Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Oct. 28th through Nov. 3rd

October 27, 2018 JanF Community 108

Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings posts give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.

Welcomings will be posted at the start of each week (every Sunday morning). To find the posts, just bookmark this link and Voila! (which is Moose for “I found everyone!!”).

The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining (or bragging!) about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or simply checking in.

So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?

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NOTE: The comments page will now split off after 20 or so left margin comments with the most recent comments on the current page. To see the older comments, scroll to the bottom of the page and use the link.

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  • Page One of Comments is HERE!
     

  • Page Two of Comments is HERE!
     

  • Page Three of Comments is HERE!
     

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32 Comments

  1. Good morning, meeses! Thursday …

    It is 37 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 48. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    I was laughing bitterly at the headlines this morning “Trump shocks with racist new ad.” No, there is nothing shocking about Republicans using racism to try to win elections – it has been a time-honored tradition once they realized that their base was white people frightened by the changes that the Civil Rights era had wrought. Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, all benefited from appeals to racism including racist ads, why wouldn’t Trump go to that well and, really, why wouldn’t he expect it to work again? The difference this time is that he is not personally running and so it will be a test of the one-off appeal to retain the Republican Congressional majority so he can “keep ‘Murica safe.” Goddess help us if it works, because with his takeover of the courts nearly complete, there would be no firewall against trumpism in our country.

    It is November and I am not mentally ready for that! Today I will go to Healthcare.gov and see what a new policy will cost. I did a preview of my current one and it looks like a $200 a month increase for the plan I am currently on; that means that I may have to go from HMO to EPO to keep the premiums down and possibly go to a higher deductible. I hope not that latter as the “Trump Stock Market” is doing damage to my already modest retirement savings and I can’t afford a $10,000 out-of-pocket hit if one of us gets sick. I have a challenge this year as I will get an exchange policy for my family then I will have to go find individual insurance a few months into next year for my daughter as I move to Medicare and my exchange policy will have to be cancelled. Since she is still in school and has no income, she won’t qualify for an exchange policy of her own so I will have to find a private direct pay policy for her. I refuse to turn her over to the State of Wisconsin’s “health insurance” system whose sole purpose it to attack people who are poor and sick just to gain political points “look, the poors are suffering, elect us!!” Walker just got a CMS waiver so he can “help people achieve independence” – funny way to describe people dying from treatable illnesses because they have no health insurance.

    See all y’all later!

  2. And we’re back to chilly weather — had to wear long sleeves & a sweater this morning. One of the prizes at yesterday’s charity campaign wrap-up Halloween party was the director’s parking spot for a week. The person who won it doesn’t drive. She came over to my area later in the afternoon & gave it to me! I don’t even know her, I had to ask co-workers what her name is. That’s really sweet of her.

    So, the Walk is Saturday morning. Going to be chilly, by Austin standards. I’ll wear tights with my sport skirt — must wear sport skirt, because of all the pockets. Going to try very hard to get up to $2,000. Head Full of Dreams.

  3. Good morning, Moosekind! Had a terrible time getting off to sleep last night, so woke up late. Everything’s late. The sky at a few minutes past 9 a.m. is pale blue with scattered cirrus clouds, and the sunlight is dim—very likely because of impending rain tomorrow. The current temperature is 51 F., going up to 74 F. Very nice!

    Today will be busy as I’m planning to spend time with Darling Niece, whom I have not seen this age, as they say in Regency novels. We will have a “comfortable coze” of chat. We knew our coffee mornings would end when she reentered the work world, but it’s been really annoying not to have her up-to-the-minute news.

    Also, while I’m in the old neighborhood, I’ll pick up Miss Pink Cheeks from her school bus stop and bring her here for dinner. She loves to go to dinner with us at AP.

    Today is the first day of NaNoWriMo! We’re supposed to write 1,567 words a day—yikes! That works out to six double-spaced typewritten pages and a bit. I checked the rules, and it is permissible to add to a novel one has already begun. (I began mine in January, if you please, but A Lot Has Happened Since Then.)

    In other news I’m totally fascinated by the fact that records have been unveiled pertaining to Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974. It wasn’t “for the good of the country” that he resigned—it was because he was about to be indicted! Why was this news kept from the American people? Politico, an organization I despise, nonetheless has come up with the interesting speculation that Mueller has a subpoena waiting for The Thing in the Casa Blanca. We may hear more of this after Tuesday.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and here’s hoping that the Dems’ votes DROWN those of the Rethugs! Then we can all go back to having health care and working for Kamala Harris’ campaign to run for POTUS in 2020. I’ve had it with white males and that includes YOU, Beto O’Rourke, adorable-looking though you are. (After you’ve been a U.S. Senator long enough to form necessary, important alliances, you can run for POTUS.)

    • I have some reporting on the Nixon indictment saved away to read later when I have time to digest it. I hope Mueller has some indictments to hand down and that we win the House and insure that the investigation is not just stored away like the Watergate Road Map for 40 years. I have no doubt that if Congress is Republican next year, Mueller is fired and his evidence is ordered shredded.

  4. 42 “feels like” 37 and drizzling. Still dark enough the PV system might as well be in night mode (current generation is .002 watts) – a very, very slow start to the month. But if the rain and chill convince the oak to drop her leaves there will be much better generation on the actual sunny days, so this could be a chilly and unpleasant time leading to a greater good. I will hope that for the national scene as well. Goddess knows we could use some greater good right now. Ended October with 251.5 KWH so the lowest since I upgraded to the 4K system. How much that has to do with growth of the oak over these last 4 years I don’t know but I’d bet a lot of it. (Oak was still immaturely triangular when I put in the system but is now maturely round. And at least 35 feet tall.) Nov 2015 generated 199 KWHs so that’s the goal – although if I’m right about the oak somewhere around 180 may be the best I can hope for. Still, it never hurts to hope.

    I’ve voted and I’ll be staffing Dem HQ this weekend. That’s the best I can do. We’ve found another precinct that “accidentally left off” a race where the Dem candidate is likeliest to pick up Dem votes – I’m not sure how they’re addressing that one. Let’s just say while I have a great deal of faith in the integrity of our voting machines and our voter registration processes I am fast losing it regarding who’s programming the ballots themselves into the voting machines for this election. Depending on the outcome of the election this will either get fixed or made worse for next time. sigh. But I’ve done/am doing what I can. So I’m focusing on helping friends or friends of friends eat or stay housed. And periodically I get blessed as what goes around comes around – when I got home last night I found that my eldest grandson’s branch of the family left me a still-warm roasted chicken on the kitchen counter. It made a lovely dinner – the bones are in the freezer and enough meat to make 3 batches of soup or 10 chicken & steamed veggie dinners (or a combination thereof) is in the fridge. Healing Energy to everybody shaped to the need. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  5. Good morning, 54 and raining in Bellingham. We enjoyed Halloween with the family last night……grand kids, silly dogs in costumes, pizza and candy, and a ban on tRump talk. My DIL’s parents have come a long way and are as upset re tRump as we are so there were some whispered mumblings, but it was good to focus on the kids.

    Better for me too, because thanks to tRump teeth grinding my jaw is out of joint. I was at the dentist yesterday afternoon and he did what could but can’t make a night guard until it’s back in joint. So I’ve got regime of soft food , gentle stretching, and ibuprofen with the hope that will reduce the inflammation and allow the joint to return to it’s normal position. Needless to say I’m not happy about this, and that makes managing tRump stress even more challenging.

    Take care everyone, and I will do my best to do the same!

  6. Good afternoon, Meesefolk; 43 when I got up with a high of 45; there’s no sun in the forecast for at least another week, and even that break is listed as “partly cloudy.” I’m hoping the rain takes a break long enough for me to load The Kiddo’s furniture into my car tonight, but the hourly forecast gives me no reason to be optimistic. Next Tuesday, the only day that matters, is listed with a 60% chance of rain, but a high of 54. Michiganders can deal with that, I think…I hope, so the weather should not decrease turnout.

    The Kiddo informed me last night that they’re thinking of scaling back on their “full-service” move to doing more of it themselves. The plan right now is to leave dishes, books, and furniture for the movers and handle everything else themselves. Yay? I’m always willing to help, and having my [extra] car will come in handy, but I hadn’t planned on doing a lot of lifting and heaving. I need to remember to pack some Aleve, because it sounds like I’m going to need it. I can’t begin to describe my absolute relief that they view this house as their forever home!

    Back to work; the first of the month is always a busy time, and today seems even busier than usual. Good day to and for all!

  7. We’re windy with fluffy white clouds and a temp of 76 here in Costa Mesa. The nights are getting cooler here. It was 58 last nite. I turned off the AC last nite because the room temperature was 75. Probably in another month I’ll need to get the heater out. Ah the problems of living in Southern California.

  8. Good morning, meeses! Friday …

    It is 30 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 45. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    In my quest to find good news – anything to indicate that there is something that will make Republican voters reject their party’s leader and his full-throated racism – I found this New York Times headline in my email blast “Trump’s Nationalism Is Breaking Point for Some Suburban Voters, Risking G.O.P. Coalition“:

    Two years ago, the presidential election hinged in large part on a rightward shift among working-class whites who deserted Democrats.

    Tuesday’s House election may turn on an equally significant and opposite force: a generational break with the Republican Party among educated, wealthier whites — especially women — who like the party’s pro-business policies but recoil from President Trump’s divisive language on race and gender.

    Rather than seeking to coax voters like these back into the Republican coalition, Mr. Trump appears to have all but written them off, spending the final days of the campaign delivering a scorching message about preoccupations like birthright citizenship and a migrant “invasion” from Mexico that these voters see through as alarmist.

    Democrats will never win the portion of angry white working class voters who are inspired by racism to vote for Republicans – and we don’t want their votes. But we welcome those who see that the devil’s bargain they made on tax cuts was not worth the price of their souls.

    See all y’all later!

    • Dave Wasserman, who does election forecasting for Cook Political and 538, upped his estimate of Democratic House gains based on the movement the Times article suggested:

      1) Vulnerable Rs in upscale, suburban, Clinton-won “Whole Foods” districts like #VA10 Comstock, #KS03 Yoder, #CO06 Coffman, #MN03 Paulsen, #CA45 Walters, #NJ07 Lance, etc. These Rs are mostly trailing & their numbers haven’t gotten any better recently.
      2) Competitive races in redder, working-class districts that Trump won by double digits in ’16, such as #IL12 Bost, #MN08 OPEN, #NY22 Tenney, #WV03 OPEN, etc. Overall, things have slightly improved in “Trump zones” for Rs, w/ notable exceptions in districts like #KS02 & #ME02.
      3) Finally, middle-class burbs where Trump won by single digits that will decide the majority: places like #IL14 Hultgren, #IA03 Young, #MI08 Bishop, #PA10 Perry, #UT04 Love, #WA03 Herrera Beutler. *This* is the bucket where we’ve seen Dems make the most progress recently.
      The fact that many of these “single digit Trump” suburbs – along with Trump-won open seats like #FL15, #NM02 & #VA05 – are now in serious jeopardy is what could push Dem gains into the 30-40 seat range (vs. 25-35 before).

  9. Friday Meese, 53 going up to 65 here in the Catskills

    Another day – woke up to see yet another outrageous statement from the orange piece of shit in the WH

    Glad to see Oprah out knocking doors for Stacey Abrams

    She made a powerful statement

    • Military Twitter was alarmed last night that the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces was apparently ordering his troops to commit war crimes. Some were saying that officers should simply defy his direct order. Good luck with that!

    • I have a couple of Oprah clips up in my tabs – I haven’t had a chance to view them yet. Mike “QTip Head” Pence said that “Hollywood should stay out of Georgia” and an alert tweeter pointed out that Oprah Winfrey was born in Mississippi a year before Emmet Till was lynched there for speaking to a white woman. She is no carpetbagger. Plus fk Mike Pence.

    • Denise, LOVE your tweet! Yes, I wondered whether the 15,000 troops were planning to lift their rifles and shoot the border babies.

      He is the vilest of the vile. Makes you wish the Saudi Consulate would invite Thing to visit them.

    • I’ll have to check the canvasser one out when I get home – no captions and I don’t have speakers on my computer here at work. But love the speech about honoring your ancestors – my grandmothers couldn’t vote “at majority” so my ancestors, too. (Also blocked the troll who replied immediately below the tweet.)

  10. Cool enough for a jacket this morning, wondering about what to wear tomorrow. I threw together another Walk diary, then my laptop decided to…. not exactly “freeze up”, but just be super slow about switching between tabs. I gave up & went to bed. Anyway, just trying to get last minute donations, and trying to remember there’s an election on Tuesday. There’s a lot of music in my diary.

  11. Wow!!!!

  12. Good borning, Beese! (Sneeze, sniff, honking into tissue). By allergies are baking by life biserable.

    Enough of that. I’m trying to have a quiet three-day weekend full of desk chores and writing. Yesterday I had a marvelous visit with Darling Niece. She and Beloved Nephew always vote and are especially keen this year. Elder Son and DIL will vote. After Younger Son is settled in at work this morning I’ll ask him if he plans to vote. DIL would vote Rethug just because she knows I wouldn’t like it, so I shall say nothing at all to her.

    So that’s four out of five, and I’m sure I can think of someone else.

    Last night I had to retire to bed and take a very strong dose of cold-allergy med. At least I had a decent sleep. Have requested Dearly to go out and buy a little dead chicken and gravy for dinner, as I don’t feel like being seen in public.

    Hoping it’s a good day for all at the Pond and that it rains everywhere Thing has a golf course.

    P.S. M’Daughter in Austin is going full out for Beto! She’s organizing canvassers, finding rides to the polls, phonebanking, and whatever else she can do to help him win. Very proud of her.

  13. Good morning, 57, still dark, and will be cloudy in Bellingham. My jaw feels less inflamed this morning but it’s still out of joint. It feels better when I keep my head low and tilted back, but doing so while keeping my BCH leg elevated over my heart is totally annoying! I’m ready to wrap a big elastic bandage around my head, grrrrrr!!!

    I’ve got easy sewing to do today so I’ll try to keep the music playing in my sewing room. Best wishes to all as we count down to election day.

  14. 47 feels like 36 heading for 57 and 100% humidity – but the sun is shining! At the moment anyway. We did manage to get 3.5 KWHs yesterday afternoon which of course is the m-t-d right now. I’m hoping for 200 for the month but since the best we’ve ever done is 199 I’m not holding my breath. But the oak is dropping her leaves, if not as quickly as I’d like, so I’ll keep my target at 180 – but hope for more anyway. 😁 I am mostly ignoring everything as best as possible. Deleting the OMGHOF-send money emails as fast as I get them. I’m doing or have done what I can. Channeling Healing Energy for the rest. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  15. Good morning, Meesefolk; 43 when I got up and 43 now with a maybe, rainy high of 45. I sense a pattern here!

    This morning was a clusterf*ck. I couldn’t sleep last night…sore from loading my car with furniture for The Kiddo in the rain and dark, and my brain in overdrive, combined with dogs that couldn’t settle either. I was up at 2 to let them out and again at 7, whereupon I returned to bed for another 30 minutes. I woke up at 9:15, which is when I’m supposed to be halfway to work. Fortunately, I had most of my personal packing done, and The Hubby got home, saw my mad dash, and finished making my lunch for me. He also made me a Blessed Travel Mug of Coffee, so he wins the day. I made it to work by 9:50, but this is not the way I like to start my day. On the other hand, I got two hours of sleep I desperately needed, so now that I’m not racing around in a panic, I’m counting that as a blessing too.

    If there was news last night, I didn’t hear it. Fitting furniture into my tiny car was like working an over-sized jigsaw puzzle and took my time and attention. I figure I’ll be so busy this weekend that my blissful ignorance will continue unabated; Monday, I can reenter the world that isn’t about heaving totes, boxes, and furniture around. By then, I may even consider the news a welcome change of pace! Good day to and for all…

  16. Good morning meese. A quick check in from near the SeaTac airport, where I’m staying this weekend. (I’m not staying at the airport!)

    60 with high of 60 and cloudy with rain forecast. I was telling someone last night that I didn’t know how much I had missed the rain until I landed last night (and it was raining).

    • You can have some of Michigan’s. We’re now on Day Four of rain, with rain in the forecast through…forever. Seriously, I just looked at the long-range forecast, and only one day between now and November 16 shows up with 0% chance of rain. Every other day has a 30-50% chance of rain or rain/snow mix. Blergh…

  17. Good Saturday morning Meese,

    Headed to the kitchen to make some coffee. 54 degrees here and raining.
    Counting the days till Tuesday.

    Remember DLS time ends tonight.

  18. Good morning, meeses! Saturday …

    It is 37 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 46. Sunny this morning, clouding up then rain expected in the evening.

    I have a busy morning and will skip the news – I may skip it until Tuesday night at 7pm when election returns begin coming in from the east coast. A quick glance at the headlines shows that there is little there that is really new.

    Don’t forget to turn your clocks back – and enjoy the extra hour of sleep tonight.

    See all y’all later!

  19. Good Saturn’s Day morning, Moosekind! It’s clear in NoVa this morning after last night’s tremendous winds and rain, with a current temp. of 49 F., going up to 56 F. I am so looking forward to getting back the hour of sleep stolen from us in the spring! Wish we’d get an all-women Congress so we could get one time and stick to it.

    Have not been doing exercise because I’ve been focusing on long-deferred desk work. Also, I wrote 1,500 words yesterday, which was not enough. Basically, it seems I have to either write one chapter a day, or else write really long chapters.

    Tonight we plan to go out to our long-deferred anniversary dinner. When the nights draw in, I’d just as soon stay home, but we really need to use up this gift certificate.

    We had Ashby Ponds Housekeeping clean our carpets the other day. Although the guy was an hour late (because Housekeeping forgot they’d scheduled it), the carpet turned out better than I expected. That’s good, because Younger Son and family may come to tea tomorrow.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!

  20. Chilly morning — 50s, so tights & a jacket. Getting ready to leave for the Walk. I will post pictures when I get home. $1465, and a friend mailed a $250 check yesterday — so that’s pretty great! Talk to y’all later.

    • Hope the walk is fun. Glad you’ve gotten that extra bit – sending Healing Energy to go with the Healing Works you’re doing. {{{HUGS}}}

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