Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Aug. 12th through Aug. 18th

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!
 
 

 

44 Comments

  1. Slept in again. Yesterday I did 2 loads of laundry. Today I’m going to the bank, taking some money out of the account my mom left me to pay the most urgent overdue bill. I think I’ll put on workout clothes & make sure the iPod is charged so I can go for a good mind-clearing walk after. It’s a complicated process, and will have a bad tax impact, but it has to be done. Listening to Life On Earth. Love the babies & space theme. “Shouldn’t need to be so f*cking hard This is life on earth It’s just life on earth”

  2. Good Tiu’s Day morning, Meese! It’s partly cloudy in Nova, with a current temp. of 66 F., going up to 82 F. Not sure about the chance of rain.

    Had the Night from Hell last night so I know I’m going to crash this afternoon. Last night, the four of us—Grandma, Grandpa, Miss Pink Cheeks, and Monty Beagle—sat on the sofa and watched Danny Kaye in “Hans Christian Andersen.” Enjoyed the story but there was far too much ballet in the film. A little goes a long, long way.

    Must dash because Miss PC and I have a play date in Reston this morning with her cousin. See you later, and have a good day!

  3. It’s about 70 in the house, definitely not 70 yet outside. Raining at the moment which it’s been alternating with drizzle since about 10 last night. Not a lot of generation – 10.6 KWHs yesterday with the m-t-d at 204 – none at all at the moment as it’s so dark the system is back in night mode. We need the water but I could use the electricity as well.

    The young man hired to take the secretary slot when my friend moved into mine is not working out. Actually, it they weren’t bending over backwards trying to work with him/help him, he’d have been fired months ago. They haven’t actually fired him yet so I don’t know exactly how this will work out but I’ve been asked if I can come back part time & cover the “receptionist” part of the secretary job until they can replace him. I’m not crazy about it – the faculty still hasn’t really accepted her as the senior staff/office manager – but I’ll do it if they need me. (I can think of some places/people a bit of extra money could go to.) I’ll need to get that schedule worked out soon though. The Dem HQ opens next week and I’ll be staffing that at least one day a week. We aren’t likely to pick up any blue seats at any level here but we should be able to keep the ones we’ve got. I hope. (Of course if Womack ended up indicted – which I doubt – that would put a different twist on things.) Rs are evil and they do evil things. I don’t need the particulars to know I need to work to the best of my ability to replace them with Dems.

    Dealing with a skullbanger sinus headache which is just not. going. away. Coffee and Ibu next. Meanwhile, Healing Energy to everybody. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

    • I have no doubt that you can work it out with your successor so that if you direct folks to “ask the office manager,” she’ll know you are supporting her, not shirking your temporary duties.

      • {{{DoReMI}}} that’s exactly what I’m going to do. And I start Friday morning. sigh. moar {{{HUGS}}}

      • {{{Diana}}} – seems I picked up a cold on my trip. The rest of the symptoms showed up over the day yesterday – but I’ve had the tickly throat and raspy voice since Saturday. I just thought it was a flare of the sinusitis. Nope. honest-to-not-goodness cold. sigh. moar {{{HUGS}}}

  4. Good morning, 59 and should be sunny, but the wild fires burning in British Columbia have filled the air with a smokey haze. My eyes are burning and asthma is happening, More rain please!

    I have a PT appointment this morning, and I got enough “must does” done yesterday to have a few choices re what I want to do this afternoon. Editing the unending list helped :)

    Best Tuesday wishes to all.

  5. Morning meese. 64 with high of 86 today, hopefully not nearly as hot as it has been the last few weeks. Next week will be hot again though, with high of 102 (eek).

    • {{{basket}}} – cooler is good. Enjoy it while it lasts. Healing Energy and moar {{{HUGS}}}

  6. Wednesday Meese
    66 here in Saugerties NY going up to a hot, steamy, muggy 90 today.

    Spending the day writing – then tomorrow afternoon I’ll be heading to Miami Fl. Will be there till the afternoon of the 26th.
    Not sure whether I’ll always be able to log-in on my laptop – Afro-Cuban religious initiation ceremonies are long and complex (this is an initiation- which takes a whole week) and I’m attending this event in my role as Grandmother-elder priestess.

    Am upset by the announcements that PR has full power restored. And as much as I can’t stand Omarosa what she has said about Trump and Kelly’s attitude towards Puerto Rico rings true.
    Argh.

    • Dee, we’ll miss you. It’s very impressive that you’re a Grandmother-elder priestess. Myself, I never completed the full priestess training, but I do informal, everyday priestess work in my roles as aunt, mother, and grandmother.

      Safe travels!

      • I am going to try to log in – doing it on my phone is hard for me because – vision :)

    • I have no problem with the media amplifying Omarosa’s message about what a truly awful person Trump is and sharing the terrible things he has said. It will not change his approval rating – he is locked in with his base 30% and they will not move. But if our message for the midterms is that a Democratic Congress is a check against the worst abuses of the completely unfit person in the Oval Office, every whack she takes at him is a ding they have to repair. Does it take attention off of important issues? Maybe it is important to have a damaged person hit the campaign trail with Republican House and Senate candidates. When the “there is no n-word tape” morphs into “well, yes there is but he didn’t mean anything racist by it!”, everything and everyone he touches will get that slime on them.

      Have a good trip! I hope you can log in, we will miss you otherwise. :(

    • {{{Denise}}} have fun – I’m assuming initiations are joyous as well as solemn – on your trip and safe travels. moar {{{HUGS}}}

  7. Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …

    It is 72 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 79. The forecast says there is a chance for thunderstorms. Regardless, there is definitely a front moving through and it will cool things down a bit. Hurray!

    My preferred candidate for governor did not win but the one chosen by a large percentage of Democrats voting will be just fine. He hit the ground running with a slick campaign with an excellent tag line: “What’s good for our kids is what’s good for our state.” Wisconsin has a long tradition of caring about quality of life and the future of their children. They discarded that by electing and re-electing the destroyers of all that is good and decent but maybe they are finally sick of all the “winning.” Kids are graduating and leaving the state because it sucks for them here, our roads are crumbling and our environment is under attack. When we had a federal government that cared about clean air and water and funding highway repairs, people were sheltered somewhat from the damage. Now it is pretty obvious what defunding the state has wrought Anyway, Tony Evers has a good chance of winning and our candidate for Lt. Governor – Mandela Barnes – will be our progressive foot in the door.

    State Senator Leah Vukmar, NRA darling and Scott Walker protege, won the Republican U.S. Senate race and will face Tammy Baldwin in 12 weeks. This will be a good test of the youth anti-gun violence voters. If they can’t be motivated to vote in a race where Dana Loesch’s northern cousin goes head to head against a solid pro-regulation Senator, then their movement is a sham. Sorry to be blunt, but my last nerves are frayed by people who say they will vote and who don’t show up. We didn’t have the demographic wave in 2016 that was predicted because our hope was that Latinos would vote in huge numbers. That did not happen so we need to rely on the demographic of young people turning 18 and voting in huge numbers to swamp the dying Fox News viewers.

    The mustache guy will be going up against Paul Ryan’s handpicked successor and will not have the $ advantage he had over Cathy Myers. My prediction is that they will crack him open like a rotten melon and CD-01 will have to wait until 2020 for another chance to go blue. I hope I am wrong!

    See all y’all later!

  8. Good Woden’s Day morning, Meese! It looks like another fair morning. Currently in Ashburn it’s 65 F., going up to a torrid 88 F. later. We’ve been having Caribbean weather, according to Bob the Shuttle Bus driver—it starts out fair, but white clouds begin piling up like featherbeds after lunch, and eventually some of the white clouds turn gray and we get a shower. It’s been happening every day lately.

    Couldn’t stay up for the election results last night, as I was too tired, but I see this morning that Cathy Myers did not win. Bummer. There’s something about the IronStache guy I just don’t like.

    Miss Pink Cheeks and I had a great play date yesterday, and today we’re off to Arlington County to look after Miss Pink Cheeks’ three-year-old cousin. Today also happens to be Diana’s Day, so we must take our hunting dogs into the woods. I hope a chocolate Labrador satisfies the requirement—we’ll certainly take him for a walk in the park.

    Wishing a nice, quiet day to all at the Pond and Beyond!

    • The “something” that you don’t like about the mustache guy is probably that he is running on white male privilege and as the hero of the berners – celebrity over substance. We have easier races to win and I hope people don’t waste their money on WI01. In New Jersey Andy Kim is neck and neck with Tom MacArthur, the author of the Republican ACA repeal. That is a race we can win and will be more symbolic than winning a race in what is now just an ordinary “people voting against their economic best interests” in Wisconsin. Paul Ryan is gone – no one will be running against him.

      I was glad to see that Twitter #NeverTrump scammer – and lefty FrankenTruther favorite – Richard Painter went down in a flaming heap trying to run against a real Democrat in the U.S. Senate primary in Minnesota. When I went to bed, Tina Smith was beating him by 74% to 14%. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

  9. Morning meese. I’m up too early but will be leaving work early to go to a concert.

    60 with projected high of 86 and currently 82% humidity. The sun hasn’t risen yet.

    • {{{basket}}} – enjoy the cooler weather and even more enjoy your concert. 🎶🎶🎶 moar {{{HUGS}}}

  10. I love sleeping in. I do need to go for a walk today, and do some cooking. And my Democratic club meeting is this evening. But it is nice to just be mellow & take my time. The biggest local news story is the possibility of a pro soccer team moving to town — it’s very controversial. Not sure why I woke with Ultraviolet playing in my head, but I did. This is a live one form last year, with all the women on the screen.

    • Great Goddess, soccer is GOOD! Why on earth would it be controversial? Might it be that Americans would realize, with the coming of real football, that the American version of footbore is boring? Make a play, then huddle with bottoms sticking out. (I always long to stick a pin in them.) Make a play, then a commercial. Then another commercial.

      Soccer is like ballet, with goalies leaping high into the air, clever footwork on the part of the offense and defense, and so on. The players never stop moving during the game, which makes it a pleasure to watch instead of a bore-snore.

  11. 69 and raining again. ‘spozed to go up to 80 today (it certainly didn’t yesterday – I was wearing a sweater most of the day and my hands were white/yellow numb with Raynaud’s). I only got 6 KWHs yesterday, m-t-d is 211 – if this keeps up we’ll be lucky to generate 300 for the month rather than the 500 still-possible-but-just-barely goal.

    Welp, I seem to have brought home a cold from FL. I could have done without that. I hope the rest of our group is OK. I also hope it’s gone by tomorrow as I’m meeting a friend for ice cream. Definitely gone by Friday as I’m starting back to work Friday morning. It’s just part time – 10 to 12 hours a week – and temporary until they can resolve the situation (which basically means terminating the guy in the secretary position, doing a search, and hiring somebody who’s willing to do the work).

    The Dem HQ opens Monday and I’d like to get on the schedule for staffing the office as soon as I can. We got some wins last night. I’ll hold onto those. The losses are mostly in opportunities to flip – we are looking good for not losing ground. I’ve never believed in magical “blue waves” – there should have been one in 2016. And one of the reasons we didn’t have one is that nasty stat of 55% white women voting R. They’ll do it again. We’ve got to bring the Clinton voters back to the polls PLUS enough non-voters (for whatever reason) in the borderline states to get this done. Apparently tweeting is easier than voting (& some people seem to think should count more) but voting is what gets the job done. It’s work. No magic about it.

    Anyway, I’m out of stock and out of stuff to make it with but I need to come up with something to help this cold. Healing Energy to everybody everywhere. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  12. Good morning, Meesefolk. It’s going to be a hot one (by MI standards) today with a high of 88, but a front must be headed this way; tomorrow’s high is 77. We’ll see…

    I was disappointed that Cathy Meyers didn’t pull it off last night, even more so when I saw a headline that read “Ryan Protégé to Face Dem with 9 Arrests.” The headline may be clickbait, but it does effectively highlight what the battle in WI-01 is likely to look like.

    On the other hand, Jahana Hayes won her primary in CT-05. I don’t know a thing about her policy positions, but she came onto my radar when she was selected as Teacher of the Year in 2016. There’s something so infectious about her personality, that if I had been voting in CT, she would have been someone I looked at closely. I’ve provided a link to an article from 2016 when she was honored at the WH. Watch the short video; I dare you not to smile. https://www.businessinsider.com/teacher-had-best-reaction-to-obama-2016-5

    • When I saw Jahana Hayes’ campaign video about a month ago, I started following her. She had me at “smiling photo of me and Barack Obama”! What an amazing life story she has. I am told by one of my CT peeps that her dissing by the Connecticut Democratic Party was pretty much a product of the dysfunction of the party, not any flaw in her candidacy. They had to push and shove to get the current House member to agree not to run after her office was caught up in a #MeToo scandal. There is a special place in hell for women who enable men to be sexual predators by covering up for them. In my opinion, male “takings” privilege doesn’t go away with counseling – it is part of them.

      Election forecasters see the race as “Safely Democratic” but the district only went Hillary by 4.1% so nothing is certain. I wish her the very best luck.

  13. Good morning, 64, hazy and smokey in Bellingham. I was awake in the night with asthma from the bad air so I’m cross and sleepy now. Fortunately I have inhalers to ease my breathing, but the meds have side effects to manage. The best med will be rain, wind, and no more fires!

    Seattle’s dirty air tops Beijing’s, but relief is in sight

    But a push of marine air into the Puget Sound area starting Wednesday evening is expected to clear some of the smoky haze from wildfires to the north.

  14. Good morning Meese
    68 going up to 90 here and sunny
    I have good travel weather to head to Miami
    Looks like for the next 10 days Miami will have rain and thunderstorms which is fine for me – since I’m not going as a tourist – and the rain is going to keep the temps cooler.

    Am really pissed off at all the headlines reporting PREPA press release about full power restoration in Puerto Rico – reporters bought the lie
    Bobby was on the phone with Don Feliberto yesterday – he and his mountain neighbors in Utuado still have no power – they can see there is a work crew at the bottom of the mountain – don’t know when they will be reached. All of the reports are ignoring the 11000 people of Vieques and Culebra who are on back up emergency generator power – and have been told it might be 4 years till the undersea cable is restored

    • I am glad that the weather will be good for traveling – I hope you have a hassle-free trip!

      I have been careful about what I retweet related to Puerto Rico power and noticed that Bobby and you are pushing back. Thanks for keeping us informed!

    • The MSM are so lazy, Dee. They get a meme in their heads and then wash their hands of the subject. No more investigative reporting, it’s more important to breathlessly cover Thing’s every breath and, er, trump.

  15. Good morning, meese! Thursday …

    It is 66 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 82. Chance of thunderstorms again today – yesterday we had storms towards evening, apparently we are stuck in a swirling low.

    Today 350 newspapers published editorials about Donald Trump’s claim that the “press is the enemy of the people.” My right-wing rag had one and the headline was “The president is an enemy of the truth” and also included a political cartoon showing the dictators and demagogues over the years who have made tRump’s claim! Well done. I wish the papers would suspend their paywalls so we could read all their editorials.

    The rest of the news reads like a tabloid – I do not care that the Conways are bickering or that Sarah HucksterBE has never heard the vulgar talking yam use the n-word. I do wonder how long the Manafort jury will be out and I hope that there are some backup charges that can be filed against him when tRump pardons him. I am following the Scott Walker/Leah Vukmir liar tour where they appear to be running on “cleaning up Washington DC” even though it is a Republican Congress, a Republican president and a Republican Supreme Court! Old habits die hard and truth is optional. Interesting that they have not once mentioned Donald Trump while stumping. Perhaps they read the polls that show that the bloom is off the Trump rose for Wisconsinites who wanted to “give him a chance.” He had it and screwed them over.

    I cannot believe it is Thursday and I am still spinning my wheels on projects that needed to be finished by Monday. I need to get to it.

    See all y’all later!

    • Good luck with the work, Jan! Isn’t it an awful feeling? It’s like knowing you’ve got to go to school and you haven’t done your homework.

  16. Good Thor’s Day morning, Moosekind! It’s cloudy here, but not gray—the clouds are more like a white veil hiding the blue beneath. Currently in Ashburn it’s 67 F., going up to a torrid 90 F.

    Feeling exhausted after child care and everything else the first part of this week. Today I have nothing on but laundry and attending a meeting of the Communications Committee at 3 p.m.

    We’ve been here at Ashby Ponds five months today, and the day doesn’t pass when I ask myself if I made the right decision. Was it fair of me to tear Dearly Beloved away from the house he cherished and was so proud of? He transformed it in the 41-plus years we lived there. Was it fair of me to wrench the dog from his huge, fenced backyard where he could run free and smell the deer, foxes, rabbits, groundhogs, squirrels, and chipmunks? (Not to mention to occasional visiting skunk or odd snake.)

    Felt a little better after reading the advice of an agony aunt in the newspaper. She said that no matter which decision one makes in life, it comes with regrets. There’s no such thing as a “no regrets” decision. (Well, I can think of one in my life about which I have no regrets whatever.) Just reading that lightens the load a bit: if we had stayed in the house, there would have been some expensive problems to fix down the road. The apple trees had fire blight. The heating system was unbalanced. There were one or two other things that would have caused problems as well. And if all the downsizing, furniture selling, and packing were hard enough at my present age, they would have been far worse if I were 80 or older.

    Time for breakfast and time to get on with things. Wishing for rain to drive the smoke from the wildfires away and a good day to all at the Pond and Beyond.

    • This is very true: “no matter which decision one makes in life, it comes with regrets.” Perhaps the only decisions you never regret are your end of life wishes because you will not be there to agonize over what you would have preferred instead!

      For what it is worth, I think you made the right choice. It is best to downsize while you are still healthy and have time to research the options and to set things up the way you want. It is difficult to get out of a home’s rhythm and into another home’s rhythm and it has not been long enough to unlearn 41 years of muscle memory. Hang in there!

  17. I went to my Dem club last night, made an announcement & handed out donation slips. Got a donation from an old friend I haven’t seen in years who just showed up at the meeting. Haven’t checked this morning, maybe there’s more. Anyway, enjoyed sleeping in and I probably won’t take a walk today, it is muggy & dusty. There is a fundraiser at a friend’s house this evening that I may go to. I cooked & made tea yesterday, have a little more cooking to do today. Nice to be slow & lazy.

  18. The Queen of Soul is gone: Aretha Franklin passed away at age 76. The world is a richer place for having known her – may she rest in peace.

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