooch and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I have been retweeting the Davids campaign when I find them in my timeline. I noticed that the New York Times, not satisfied with elevating a vulgar talking yam to the presidency and destroying the country, is now determined to sow discord in the only institution left – the Democratic Party – that is capable of fighting back. We have to be careful not to take the bait. Yesterday they wrote that article about “Democrats in Disarray” and then sent it out as BREAKING NEWS email in the afternoon to make sure it did maximum damage. Grrrr.

      • Yes – the NYT pisses me off too. I read them only to follow Frances Robles’ excellent reporting on Puerto Rico – and for Charles Blow.

        • When I see pieces like that with the youngs insisting that we remake the entire Democratic Party to their purity standards – even it if means losing the presidency for a generation – I am reminded of Nixon-McGovern. In 1972, I was 18 years old and there was time to rebuild the party. I won’t be able to survive what the Republicans have in mind for me and mine for another 20 year rebuilding process.

          Your party on purity:

    • Ms. I-haven’t-even-won-my-own-general-election-yet is coming to MI too; she’ll be campaigning for Abdul El-Sayed, one of our D primary candidates for governor. El-Sayed is extremely impressive in person (I’ve heard him speak twice), but the second time I heard him, I smelled the whiff of Berniecrat and immediately started supporting Gretchen Whitmer. The two candidates who are claiming the progressive mantle, while dubbing Whitmer the Establishment candidate, have both started going negative – hard – against Gretchen, and it pisses me off. They’re oblivious to the ammunition they’re providing the Rs, and Bill Schuette, the frontrunner on the R side (and full disclosure, a [distant] relative) won’t hesitate to use their attacks against Whitmer (assuming she wins the primary). But purity uber alles, amiright?

      • Angry Black Lady on Twitter asked AOC point blank why she was going to Kansas to campaign against Sharice Davids – a woman of color – and AOC said that she was for single-payer, free college tuition and no corporate money – and would not stump for any politician who did not meet her litmus tests. Of course, to her “no corporate money” included Emily’s List which is insanity. And she won’t allow for Davids to say that she would vote for single payer but that her goal was first to protect the health care advances we had made with the ACA, what Dee would probably call a “preservative” position.

        Today is the first day of early voting in the Wisconsin partisan primary and our big race is the governorship with eight Democrats running. I am still deciding but I am leaning towards Kelda Roys because of her position on reproductive rights even though she leans berner. Mahlon Mitchell, the other possibility, is the head of the firefighters union and has been visiting the union halls and could be a strong candidate. However, he did not even vote until 2008 and that made me itchy. He might be too conservative for me – I am still reading up on him. I would hope that the unions would rally behind whoever the Democrats nominate.

        • ABLs question got her hit with another wave of rose trolls

          Meanwhile the MSM continues with their relentless promote Bernie campaign
          My response

          • I also wrote a “there is no Bernie wing…” tweet – and got a snide “only 9 RTs and 21 likes” from an apparent berner. Little does she know that those are good metrics for any of my tweets. LOL. I didn’t engage.

            And yeah, ABL got slammed by berners – but she also got some good responses. berners are a gift to the RWNJs – both their political arm (Rs) and their propaganda arm (MSM) use the berner message to split the liberal vote. And stay in power.

    • Excellent rant! I love this part:

      I have gotten pretty sick and tired of reading comments opining about how “conservative” black folks are as a voting bloc. We are not conservative. We are simply not suicidal. We are “preservative.”

      How in the hell do you think we have managed to survive a system of white supremacy built into the genocidal foundations of this nation?

      If the 2016 purity voters had had any skin in the game instead of coasting on their privilege, the 70,000+ votes (including the 36,000 or so in Wisconsin) would have been made up. But Wisconsin went berner in the primary and his voters stayed home in the general out of peeve and because their white (mostly male) privilege would not be bothered by a terrible person in the White House.

      I wish more people would realize that their white skin is in the game if they would get their heads out of their asses and look around. Not so difficult to understand this:

      We vote to survive.

      The comments did not disappoint. From the “right on!”s like this …

      FogCityJohn: “I really like Rebecca Solnit’s line about voting. A vote isn’t a valentine; it’s a chess move.”

      … to the clueless DSAs. How can people think that they are the future of the party, they can’t even make a coherent argument defending their point of view – probably because it is indefensible to cede power to Republicans because the alternative is not pure enough. JHC!

  3. Watching Le Tour, waiting for Joy Reid’s show. Yesterday she had a segment with Rachel — that was great. Today: church & cooking. There are these “nourish bowl” things I found in the produce section that, if I add some quinoa and/or beans depending on the bowl, I can make into 2 or 3 meals. Cuts down on my cooking time & has me eating a variety of food. The sriracha one, omg.

    So I was going to post Empress again, but when I brought up youtube, it had Adventure of a Lifetime in the “watch it again” section. A happy, poppy song.

    Under this pressure, under this weight
    We are diamonds taking shape
    We are diamonds taking shape

  4. Good morning, Moosekind! Today, 22 July, is the feast day of Mary Magdalen. I knew there was something special about this day when we woke up to sunlight and blue skies after a day of heavy rain on Saturday. There was flooding in some parts of NoVa.

    Went down the road to Herndon this morning to look after my son’s dog. Poor baby. He really misses his family. He didn’t eat all day yesterday, although I’d left him a full bowl of food in the morning. Darling Niece does the afternoon visits, so she gave him water and comforted him as best she could. Luckily Younger Son and family are en route from New York even as a I write. Mr. Preschooler, I understand, was very excited about visiting “New Nark”!

    Got to finish laundry today and ponder finishing two short stories for my collection. I wish I could think of a really catchy title for this new book! Most of the stories are so short one could read them in five minutes.

    We’re about to watch the Formula I race, so will sign off for now. Hope it’s a peaceful Sunday for all at the Pond and beyond!

  5. Good morning, 63 and sunny in Bellingham. We’re celebrating our grand daughters 16th birthday today so I’ve got a cake to finish making and flowers to arrange. I’m very fortunate to have grand children be the focus of my day.

    Take care everyone.

  6. Hi Meeses – 68 when I got up 77 now and heading for upper 80s, at least as far as air temps. Got just over 20 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 345 at the moment. Maybe & maybe not on the 500 for the month, but it’s still possible at least. I’d hoped to put off the Tractor Supply run (birdseed, kibble, & litter) until next weekend so the charge would hit my credit card in September along with my travel expenses but supplies wouldn’t stretch so I just got back from doing that. Need to debone the smoked chicken my grandson brought me last night but otherwise a “light” weekend – my friend is wearing her “cleaning hat” to repay a loan she refused to take as a gift, I did my baking last week, and I’m putting off my laundry a week so I don’t have to do an “extra” load before I start my travels.

    I love Sharice Davids – the more I see & hear of her, the better I like her in fact. I used to live in that district (like 22 years ago) and have a few fond memories of it. I’m only doing a very small amount but I set up for monthly donations for her – and of course I’m RTing everything I can for her. That the extreme/purist Left is attacking her does not surprise me. That they are using damn-near verbatim the same attacks they used on Hillary also does not surprise me. “Chatty Cathy” dolls – pull the string and you get one of a dozen canned phrases, just like the Rs (all of whom are extreme at this point). They will hamstring us is they can, with Russia’s help just as in 2016. Extremists always do. Their “revolution” is totally irrelevant when we’re making progress. The situation has to be literally intolerable before anyone pays them any attention so we who make progress, who make things better, are their worse enemies. Which makes them dangerous even though they aren’t our worst enemies. They’re more like ankle-biters who are mostly yappy and irritating. They only become a problem when they chomp an ankle and distract our attention from the real enemy long enough for that real enemy to get in a disabling/killing blow. So. Isolate and mute the microphone the RW-owned media insists on giving them as much as we can. They are enablers of the Evil Ones which pretty much makes them evil, too. But they aren’t that important as long as we can keep them away from our ankles.

    Anyway, a chicken awaits me. 😁😁😁 Healing Energy to everybody to your purpose. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  7. Good morning, meese! Monday …

    It is 59 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 81. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    So we wake up to a confrontation with Iran. Sigh. No wonder Lindsey Graham was defending the dotard on TV yesterday – he knew he was about to get his warboner! I am not sure how all-out war in the Middle East somehow spares Trump allies Israel and Saudi Arabia but this is a guy who thinks that the stock market rising gives the country money to cover the losses in a trade war.

    I am still trying to sort through the latest series of Democrats in Disarray stories and trying to figure out if there is anything to concern myself with. So far I think not. Right now all we can do is get Democrats registered and then get them out to vote.

    See all y’all later!

  8. Monday Meese – a rain day here in NY’s Hudson Valley – 74 going up to 79.

    Waking up to news of more batshit cray-cray tweets from the Orange Menace.

    At this point – I see no one able to reign him in, except us the voters.

    Puerto Rico

    I am a fan

    • YAY! for Lin-Manuel Miranda – and a STFU to the probably white definitely clueless people commenting on that tweet. (Same kind of privileged s**theads who complained the WPA shouldn’t have hired artists.)

  9. It’s going to get to 108 here today. We have an “excessive heat warning” until 7pm. I built up quite a sweat just walking for 10 minutes until the building would let me in. (our cards only work between certain hours & I was super early today) I don’t know if Trump is honestly trying tot start a war with Iran or if he’s trying to distract us.

    Library/author/book lover twitter is dragging the professor who hates libraries & it is truly glorious. He doubled down, with an even worse article saying “you know, libraries aren’t actually free, they’re paid for by taxes!!” And Neil Gaiman has joined the fun. Earlier — maybe over the weekend? — I read awesome stuff on John Scalzi’s & NK Jemison’s twitter.

  10. Welp, my laptop has started locking up again. As in it did this morning as I was about to check in so I shut it down and went for a walk. I guess it’s not the rain video I was listening to/meditating to Saturday night that’s triggering this. It’s also not just a Chrome issue as I’ve been on Edge for 2 weeks now. I got a whole 10 days lock-up free. whoop whoop. sigh. Anyway, overnight lows in the mid to upper 60s – welcome if weird for July – means I can leave the A/C off again and actually take walks if I do it early enough. It’s 69 at the moment but should start moving up soon as the sun is now above the eastern hills and putting out some warmth. I hope it stays sunny today – and the humidity drops, it’s at 93% at the moment. Only got 10 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 352 – need 148 to make 500 for the month which means about 17/day average to make it.

    Evil Ones being evil – which always hurts people and always gets a certain number of folks killed, directly or indirectly. Only way to stop this is vote them out. And hope we can hang onto Power long enough to restore the vote in all the areas/demographics they’ve stolen it. We will survive this. We will get through this. How well and how soon are the issues, not whether. But there’s already a lot of hurt and will be more before we manage. sigh.

    Meanwhile, I need to do some RTing, get my postcards into the mailbox and find some coffee. Healing Energy to everybody everywhere. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

    • Microsoft pushed some emergency patches on Friday to revoke/redo some updates from Microsoft Patch Tuesday (7/10). I have held them back from my clients until I can assess feedback from early adopters. That may be part of the what you are experiencing. You may want to go to updates and re-scan for new ones.

      • Dear Goddess, the Moose is skittish this morning! Anyway, late to the party because Miss Pink Cheeks is staying with us. I had to cook bacon and eggs for breakfast, always time-consuming.

        It’s 73 F. in Ashburn at the moment, going up to 79 F. today. Ugly with rain off and on, too.

        We’re waiting for Darling Niece and Miss Pink Cheeks’ cousin to arrive for a play date and lunch. Wouldn’t you bloody well know—this is deep summer, Grandchildren Season, and the Ashby Ponds swimming pool is out of commission! I bet all the water aerobics people are apoplectic.

        Nothing intelligent to say, so will wish a good day to all at the Pond.

      • Thanks – I’ll see if I can figure out how to do that. Although when basket helped me set up on Edge (move my bookmarks over and such), he also checked for updates and I’m supposedly current. This started in April so I’m betting one of those “updates” is actually the problem. sigh.

      • {{{Diana}}} – actually it was pretty good for most of the first 2 years I had it. Most of my problems early on came from not knowing what the heck I was doing (I still mostly don’t), like that I needed to actually shut down the system and reboot, not just restart, after an update for my sound to work. But this lockup stuff is really irritating. I think I’ll go back to a desktop when this one gives out though. I don’t really travel that much. LOL

  11. Good morning, Meesefolk. After non-stop rain this weekend, today is merely gloomy and grey with an expected high of 79. It looks like it will be Wednesday before the threat of rain dissipates.

    I spent most of the weekend unplugged, although I can’t for the life of me say what I accomplished with all of my time. I guess laundry and dishes and cooking count, but since those never go away, I don’t feel like I got much done. I noted this morning that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is still alienating people; her trip to MI should be…interesting. I recognize that she is in a heavily-Dem district, but I do wish she would stay home and attend to her campaign there. She might be a shoo-in, but she could be energizing people to vote, vote, vote; it’s not as if she is going to be the only one on the ballot. But I’ve been learning that the Leftier-Than-Thou contingent is typically very selfish and very short-sighted, so I don’t expect to see my wishes come true anytime soon.

    And now back to “work”… looks like a very slow day, so that actually just means writing tomorrow’s post!

  12. Good morning, 62 and sunny in Bellingham. I had a cake moment yesterday when the top layer fell apart, yikes! I kept the corners intact, filled in the center as best I could, used a generous amount of the berry filling, covered it all with whipped cream, topped it off with lots of fresh raspberries, then put the platter on a large basket tray and surrounded it with fresh hydrangea blooms and candles. Whew…..big relief when it looked like nothing had happened, an even bigger relief when it tasted delicious. Another birthday memory :)

    I have a physical therapy appointment this morning then I’ll sort out the rest of my day. Take care everyone.

    • Wow, princesspat, that was a better “save” than a goalie at a soccer match! Glad it looked great and turned out to be delicious. You have given me my first smile of the day.

  13. Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …

    It is 64 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 81. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    It looks like we survived ALL-CAPS Armageddon. The problem, of course, is that no one knows if the shitgibbon is just having a needs-prunes moment or if he is seriously considering starting a war. And it is increasingly obvious that the stress is bad for America. Christine Todd Whitman, former New Jersey governor and Bush EPA director would like her fellow Republicans to call on Trump to resign. I am still not convinced that Pence would be an improvement – the hatred of women and people of color would simply be done more quietly.

    My news aggregator has a headline: “Governments are choosing identity over democracy.” That may be able to work in Europe but how can that work in America where the “identity” of America is not one race or one ethnicity but generations of citizens from all over the world? It is not surprising that Trump and the Republican Party are focusing on religious identity – establishing Christianity as the litmus test for “Americanness”. They can’t rule from the minority position of white male but they can from a majority religion – the power of the religious right to elevate any Republican to the presidency, even one who is personally gross and antithetical to their stated beliefs, is pretty well established now. I would hope that one day the “other” Christians would denounce them.

    See all y’all later!

    • As bad as Pence is – I think he is less likely to start a nuclear war.

      • Pence has a son in the military and one would hope that would give him pause. He seems more likely to be reined in by political norms – he would certainly not be able to get away with the outrageous behaviour that Trump does, he has no cult following. His last months as governor of Indiana showed that public opinion mattered when he had to back down on the pro-discrimination law that threatened the Indiana economy. BUT – he, more than anyone, would have the wherewithal – and inclination – to undermine the rights of religious minorities, women and LGBT. It would be a very bumpy time for the vulnerable.

        Trump won’t resign and won’t be impeached and removed so it is just an interesting exercise. We will likely never know!

        • Perhaps Goddess will strike him dead with a lightning bolt while he’s playing golf.

          That actually happened to my unfortunate family connection in Texas. He was 25, a golf instructor at some resort near Fort Worth, and while demonstrating a golf swing, lightning struck.

          His twin sister was never the same afterwards.

  14. Tuesday Meese
    74 here in NYS going up to 84 with rain and thunderstorms.

    Will be highlighting Rep. Barbara Lee in today’s Black Kos

    Proud of NYS for continuing to support PR

    • So what is going to happen to reporting in New York City with the NY Daily News being hollowed out? Being left with the Times and the Post mean that there will be no city newspapers willing to take on Trump. :(

  15. When I got in my car this morning it said it was 87 degrees. At 5:45 am. A combination of a cloud blanket & “compressional heating” because a cool front is coming. No one can bring themselves to say “cold” front, because the highs are still going to be 100. Just not 109. Anyway…..

    One of my favorite science fiction writers (& not just because she’s local, and sings in the choir of a cool GLBT friendly Episcopal church with a great homeless program that my formerly-homeless friend volunteers for) wrote this really great essay on FB about treason. I hope the link works for people who aren’t on FB. I’ll keep the tab open so I can copy & paste if not. It’s a long read but worth it. Here, listen to The Blackout, and remember: when the lights go out, don’t you ever doubt, the light that we can really be.

  16. Good Tuesday morning, Meese! It’s been raining, sometimes quite heavily, since yesterday and will continue this weather pattern until Saturday. The heavy rain is loosening the roots of trees, to the point where a tree fell on a house and killed one of the occupants. How absolutely awful!

    The current temp. in Ashburn is 72 F., going up to 78 F. It will be cloudy and rainy all day. I’m not sure what we’re going to do with Miss Pink Cheeks today: playing with her cousin yesterday exhausted her so much she actually took a nap! One thing we’ll do is study the sights of London.

    Today I’m going to Jennifer Wexton’s website to see how I can help at least one afternoon a week. I used to bake goodies and deliver cider to the Hillary team at Lake Anne in 2016. The Youngs were delighted to get some healthful, non-sugar-choked snacks. Might do that again.

    Also plan to contribute what I can to Cathy Myers’ campaign to unseat Paul (Granny Starver) Ryan. The so-called “Iron Stache” is a sleaze, apparently.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and Beyond!

    • I still remember what a treat it was when Lloyd Doggett’s mom would bring homemade cookies to the campaign headquarters — and that was back in 1984.

    • The mustache guy is an example of what happens when a person runs on a cult of personality – the mythical David taking on Goliath with nothing but his slingshot and a Twitter account! He caught fire with certain people who wanted to see Ryan get an eyepoking but who have no interest in policy positions, candidate qualifications or the district itself. I am glad that WI-01 has a serious candidate in the race as well – they deserve good representation.

  17. Again in the upper 60s when I got up – 75 now and I’ve already had my walk – heading for mid 80s so comfort level will depend on humidity level, which is 80% at the moment. Mostly sunny (as in the sky is covered with white clouds so thin the light is bright through them). This morning cool weather is very pleasant. Something’s messing with my sinusitis though – some trouble sleeping and waking up with massive headaches – and I seriously wish that would go away! Got 21 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 376 – 149 to go to reach 500 for the month and 8 days counting today to get them in. Maybe.

    I am going to wait upon events as far as nuclear wars are concerned. As bad as the current resident is, Cromwell II would be seriously worse for all vulnerable populations – including some who don’t think they’re vulnerable. While true he doesn’t have the cult following, he doesn’t need it. His apparent sanity in comparison would have him welcomed with open arms and given carte blanche from all the Rs, R-leaning indies, “conservative” Dems, and quite probably some of the extreme left. He’d get pushback, but none of the high energy, intense, across the board pushback we’re seeing now. Meanwhile I’m holding the Good Thought for Sharice Davids.

    Need to get some coffee, maybe the caffeine will shake this headache. Healing Energy to everybody. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  18. Good morning, 63 and sunny in Bellingham. My physical therapy goals are to improve stamina, balance and strength. Might help with tRump angst as well! She suggested I use trekking poles instead of a cane so I’ll go to REI today and buy some. Might improve my image along with my balance :)

    Our grandson returned home yesterday so I’ll have a quiet day. I have a long to do list so I hope I can stay focused. Take care everyone.

  19. Good morning, Meesefolk; 63 when I got up with a high of 79. It was raining earlier, but now it’s just cloudy. A few more showers wouldn’t surprise me, but we need the rain so no complaints.

    It’s cool enough today that I’m wearing my new hiking shoes to break them in. I bought them to wear during my October vacation and beyond; they’re supposed to be for cooler weather, but I will wear them whenever I can between now and then. I’m excited about my vacation, despite it being somewhat unusual. Every other year, my college roommate and “the girl across the hall” and I go someplace for a long weekend together. We tend to look for off-the-beaten-track places, and I was hoping to do Madison this year. But instead, after much back and forth, we decided to head to Duluth instead. I haven’t been to Duluth in 40 years, when I used to stop there before and after heading up to the Boundary Waters, so it will undoubtedly be like visiting a new place. I did check to see if the ice cream place I used to frequent with to-die-for turtle sundaes is still in business, and it is…so I will be indulging. October can’t come soon enough!

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