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 (usually Saturday night with a Sunday date). 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.
…
Good morning, 35 and cloudy grey skies in Bellingham. Snow is forecast for today but hopefully it will just fall and melt away. I really want to start cleaning up the garden but it’s best to wait until the snow is gone and the temp warms up.
I can finally open my TMJ joint wide enough for the dentist to hopefully do something, so that’s where I will be soon. Today is for a long overdue cleaning and a decision re what to do next for the TMJ misery. I’ve learned the hard way that a conservative treatment plan is best for me, but it’s been a 6 months so I hope I can finally get impressions made for a night guard.
I’m going to try to ignore Bernie today….hope he follows Howard Schultz down the path to being irrelevant, grrrrr!
Best wishes to all.
I hope things worked out at the dentist!
I think it will take a few months for the bern to be salved. I was reading Twitter and apparently his plan is to get 35% of the vote in a crowded field and grab the nomination just like tRump did. I am pretty sure that the Democratic Party nomination doesn’t work that way – that someone needs a real majority – but I know they changed things after 2016. He won’t win California, he won’t win South Carolina, and he probably won’t win Washington state now that you are going back to primaries after the caucus experiment. I hope that people drop out before the field is fractured enough to give a completely unsuitable candidate the nomination. There is plenty of time.
The weather widget says it’s 28 & feels like 18 so either the temps have dropped from 2 hours ago this morning or it’s wrong. The cats’ water was liquid this morning and while it certainly didn’t feel good it also didn’t feel as raw as it did yesterday. We got 12 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 136.7 – so we’re banking again which is very good. At least we’re banking at the moment. Whether we bank for the month is gonna depend on more sunshine. Holding the Good Thought and we shall see what we shall see.
#45 & the Deplorables still being evil. That ain’t gonna change. Brogressives doing the same and pretending they aren’t. That ain’t gonna change either. But we know what they are this time. Local & state Dem parties aren’t gonna let them grab our money or our data so easily this time. And on twitter block is your friend. Meanwhile half my online friends/family are feeling grungy at best and mostly holing up. Which reminds me one more time that there’s not a lot besides love and prayer anybody can do for or about folks they love who are in pain. But they definitely have that love and prayer. I hope it helps some.
I’ve got my coffee and need to get back to work. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, Meesefolk; 12 when I got up and going up to 27. The sun is doing battle with the clouds right now, and it looks like the sun is going to win. Yay for blue skies and sunshine!
Just got off the phone with Kiddo, who needed to do some venting. MIL is in a rehab facility now and doing her level best to resist any attempts to be rehabbed. Some of it is quite understandable; she’s still in a great deal of pain. Some of it, however, seems to be coming from her belief that she’s going to move home and SIL will move back home and take care of her…never mind that she lives 2 1/2 hours away from them (and his job). It’s pure delusion, so Kiddo is hoping that it will clear as she heals more, but given her MILs history, it could also be an attempt at emotional manipulation. I feel so badly for my SIL right now.
I see that the True Believers are trying to stir the muck now that Sen. Sanders has announced. It’s a good thing they haven’t learned any new tricks, because they are both transparent and laughable at this point. I don’t see any secret FB groups popping up this time around.
Good day to and for all!
Wednesday Meese.
10 degrees here in Saugerties NY – going up to 30 with snow.
Sigh – another Black History month fashion fail
Puerto Rico
I don’t understand what about “lynching is bad” people don’t get. I wonder if it is just to go viral – the fashion brand Burberry certainly is in the news now! PT Barnum once said “there is no such thing as bad publicity!” and maybe in our current 10 minute news cycle, he is right. Act horrified, “fix” the problem, now “Burberry” is famous.
Have any of the candidates outlined a plan for Puerto Rico recovery? I just checked Kamala Harris’ announcement speech and there was nothing in there. People should go to every rally and ask that question. Here is a preview of Bernie Sanders’ reply “Why is everyone focused on identity politics? Puerto Ricans will benefit like everyone else by my plan to jail bankers!!!”
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 25 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 34. It is snowing now and will be into the afternoon. The expected accumulation is 2-4 inches but we are under a winter weather advisory because it could turn into sleet and freezing rain later this afternoon. I hope that part of the forecast is wrong!
I am glad that CNN hired an outright Republican political hack to manage their 2020 election coverage – it makes it easier to filter them out. I have been shunning CNN since they did not fire Chris Cuomo for propagating the Kamala Harris birther story. That, on the heels of Jake Tapper’s butt-kissing of the Covington teenage white supremacists, was the last straw. I no longer click on their stories or retweet their tweets – if there is a story they are covering that I want to know more about, I will google it and find it from a reputable source. If it is an exclusive, it is probably to promote their pro-Republican agenda anyway! My feeling is that the wall-to-wall coverage of Trump rallies in 2016 helped him win the nomination and, because Republicans are terrible people who will always vote for the white male even if he is a criminal, that sealed the deal. #NeverCNN
See all y’all later!
Yesterday was cold & damp — not enough to really call it rainy, just….damp. I So, how many stories will come out today that would have floored us 5 years ago, but now we just keep walking? Ok, I’m gonna listen to happy music, here’s Empress.
chorus:
Sound and pulse and volume
Hands just reaching out for hands
This is almost overload
I said almost overload
Friends and foes and princes
Are all just human in the end
This is so damn simple, yeah
It’s so damn simple
Good Woden’s Day morning, Moosekind! Thick, gloppy snow is falling heavily in our area at this writing. Hope the schoolchildren who are off will get out and play this morning before it turns to sleet and freezing rain. Then it’s supposed to change to all rain tonight, which will probably melt most of the white stuff. The current temperature is 32 F., going up to 35 F.
Ugh, I’m having heart palpitations because Saint Bernard raised $4 mil in one day. Dear Goddess, how can people support that useless old boot? Agree with you about CNN, Jan. Unfortunately my husband likes to watch it. I’ll just have to be somewhere else when it’s on.
Dee, I will go to Kamala’s website this morning and if there is a place to ask the question about Puerto Rico, I’ll do that. Not sure if I can email her Senate office as I’m not a constituent.
Wishing everyone a safe, quiet day.
Well, it’s above freezing. It doesn’t feel like it but water is liquid so it’s above freezing. So dark the PV system is barely on. Damp, chilly, yukky, “wish I were home by a nice fire” weather. Sigh. We did get 4.5 KWHs yesterday, not good but has been worse. The m-t-d is 141 so we’re still ahead of use on average. The sun is supposed to come out later today. I hope early enough we can get 6 or better and go back to banking. Especially since the next few days look iffy-to-bad for generation. Ijit daffodils are trying to bloom. The flowers are there, just not opened up yet. I keep telling them it’s only February but they don’t listen to me. 😁😁😁
There has been nothing since Dec 2000 when I got rid of my TV that has even vaguely made me regret that decision. I will find the information I want via other sources. (Largely emails from organizations I support – and then online searches to get the background/whole story. That’s worked quite well for me.) Berners are in full-rollout mode. sigh. Not that they haven’t been active since 2015 but they’ve shifted up to 3rd now. Hope we can get rid of the old parasite before he and they do too much damage. Fortunately we do outnumber them AND the Deplorables, neither group are we ever going to convince to join us. So our focus needs to be on getting the never-voters and the kids just reaching voting age to the polls. (& bless the Parkland kids/survivors for their work on this.) I believe rto’s numbers are 40% white-90% Black-70% Latino/a to put us back in charge of the Ship of State. We’re not gonna get any of that 40% from Deplorables or berners but Hillary’s coalition got close enough that just a few percentage points from the non-voting group shifted our way will do it.
Meanwhile folks I know having problems to worry about/pray about. So I do. Need coffee and get back to work. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 34 and cloudy in Bellingham. Yesterday’s snow warning turned into cold rain so the slush is even slushier today. Between the rain, mud, and remaining snow my formerly tidy garden is looking very bedraggled.
I’ve got a stack of table cloth fabric ready to cut, press and sew today so that may keep tRump/bernie angst on the back burner. Sure hope so! My daughter and her husband now have his grandmother’s old dining room furniture and the table needs to be refinished but that’s not going to happen for a while. So table cloths are needed and I have fabric needing a new home. An easy project for me will give them an easy fix. Emphasis on the word “easy” :)
Best wishes to all.
Good morning, Meesefolk; 21 when I got up and maybe up to 36 today. We’re expecting a mess of everything; our local cop shop summed it up best:
Now that the Great Divider has declared, I’ve been watching the uptick in obnoxiousness on Twitter and at the GOS. My overall strategy is going to be to block liberally, promote the positions of the candidates with whom I agree, and defend our candidates against misogyny and racism as necessary, no matter what the source. And with CA occurring so early in the primary cycle this time around, I’m going to have to restructure my budget so I can start giving early and often to Sen. Harris. Normally I spread my giving over the entire primary season, but I want her well-funded for the expensive media markets and large states. That’s going to mean front-loading my giving more than usual, but it also means that by the end of the primaries, I’ll already have saved for general election contributions.
Good day to and for all!
40 with high of 52, one of my “travel claims” fixed and verified yesterday night/this morning and another one to start on today. They never stop, do they? 😂
Today’s going to be another long day at work, with a break to take Noname for his second influenza shot.
You’re a good dad, basket!
{{{basket}}} – no, they never stop. It gets a little tiring after a while. sigh. You’re a good cat dad. Skritches to Noname (& also Belle so she doesn’t feel left out). moar {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, meeses! Thursday …
It is 21 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 28. Sunny skies are in the forecast. We will have a two day reprieve from winter storms with the next one coming in on Saturday into Sunday with freezing rain then blowing snow.
I am going to start cutting back on my news intake – we seem to be stuck in a pattern that is non-productive. I have my 2020 candidate and every whack they take at her increases my determination that I will not let MSNBC and CNN throw white-on-white “heroes” into the mix who will ride to the rescue to save us from sure defeat. I read something yesterday that Amy Klobuchar said that makes it clear she plans to run as a female Joe Biden, determined to tap into the butthurt white vote, even more determined to ignore that working people includes people of color. I am really disappointed in her.
The Mueller investigation is coming to an end and I hope that everyone takes a deep breath and realizes that it does not mean that the investigations into the Trump campaign and presidency have ended – they will just no longer be under the Special Counsel umbrella. Mueller was charged with a specific task and his conclusion will likely be that while Trump committed indictable offenses, he can’t be charged with them until he is a private citizen. The best we can hope for is a sealed indictment that contains all the evidence and that it increases our determination to make him a private citizen on January 20, 2021. I know I sound like a broken record but impeachment is a waste of time – we need to use our House Majority to pass good government laws that we can point to and run on in 2020, not a show vote. The Republican Senate will never remove Trump, they are so tied to him that they would be destroying their own careers if they crossed him. Beat them at the polls!
See all y’all later!
I’m kind of stunned by the number of clueless, unforced errors Amy has made, but when somebody shows you who they are… She’s clearly toast as a presidential candidate, but I have to wonder if any of this will weaken her in MN?
I do want add that doing a fundraiser with Stacey Evans supporters in and of itself isn’t a bad thing; as far as I saw (which admittedly wasn’t much), Evans wasn’t a bad Dem candidate. But the glaring whiteness of it all, in GA, and with no apparent attempt to work with Stacey Abrams or her supporters, is where the clueless Joe Biden-esque comparison is apt.
It is likely Amy being “independent” and feeling she does not need to kiss the ring of anyone – but Stacey Abrams is the face of the Georgia Democratic Party right now. I hope we find out that they tried to coordinate their schedules and couldn’t.
Whenever I see white politicians distancing themselves from black leaders – and male politicians distancing themselves from female leaders – my hackles are raised.
Thursday Meese
34 going up to 49 here in NTS – hope that will melt some of the piled up snow and ice.
Thank you Hillary
White Supremacy
Puerto Rico
The white nationalist googling “fake impeachment” while planning to kill Democrats and journalists should be a wake-up call to every elected official. Trump inspires the worst of the worst and those folks will not go quietly when we defeat him at the polls. Every time Republicans enable another authoritarian move by their president, they embolden those people. They need to shut down the rhetoric.
They don’t want to shut down the rhetoric or the white supremacist/nationalist violence. They see it as their only path to permanent power. Which it pretty much is since they can’t win an honest election.
Chilly & rainy again — people are joking about is this Austin or Seattle. And the news….. although today is the day Roger Stone could go to jail for threatening a judge, so there’s that possibility of a ray of sunshine. Today’s song, the fun & weird Dark Switch by Snow Patrol
This is not like it was before
Baby I’m not afraid
Some things fall when they’re meant to fall
And you can see everything
Good Thor’s Day morning, Moosekind! The rain that was supposed to melt all the snow didn’t materialize. When I got up at 7 the world outside the windows was white with snow and grey with mist, but now the sun is trying to come out to melt the snow off the trees. Currently the temperature in Ashburn is 31 F. going up to 49 F.
A friend gave me two links about Kamala and Puerto Rico. Unfortunately I didn’t know how to paste two links at a time. I’ll go back and get the other one. Meanwhile, here’s one of them:
https://www.puertoricoreport.com/tag/kamala-harris/#.XG6tbS3MyCR
It’s time for breakfast. I’m dragging after a completely sleepless night that I owe to taking Allegra at 5 p.m. From now on when I take it, I’ll take it at noon.
Feeling really fed up with all the buzz about Mueller’s report. Marcy Wheeler says there may be a report but it will not be the report. I want the entire White House gang to go down, down, down!
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
Here’s the other link, from the Sacramento Bee last June. Kamala’s website does not have an “issues” page, as far as I can see. When you click on anything, it always goes straight to ActBlue.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article213541574.html
Ha! I noticed the lack of an issues page – and also news, videos and transcripts of speeches. Perhaps they don’t want to get nailed down on specific issues yet. At some point they will need to.
June 2018: Kamala Harris is coming to Puerto Rico’s aid. Will Puerto Ricans in Florida return the favor?
That other link is an excellent recap of the efforts she has made for Puerto Rico (it is a search by TAG of the “Puerto Rico Report” site). She is clearly not ignoring Puerto Rico. One of the stories from August 2018 was about an effort to cancel Puerto Rico’s debt: Senators Introduce Bill to Cancel Puerto Rico’s Debt. That would help!
Good morning, Meesefolk; 34 when I got up this morning with an expected high of 37. In other words, it’s a heat wave! My widget says 48 by Sunday, but windy and rainy, so I’m probably going to be inside just enjoying the fact that my furnace isn’t kicking on too much.
Yesterday was totally FUBAR; by the time I got home from work after 8pm, I was so grumpy that I just went outside and worked at getting some of the remaining ice patches broken up and shoveled off my sidewalks. One patch of ice was named Microsoft, for their latest update which left me with the bank-provided scanner for deposits not working; another patch of ice got named name of bank for not knowing who I should call to get the system working again; and another one was dubbed, “I don’t get paid enough for this shit.” My sidewalks are now fully clear, and I’m pretty sure The Hubby and dogs and cats should be grateful, even if they don’t know why.
Good day to and for all (including me)!
LOL, DoReMI!
Ha! It is not surprising that name of bank did not know how to fix the problem or who to call! I am very peeved lately with tech support staff who seem to have troubleshooting scripts designed to make you scream and hang up rather than work through to resolution (they probably mark the call as “problem resolved” when people hang up in despair!) Invariably, after the script is checked off you are transferred to someone who knows how to fix the problem. MAYBE the script catches people who really don’t know that the device has to be powered up – MAYBE it catches people who have not tried two different browsers – but those kind of questions drive me nuts. I hope you were able to resolve the issue. I find check scanning one of the most useful innovations in banking – to save me having to run to the bank to make deposits, especially since they don’t have After Hours Depositories any longer, is huge.
OK it says 36 feels like 26 but at the moment the sun is shining. That’s not supposed to last long. I hope they’re wrong about that. It’s supposed to go up to the 50s today and I’d like to walk home again aside from wanting to generate some electricity before the yuk weather moves in tonight & tomorrow. The yuk is wet and chilly with some wintry mix – not supposed to go down below freezing until Sunday morning – but that’s still not making my joints happy. We got 10 KWHs yesterday bringing the m-t-d to 151.
Ignoring the MSM is probably the best idea of the decade. Several decades in fact. Unless/until we can break up that media “monopoly” and free the Press we won’t have a Free Press. Meanwhile the drill will be “gotcha” things about our best candidates followed at nauseum with how the Left & Right Deplorables react to the “gotcha” moments on our side with “human interest” stories on the rest. The worse the person for actually being & doing the job of president, the nicer and fluffier the human interest stories about the Deplorables (ours and theirs) will be. At no time will actual facts, plans, or proposals be given any kind of MSM coverage – except of course for interviewing berners screaming about how our best candidates don’t have facts, plans, or proposals (because 1) they deliberate haven’t looked for them, 2) ignored them when presented with them, & 3) know they can get away with it because MSM is pretty much black-holing said facts, plans, & proposals and so most certainly won’t correct them). The MSM are not gonna change until who signs their paychecks changes. The berners are not gonna change and can only be muted or otherwise put where they can’t hurt anybody. The only thing we can change is how we react to it (and we pretty much haven’t – we’re still calling on MSM to do honest journalism rather than accepting and working around reality) and who we try to get to the polls. Forget trying to woo the berners or the “wwc” – go for the “my vote doesn’t matter” group and the kids who will be voting for the first time. We just need to pick up another 4 or 5% white voters to make that 40% white/70% Latinx/90% Black coalition rto talks about. Those are our numbers, that’s our target, to taking back control of the Ship of State. And that’s boots on the ground, precinct-level organizing. The kind BW are so very good at. Which our candidates (looking at you, AK) better remember.
Meanwhile today is being busy at work. Not interesting – I’m filing which is very slow because my fingers don’t want to work (manual dexterity is not my strong point) – but there’s a bunch of it. So I’d best get back to it as soon as I get my coffee. Holding the Good Thought and sending Making Things Better Energy out and about to everybody. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning meese, 39 with high of 55. I cooked (!!) last night which involved cubed/sliced Spam stir-fried with red and orange bell peppers and chili/spices. I was originally going to make some rice and add it in but was too tired so ate some of it with three slices of bread and some Kerrygold butter. Mmmmm.
Now I have leftovers for tonight! Cooking is tiring.
{{{basket}}} – LOL – so tonight cook the rice and serve the leftovers with it. Cooking can be very tiring – which is why I tend to do mine in batches and then just heat up (or eat cold) the individual meals. {{{HUGS}}}
Good evening Meeses. I know it’s been a awhile. I’ve spent a couple of weeks getting the library ILS (integrated library software) for the migration to the next generation library software (LSP- library services platform). We turned in our profile for the first dry run. We’ll see how well we did when the work group does the dry run (practice migration run). We’re not migrating until January 2020 so if it doesn’t go well we have time to fix our mistakes and our problem records.
The campus had Flex day today. Officially it’s for faculty professional development but the district encourages classified staff to take classes as well. I took a class field trip to an Orange County fault and shows evidence of volcanic activity in Orange County, listened to the keynote speech (which was on campus accreditation which is occurring next week), lunch, a tour of the new Planetarium and watched one of their programs and toured the Marine Sciences aquariums. Took all day but quite pleasant.
Next week are the Accreditation interviews. So far we haven’t heard any complaints from them.
After next week there ought to be a lull in activity at the library. No willing to be money on it however.
Always glad to see you whenever and wherever we see you. Good luck with the migration. And the lull. 😁😁 {{{HUGS}}}