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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Cold this morning — 30s, brrrr. But it’s supposed to warm up this week. At work, eating overnight oats & drinking tea. I got at least some stuff yesterday: made maybe 3 week’s worth of lunch while getting caught up on Doctor Who; and I cooked a big container of mushrooms, so I have them to add to any frozen dinners I have. Did not get a walk in, and not gonna today, it is too cold. But it is supposed to warm up by the end of the week, so I’m aiming for then. Youtube suggested this adorable Christmas song by Coldplay: Christmas With the Kangaroos
Good morning from North Little Rock, AR, where it’s currently 23 degrees with a high of 57. Had mostly uneventful flight including a conversation with the passenger next to me about dealing with difficult people by showing kindness and compassion, and then checked in to my motel followed by a late night dinner at Waffle House.
Today’s plans involve checking out the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum and then driving up northwest (via the Ozark mountains) to meet bfitz!
Good morning, Meesefolk; 27 now with a grey high of 32. It’s supposed to be a bright, sunny day here on Saturday; naturally I’ll be in OH, where there will be a 60% chance of rain. 🙄 I’ve been sneezing and using tissue since the moment I got up, but I’m not ready to say I’m coming down with a cold. If I don’t label it, it’s not real, right? 😄 And it *can’t * be a cold, because I have too much to do and a fun weekend with family ahead. Nothing, but nothing, is going to diminish that.
I was on a news/Twitter brownout last night, but from the sounds of things, I didn’t miss much but the usual bluster, obsfucation, lies, and attacks. I may continue my brownout today too.
Good day to and for all!
After seeing the discouraging comments by the Republican Senators who can’t be bothered to care about the institutions they claim to cherish, I think a Twitter brownout would be good for me, as well. But then I would miss the hilarity of the vulgar talking yam’s search for a Chief of Staff. Chris Christie? Mark “Could anyone be stupider?” Meadows? It really makes no difference who he picks but I am glad to see John Kelly booted – the fiction of him being a principled person, the supposed Adult is irritating. He is a racist and a partisan hack, a man whose legacy will be caging babies and enabling the worst person in the world to undermine democracy. The change will reset the tone: it is a garbage presidency with a garbage president and there should be no other narrative.
{{{DoReMI}}} – Healing Energy & don’t forget the 500 mg vitamin C every couple of hours. Garlic soup too, if your companions like garlic. LOL. Hot and Sour soup works almost as well. (& staying off twitter is probably as good for your immune system as anything else.) moar Healing Energy and {{{HUGS}}}
Time People of the Year:
Hi Meese – I’m at work so slow getting my not-work stuff (as in I’m late to post 😁) – basket should be at the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum right now. It’s 41 windchill 38 and sunny. It’s supposed to go up to 55 today so he should have a pleasant drive coming up. Yesterday we got 7.7 KWHs and the m-t-d is 48. Not on track but gaining. I may go down this year (as in use more than I’ve generated) with the extra folks who’ve stayed. Let’s say I don’t think my grandson is as interested in energy efficiency as I am and he’s the one who did the housesitting when I was traveling this year. We shall see what we shall see.
I don’t exactly do twitter brownouts but I do most of my twittering from either whatever post Denise has put her roundup in or from Aji’s home page – or responding in my own mentions. I hit my own TL maybe 3x a day – RT like mad while I’m there but leave it again once I’ve got multiples in my mentions. I’m not going to claim it keeps me sane but I’ll claim it keeps me saner.
I’ll be heading for home in time to meet basket there so I’d best get back to doing what I’m being paid to do. 😂 Healing Energy to everybody everywhere shaped to the need. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 49 and raining in Bellingham. I enjoyed my winter garden yesterday. It was good for my soul to wander round, clip greens and holly and to make arrangements for the porches. But today I’d best find my list as the desk needs attention, sewing needs t be finished and some presents wrapped. Christmas elfing is a full time job!
Best wishes to all.
Nancy Pelosi leaving the White House after the epic smackdown of the yam.
Wednesday Meese
26 here in the Catskills – going up to 38.
I spent time yesterday gleefully re-tweeting all things Pelosi. I hope the asshat Democrats and fauxgressives who want her out got a lesson today – however they are very slow learners so I’m sure they will be back with more dirt to throw. For now – I’m gloating
PR
My favorite tweet that alluded to the guys trying to deny Pelosi the gavel was that when she noticed that Donald Trump was sweating a bit she “handed him Seth Moulton to wipe his brow.”
The Nancy memes were great! We don’t have Hillary but we have another smart Democratic woman kicking ass and taking names.
did you see this? I love “NanChucked”
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 32 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 34. Freezing drizzle this morning; fingers crossed that it ends by noon – as predicted – when I have to get on the road.
The Oval Office meltdown of the orange toddler was a nice Twitter break. I normally don’t watch videos of him – except by accident when they are on my TV and I can’t click away quickly enough – but they filled my Twitter stream suggesting that Nancy Pelosi was giving him an epic smackdown. So I watched and unmuted. I am not sure which part I liked best the Badass Nancy memes or the mocking of Mike Pence. Anyway, as Think Progress pointed out, that was the first time in two years that a lawmaker fact-checked Trump to his face. His plan to shut down the government – and take the blame! – is the height of idiocy. The good news is that more agencies are shutdown-proof – the bad news is that it will require people to work without pay AGAIN.
The jury in Virginia recommended that the murderer of Heather Heyer be sentenced to life plus 419 years. Good. I hope he lives long and is miserable every single day. It is too bad that the Republican Party could not have been tried as accomplices for their tacit support of white supremacists. We will have to make sure that we punish them at the polls.
See all y’all later!
The post-meeting media stakeout:
Transcript from Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi’s office:
So much warmer this morning. Yesterday was hat & gloves, today I barely needed a jacket. Guess that means I have to walk in the morning, cold is no longer an excuse. So happy that Speaker Pelosi humiliated Trump yesterday. Looking forward to January. Today’s Christmas song: Oi To The World.
If God came down on Christmas Day
I know exactly what He’d say
He’d say “Oi to the punks and Oi to the skins
But Oi to the world and everybody wins”
This was good news
Very good news. And very high on the list of reasons I want that woman in the Senate for about the next 30 years.
G’morning Meese. It’s 43 windchill 37 heading for 55 and is supposed to be sunny once the fog/haze burns off. Which is good. We got 7.97 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 56. Not on track but slowly gaining. Unfortunately we’ve got rain showing for the next couple of days which if true means losing more ground. Good news on the production front is that I’ve already generated this year a tad more than 2017’s total. We won’t match 2016’s 4.4 MWHs but we might match 2015’s 4.15 as we’re at 4.09 right now and have over half the month to get through.
Basket’s here and sleeping. We had a pleasant time at the faculty event last night and a very pleasant visit once we got home. I’m not sure what the plans are for today but whatever they are I know they will be pleasant just for the company. 💞💞💞 Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning meese. Not much to add to bfitz’s weather report except to say that I am really enjoying visiting with her. Her house has a warm and calming presence which is good. ❤️
{{{basket}}} – I’m glad my intent comes through in my house. 💖💕🤗
Good morning, Meesefolk; 25 this morning, but going all the way up to 36 today. It’s still grey and greyer, but at least the warmer temps will keep the chill from settling in to my bones too completely.
I spent most of yesterday doing mundane things like laundry and dishes and gift wrapping in preparation for our trip to OH, which is still on despite a wrinkle in our plans. SILs mother had her MRI yesterday (thank you, Medicaid), and the moment they saw she has a 4cm brain tumor, they bundled her in an ambulance and transported her to a hospital in Columbus (thank you, Medicaid). That’s two hours away from her home, but within ten minutes of SIL and Kiddo; he was willing to pick her up, but they had to sedate her quite a bit for the MRI (thank you, Medicaid) and felt it was safer to have her taken by ambulance. It will take further testing before they determine the next course of action, but surgery in the next few days seems likely (thank you, Medicaid). Kiddo and SIL spent most of last evening and this morning at the hospital and are now driving to MILs home in Ashland to pick up some personal items for her.
We obviously offered to reschedule our visit, but SIL and Kiddo both insisted we still come down. SIL was particularly strong in stating his preference; he said it would provide some normalcy and distraction for him. (Poor kid, his family is so dysfunctional, he actually thinks we are “normal”!) I do hope his brother in Atlanta is able to come up for the weekend; brother’s husband works for an airline, so they’re trying to get him on a [free] flight. It would help SIL to have someone sharing the responsibilities for their mom, plus there’s the added concern of the impact this will have on SILs 96-year old grandmother. I don’t know if there will be a full house or if brother and grandmother are going to mostly stay in Ashland; I suspect those decisions will largely be dependent on what the neurosurgeon decides to do. Anyway, I’m going to be doing a lot of baking tonight. I figure several loaves of applesauce bread (which can be frozen) and a few batches of cookies will always come in handy. Beyond that, I can’t really think of much we can do to help.
Good day to and for all!
{{{DoReMI}}} Sending Love and Healing Energy to you and your (immediate and extended) family. ❤️
Thank you. Kiddo just texted that MIL will probably be released and go home tomorrow. The neurosurgeon doesn’t think it’s cancer and wants to wait until after the holidays to do surgery. Frankly, I never really considered that it might be cancer; I’m nothing more than a wiki-“doctor”, but my dad had cancer that metastasized to the brain, and I wasn’t seeing any similarities. (Yes, overall that’s comparing apples to oranges, except there are some attributes in common.) Kiddo also had brain issues (* insert obvious jokes here *), so I’ve done more reading on all the types of brain tumors/disorders than the average layperson. If I were a betting person, I’d be putting my money on the tumor being a meningioma, and while that’s nothing to take lightly, it is both generally benign and treatable. Obviously, this is pure guesswork on my part, but it’s kept me from totally flipping out. More to the point, Kiddo was operating under similar assumptions (she, too, is betting on a meningioma), so she’s not been flipping out…which helps SIL.
This made me laugh out loud:
“Poor kid, his family is so dysfunctional, he actually thinks we are “normal”!”
Good luck and safe travels!
{{{DoReMI}}} – Holding you in my heart and sending Healing Energy to your family, as many degrees out as you wish. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 41 and partly cloudy in Bellingham. Lighter grey skies, with a hint of blue, are a welcome relief from yesterday’s pouring rain. Makes me want to runaway to the garden again:) RonK and my sister are headed towards Mt Baker today to visit a fish hatchery and some other sites so I need to take advantage of my quiet house and to some more Christmas elfing. My countdown clock is ticking!
Best wishes to all.
I am glad that we don’t go all-in on the holidays, it sounds very time consuming (although I know you love creating beauty). We will get a tree – probably on Saturday – decorate it simply, put a few gifts under it and celebrate Solstice next Friday and then observe the yule for 13 days. I have not decided when I will do the holiday meal yet, maybe Sunday when clients’ offices will be closed. One of the drawbacks to celebrating the pagan holidays is that business people – and their computer networks! – don’t realize that I am taking the day off!!
Good morning, meeses! Thursday …
It is 25 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 39. Mostly sunny skies then the forecast calls for “ice pellets” in the evening and into the night. Yikes! Over the weekend, we may see the 40s for a bit of a heat wave.
Yesterday’s news was part of the Great Unraveling – the “two years too late” investigation of the criminal enterprises of Donald J. Trump and his family. I wish the press – or the other Republicans running in 2016 – had been interested in doing due diligence on his outright criminality. Now we are in a constitutional crisis because he very likely won’t be indicted while he is in office (whether he can be or not is a matter of opinion and Mueller will likely not test that with Republican control of the Supreme Court) and the Republican president* certainly won’t be removed by the Republican Senate. So we are stuck waiting it out and hoping our Democratic House can put the brakes on the worst plans coming out of the administration and that whats left of our federal courts can block the rest. We need to regain control of the power to nominate and confirm in 2020 or we will lose the latter.
Speaker-designate Pelosi made a “deal” with the House Democrats who were threatening to vote for Kevin McCarthy for Speaker of the House. Whether they were serious or not (I hope it was just d*ck-waving), at least it gives her the authority she needs now to help broker the deal to avoid the shutdown. It sounds like the leadership deal is pretty much what she has said all along – she wants to lead and mentor the next generation of young leaders and then step aside and let them lead. She agreed to only serve until 2022 which will let her do for President Kamala Harris what she did for President Barack Obama – pass good progressive legislation For The People to show everyone what Democratic Party values are. Here is what she said about leadership:
The agreement also covers Steny Hoyer which is good news – he is not the guy to lead our young exciting progressive party into the future.
See all y’all later!
Thursday Meese
23 degrees here in Saugerties NY, 28 and it’s snowing – going up to 30.
I love Soledad
Ugh!
Puerto Rico
Thanks for those tweets of the truly disgusting “it was only his first rape” case from Texas – that the prosecutor was a woman underscores that the rape culture has a lot of enablers (including the Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos). The god-colleges are the worst offenders because they live in a world where they place themselves above the law and consider truly biblical overrides to those laws (“no man shall be punished for his takings”) . I personally do not know why women would want to go to Baylor, it has been shown time and time again that it is a dangerous place for women.
Speaking of rape – was glad to see this get some coverage
I walked this morning, yay me! 30 minutes, a little over a mile, 200ish calories. The weather is supposed to take a turn today — strong winds, maybe rain, and areas just northwest of us might get snow and even thundersnow. Crazy. All this by way of — I might not walk in the morning if the weather is still crazy. But I walked today.
Today’s song could be either a Christmas or New Year’s one: Better Days. I attach a warning to it because the first few times I heard it, I was driving & I had to pull over because it makes me cry so hard I couldn’t see. It still makes me cry.
I wish everyone was loved tonight
And somehow stop this endless fight
Just a chance that maybe we’ll find better days
So take these words and sing out loud
‘Cause everyone is forgiven now
‘Cause tonight’s the night the world begins again
‘Cause tonight’s the night the world begins again
Congratulations for walking today. And one day at a time is the best way to take it. {{{HUGS}}}
It’s 52 and raining – has been for the last 2 hours to one degree or another – but there’s a streak of pale blue over to the west. We shall see what we shall see. Yesterday we got 5.7 KWHs before the clouds moved in. Damit and I were “hiking” around Lake Fayetteville at the time. But anything under 6 means we’re losing ground towards the 180 goal. The m-t-d is 61.9 and we’ll be losing more ground today. But starting Saturday we’re supposed to get a string of sunny days so again we shall see what we shall see.
Being a damp, chilly, rainy day it’s likely that Damit and I are going to stay home and do home stuff (like his laundry). We were supposed to meet with another online friend for coffee but she had to reschedule to tomorrow so a nice “lazy” day sounds just right. 😂 Healing Energy to everybody shaped to the need. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
{{{{bfitz}}}} 💓 💓 💓 💓
I can’t stop laughing at the image of doing basket’s laundry. Basket, are you sure you’re not a college kid returning home for winter break?!
Well, I am 10 years younger than bfitz’s oldest son so it’s not out of the realm of impossibility…! I was joking with her that I thought about bringing more dirty clothes but didn’t want to take advantage of her kindness, as it turns out that I don’t quite have enough for a full load. Whoops!