Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Nov. 25th through Dec. 1st

November 25, 2018 JanF Community 132

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!
     

51 Comments

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

    Morning low of 30 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 36. Snow is in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. Sunday Meese.

    40 degrees and raining here in Saugerties NY.

    Climate Change – PR

    Violence against women – PR

    • That Politico poll tweet had a pretty bad ratio: 8.7k comments versus 1.4k retweets and 4.8k likes. The whole goal of the election was for Republicans to hate the outcome!!! Thank you, Politico, for pointing out that our mission was accomplished.

  3. It is incredible to me that a referendum election that was ratfked by the same people who ratfked our 2016 election is being used as the basis for upending the economy of the UK. At least in America, we elect people and parties – we can reject the bad choices at the Congressional level within 2 years and the people within 4 years. The tainted Brexit vote is going to be forever.

  4. Dumbest headline ever: Across South, Democrats Risk Speaking Boldly and Alienating Rural White Voters. Democrats, by their mere existence, alienate rural white voters! When they don’t speak boldly they are signally their acceptance of a system that denies civil rights to black people in the Southern states, a system of institutionalized discrimination. People in Mississippi (and Georgia and Alabama and South Carolina and Louisiana) need to hear about the unfairness of racial disparities in work and education, of denying the right to vote, of the cop-on-black crimes committed in their name and then they need to choose their representation accordingly. If they choose those whose protection of the status quo also embraces Jim Crow and the Confederacy, so be it. But letting them choose without reminding everyone of what that choice means gives them a fig leaf that they don’t deserve.

    From the story, this paragraph sums it up – the denial that not speaking the truth allows:

    This year was supposed to mark a moment of progress for Mississippi. The state just opened a new history and civil rights museum under the same roof. Both offer an unvarnished account of Mississippi’s searing racial history, detailing the state’s record number of lynchings, portraying its segregation-era leaders as the white supremacists they were and altogether dispatching with “the ‘Lost Cause’ of the failed Confederacy,” as one display terms it.

    But there’s something peculiar about the museum, as Lauren Stennis noted. Ms. Stennis is an artist and the granddaughter of former Senator John Stennis of Mississippi, a onetime segregationist. She has spent the last few years promoting a redesigned state flag that she devised to replace the current one, which is the last in the country to include the Confederate battle flag.

    The new museum that seeks to be honest about the state’s past in its exhibits does not reckon with the present on the outside. Instead of flying Mississippi’s divisive flag or keeping it furled — decisions which would have offended the same constituencies that are pulling the South’s politics further apart — the state avoided the choice altogether. They just decided not to build a flagpole outside the museum.

    (Emphasis added)

  6. Up & watching the news. May have to go to the eye doc tomorrow, my left eye has been icky all weekend. It feels like there’s something in there, but there isn’t — I keep squirting saline solution in, and there just isn’t anything there. Anyway, today: church and cooking. Watching Up while I wait for Joy Reid’s show.

    INXS again: Listen Like Thieves.

  7. It’s 55 and we’ve already had the high for the day in Fayetteville, AR. When I head out to start what may or may not be my last week at back at work it’ll be in the low 20s. sigh. At least I won’t have to drive and my friend will let me off as close to the building as we can legally get. Whatever was glitching the PV monitor is fixed now. We got 7.4 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 143. If we can get another 7 today (iffy), we’ll be back on track for 180 for the month. Got most of my household chores done. The weather shift is mucking with my hands so I’m putting off wiping down all the flat surfaces for a bit. When I fire up the oven to do the pork roast (shredded pork is so versatile) it’ll probably warm up the kitchen enough to at least make it less painful and I’ll do it then.

    Winding down the month, winding down the year. It has not been a great year by any stretch of anybody’s imagination. But I wouldn’t give back the face-to-face (or online) visits with online friends nor the new ones I’ve met this year. & my DIL (eldest grandson’s mom) finally called – as I was getting into bed but I never have problems with putting off going to bed to visit with someone I love – and we will be doing “decorate the tree at grandma’s” again this year. A bit of a later start than we used to since some folks will be working until late afternoon but still the family gathering tradition I started 15 years ago now. Each one is a blessing. Got folks I’m concerned about, as always. Sending everybody Healing Energy shaped to the need, as always. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  8. Good morning, 40 and mostly cloudy in Bellingham. T Day is finally over…..turkey soup for tonight’s dinner and the pies are nearly gone! Old habits do repeat every season. So now it’s on to Christmas. I’ve been doing more computer shopping for the grand kids than I have in the past. But I can go to their favorite stores from the comfort of home, so that’s what I’ve done. I will go to the bookstore in person though.

    Best Sunday wishes to all.

  9. Good Sunday afternoon, Moosekind! Whereas yesterday was absolutely miserable, with heavy rain and gloom all day, today is quite bright and mild. It was overcast at 7 a.m. but the sun did come out and we have pale blue skies with 57 F. in Ashburn. It won’t get much higher.

    The last Formula I race was held today, which explains why I’m late. Dearly Beloved has gone back to the doctor because his shoulder still isn’t better. I’m sitting here waiting for the brownies to come out of the oven and the load of colored clothes to come out of the washer.

    Yesterday I wrote Chapters 9 and 10! So pleased.

    Apologies for the following but I think my emails to DoReMI are going to her spam folder and I don’t have princesspat’s address:

    Seamstress alert! I’m at a point in my book where I need to know how to cut and sew diaphanous materials and put boning in bodices. Could you be very kind and email me at sulis at verizon.net? I’d appreciate it tremendously!

    Wishing all a peaceful Sunday at the pond, with plenty of sunshine for solar panels.

    • {{{basket}}} glad you got a chance to sleep in. 💤 At least if it didn’t cause you problems being late anywhere. I’m sure Belle appreciated it. 😁

      The map is great – but there’s a moose in NV? 😂😂😂

      • I”ll never forget the sight of a Moose mum and her little one, standing by the side of the road in Alaska as our tiny tour bus made its way from Anchorage to Portage. Was in Alaska only a few days but it was absolutely unforgettable!

      • I would never have thought MI had a larger moose population than WI; thank you, UP! And have I ever told my moose story here?

  11. Monday Meese

    36 and raining going up to 42 here in Saugerties NY

    First cages… now tear gas…

    Puerto Rico

  12. Good morning, meeses! Monday …

    It is 27 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 32. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast. A winter storm hit the southeast corner of the state but left us mainly unscathed. I feel sorry for people stranded in airports and trying to get home from the holidays on treacherous roads. I hope their bosses/teachers are understanding.

    I guess we are teargassing migrant families at the border now. :::sigh::: I am going to give the news a pass today and work on end of month projects. I am keeping an eye on two stories: the Mississippi Senate race and the Senate vote on confirming racist Thomas Farr to the federal bench. Democrats have 49 “no” votes but would need two to block the nomination. It will be interesting to see if Tim Scott can find it in his heart to block a man whose entire career has been spent finding ways to deny minority rights. Probably not – he is a member of a party whose stated purpose is to make America white again. I will never understand what motivates him. I suppose he knows that he would not be elected to public office as a Democrat but power for the sake of power – when it is not used to help anyone – is hardly a noble pursuit.

    See all y’all later!

  13. Cold this morning — hat & gloves weather. I came in to work, my eye seems better. I think next weekend I’ll make beans. Good, cheap, healthy dinner. My workout group for large people is starting back up on Sunday, I might re-join. Using energetic, happy Empress to keep upright this morning.

  14. Welp, 18 with windchill of 2 in Fayetteville, AR. At least the sun is shining. Probably not gonna make the 180 target for the month – I’ll need an average of 7 KWHs/day including today and while I might get that today, but tomorrow looks iffy. But the month ain’t over yet so we shall see what we shall see.

    I’m reasonably sure #45 is trying to start a war so he can be a war president. His base are already behind him but nobody else. As a war president – as W clearly showed – he’ll pick up the “patriotic” Rs who can’t stand him. Or he thinks he will. We can still out vote them but it’ll take somehow getting control of the narrative. Which will probably only happen if the owners of the MSM decide a war with Mexico is a really bad idea for their bottom line. Meanwhile a whole lot of innocent people are going to die. And our economy is going to be trashed. So basically we shall see whether war president trumps depression-causing president when they happen at about the same time. Now is a good time to find what we can do and ignore the rest. And everybody who does spiritual work singly and together focus on protecting the innocent – BIPOC of all nations including our own, children of all nations including our own – however their Tradition/Faith indicates doing so.

    Healing Energy to everybody everywhere shaped to the need. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  15. Good morning, 52 and raining in Bellingham. Today will be a twlight day, all day. Makes me thankful for lamps and our electric “wood burning” heaters. We have the illusion of a cozy fire without the mess of tending to one!

    My sister has moved to her friends house, where she will be caring for the house and pets for the next few weeks. She’ll be in and out of here as well. The house is in a wooded area so I hope it doesn’t get to dark for her comfort.

    I’m going to try to apply myself in my sewing room today. I’ve got lots of relatively mindless steps to complete so repetition may sooth my tRump angst. I would like to mail my Oregon daughter’s Christmas box next week so I’ll work on her stack first.

    Best Wishes to all.

  16. Good Moon Day morning, Meese! No moon visible this morning, it’s pouring! It’s 47 F. here in Ashburn, going up to 52 F. today—allegedly. Just tried to take Monty Beagle out for a “business” meeting, but he informed me he is not a Labrador and does not like water.

    He was a big hit earlier this morning with the tall, blue-eyed young man in a hard hat who knocked on our door a couple of hours ago. Talk about “Dems in disarray!” At ten past nine Dearly Beloved and I were still in dressing-gowns and slippers! It appeared that Sean, for that turned out to be his name, wanted to put patches on our walls where repairs and painting must be made. I’m so ditsy I never notice such things. Sean also said his family had had a basset hound when he was growing up and he was most eager to get a dog of his own.

    Anyway, I do wish the Powers That Be would bother to telephone before these visits. Three men have been in our flat this morning. There’s one behind me now (not handsome, blue-eyed Sean, alas), busily spackling and painting. I asked him if he minded my sitting at my desk, and he kindly said no.

    Wish my “fierces” would stick! Please know that I heartily approve of everyone’s posts. I don’t have much to do today other than work on the book, thank Goddess. Dearly Beloved is a little better this morning, owing to visiting the doctor at Urgent Care yesterday. He is now using Lidocaine patches and taking Tylenol three times a day.

    Watching the Mississippi Senate race with interest, wondering what those two districts in California will do. In the meantime I have only this week to work on the book. (Not really, I’ll keep on trucking, but after November the urgency will be gone.) It is so much fun to write!

    Hoping everyone at the Pond will have a good day.

    P. S. Bfitz, for someone who lives in a supposedly southern state, you have the weirdest weather I’ve ever heard of! It blows my mind that you have 18 F. with a wind chill of 2 F.!

    • Enjoy your writing & Healing Energy to DB. Another and equally accurate term for global warming is global weirding weather. These temps would have been normal 40 years ago in late January-early February. Now they happen randomly, if at all. {{{HUGS}}}

    • I believe that the House only has one uncertain race left. The one in New York has only about 800 absentee ballots to count and the indicted Republican is ahead by over 1,200 votes. The indicted Republican in California won his race.

      CA-21 – which includes Fresno – now has the Democrat, TJ Cox, ahead by about 500 votes and the votes that are left to count are in counties that one would expect Democratic pickups from. It is now “Likely D” on the guessing sites. If we pick up that seat we will hit 40 flips which would be a nice round number for us to remember for us olds and be another seat diluting the NoLabels “Democrats” plans to ratfk the House leadership elections. That we got 40 seats is remarkable considering that many states were voting under illegal partisan and racial gerrymanders – something we hope to remedy by 2020.

  17. Good afternoon, Meesefolk; 34 early this morning, with an expected high of…34. We’ve had wet, ploppy snow all morning here, and it’s not really sticking. The bulk of the snow was supposed to hit further west and north, but I haven’t checked to see if it was much ado about nothing or the first shovel-able snow of the season.

    The photos of the gassing of refugees and the smarmy, privileged, ahistorical, and inhumane responses by so many has me seething with anger…and with no clear idea of what I can and should be doing. I just know I see too many idiots and not enough awareness of what’s been going on in Central America, much of it a direct result of our misguided, short-sighted policies in the past.

    Like so many, I’ll be watching the MS election results tomorrow with interest. I have no idea if Espy has a chance, but I’ve done what I can with money and postcards, so the rest is up to his team and the voters of MS. I rather doubt Cindy White-Whiter-Whitest is going to get the electoral smackdown that she well and fully deserves, but it sure would be nice to wake up Wednesday morning to a “too close to call” announcement.

    And now to clear my cache and search history from my work computer…the searches I was doing for Diana are probably not the sort of thing I want left on my computer, in the event the boss ever decides to use mine!

    • It seems like every trouble spot in the world is “a direct result of our misguided, short-sighted policies in the past.” Whether it was for exploitation of their natural resources or that we had “better ideas” about who should be in charge of their governments (usually so we could get more favorable deals on their natural resources!) We suck, really, and have for a long time – with occasional brief breaks promoting decency. Trump is just the unfiltered version of American Imperialism.

      • The author James Loewen contends that one of the many problems with the way U.S. history is presented in textbooks is the view that our country is on an unrelenting march towards progress. As a result, a lot of the dark days of our past are never discussed, because that would disrupt the optimistic, “we’ve come a long way, baby” timeline of progress.

  18. Back at work after a nice and quiet Thanksgiving. We had ham, turkey thighs, sweet potatoes, deviled eggs, potato salad, mashed potatoes, pickled beets and store bought desert. Now all I have to do is take off the weight I gained from the dinner. It’s lunchtime (nearly) and 74 degrees under a clear blue sky.

    • That sounds like a perfect combination of traditional meal and summer picnic! And now I’m craving deviled eggs…

  19. Good (barely) morning, Meese. It’s 56 degrees with a high of 63 or thereabouts, and I need coffee, which I shall have with my lunch at work.

    I can’t believe I’m going to be hitting the road in two weeks! (and moving two weeks after that)

    • Hi, MVgal! If you find out how to take off the weight, tell us about it! More and more I resemble a seal from the Pribilof Islands. Perhaps next month I’ll go back to the gym.

  20. Tuesday Meese

    Raining here in the Hudson Valley of NY – snow to my north, 38 degrees going up to 44.

    Congrats to Chef José Andrés

    In local news – I’m elated for New York:

    Not good news

    • I saw that about Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins! That it came after the ousting of the IDC is extra sweet. Take that, faux Democrats who make common cause with Republican destroyers! We are all watching for New York State to make improvements in people’s lives now that there is a Democratic majority in both chambers of the legislature and a sort-of Democrat as governor. First up: fix the election system, please. Early voting, no-excuse-needed absentee ballots, automatic registration. Don’t let the 2020 election be endangered by an early winter storm or a late hurricane.

    • The nooses were hung with signs that said things like. “A reminder that times haven’t changed” and “We want leadrs [sic] who give honest apologies…” which were promptly reported by a local news station as “hate signs.” This was a failure by so many and on so many levels that I hardly no where to start, but I’m taking a tiny bit of solace in the apparent fact that the intentions weren’t as originally assumed.

      • I am not sure I trust that it was “our side” making the statement – it could easily be a little bit of ratfking. Misspellings are a MAGA trait and, really, I can’t see Democrats in Mississippi doing that even to make a point. I am sure it will be investigated and, unless the perpetrator is a white Republican, punished.

        • And this is where my naivete (and privilege) get me in trouble. I never even considered the possibility of ratfking. But then, I would never presume to use a noose as a political statement under any circumstances; it’s a symbol of so much pain and grief that isn’t just history, but all-too-current events.

      • I was puzzled too, after reading the “hate signs” – however like Jan, I thought the mis-spellings seemed strange.

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