Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Feb. 24th through March 2nd

February 23, 2019 JanF Community 119

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?

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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!
 

47 Comments

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

    Morning low of 32 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 34. Snow is in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. Sunday Meese

    39 going up to 46 here in NYS with a “high wind warning” – * Winds…West 20 to 40 mph with gusts up to 60 mph.

    I am getting more and more aggravated by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

    This:

    There were lots of responses – this was mine

    More

    Puerto Rico:

    WCK

    • I was waiting for the dust-up over the “visit” to Senator Feinstein’s office to age a bit so that I could find a balanced article with actual facts. A USA-Today article helped sort it out. First, the most screaming about the incident was from a former staffer of Sanders and Glenn Greenwald’s screed, The Intercept. That was pretty much all one needed to know but then Bill McKibbon, who is a good advocate for the planet but has terrible political instincts (choosing to “both sides” instead of picking a side in our two-party system of government and electing Democrats), weighed in as well. I was glad to see that Senator Feinstein, when pressed by the hair-on-fire brigade, did not apologize for making her points but re-iterated her plan to offer actual legislation in the Senate.

      Purity kills and purity from the berners who voted for Jill Stein or stayed home has put our planet at risk. We don’t have time for any more do-overs: the purity from the Naderites in 2000 which “elected” George W. Bush instead of Al Gore lost us a decade and the purity from the berners in 2016 will set us back at least another decade, if not more because the Trump Administration has put deregulation of pollution controls on a fast track. There are no cheap seats on Planet Earth but there are plenty of sound-bite politicians who want to throw out the baby with the bathwater and start all over again. We. Don’t. Have. Time.

  3. Slept in, watching the news. Waiting for Joy Reid’s interview of Kamala Harris. Today is church & cooking.

  4. 38 with high of 42 in Bellevue, WA and rain in the forecast. Fortunately today will be mostly indoors so I don’t have to worry as much. Need to get breakfast and get started.

  5. Good morning, Moosekind! Feeling a bit better now I’ve had breakfast, but I was unable to sleep from 3 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. Unfortunately, I can’t crash this afternoon because I have a child-minding job down the road from 3 to 7 p.m. A couple of the women here at Ashby were incredulous that I offered to babysit, but hey, I need the money. Life here is expensive as hail and will not become magically cheaper.

    Grey, cold, and rainy again today. Currently the temperature in Ashburn is 36 F., going up to 61 F. Got lots to do as usual, not sure I’ll feel up to doing it. No, I am not going to watch the blithering Academy Awards tonight. Reason 1: it goes on far too long. Reason 2: I don’t know what they’re talking about, as I don’t go to current movies. I do hope that a documentary I heard about wins the prize. It involves removing the “stigma” of menstruation from Indian villages. Huh? Menstruation is a natural occurrence without which the human race would end, not a naughty pastime deserving of opprobrium. I sweartagoddess, patriarchy has got to go!

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.

    • I had my alarm set because I had some early morning projects to get done but when the alarm went off, I immediately regretted that I had also set my coffee pot to start and now had a full pot of coffee that would be wasted if I did not drag myself out of bed. I did not want to get up but did and am somewhat pleased to have gotten those projects done.

      This regarding the Oscars: “I don’t know what they’re talking about, as I don’t go to current movies.” Current culture has passed me by: I know none of the music, none of the movies (except the kids movies which my daughter and I still enjoy), none of the TV shows. Having the Oscars fill Twitter will give me a good reason to shut that down and catch up on my reading.

  6. Well my computer decided to go down – just momentarily, just a flash – as I was in the middle of writing my comment. Which seriously pisses me off. (It wasn’t Moose, it was Edge.) Let’s see if I can get my good mood back – and remember what I wrote. sigh. Sun came out yesterday around lunch time, totally unexpectedly, and – thanks to being several weeks beyond Imbolc – we got 13 KWHs in the half day! The m-t-d is 175 including the 1.85 KWHs we’ve already generated on this blessedly sunny day. Sunny days definitely help my moods. 😁 Not warm enough to not need a fire – but I spent yesterday’s sunny afternoon schlepping the wet firewood from one of the outside racks onto the porch to dry.

    I’m not even going to try to reconstruct my rant against berners and their surrogates like AOC. Suffice it to say we’ve got to respond to them so the “did not vote” and the kids coming of age get facts to counter their mythology but they’re a pain in the rear and we’ll never reach them. But as long as we do get those hopefully former non-voters and the kids we will win. Then we can pass actual legislation and regulations to make progress towards those goals the berners keep spewing about. Of course berners are so effing entitled it’s no skin off their nose that berning it down and starting over even if we could do it would kill off a whole lot of people, mostly poor, mostly minority. But then berners are as racist as trumpsters in their dismissal of minorities and poor people.

    I’ve done most of my Sunday chores and need to get the muffins (lemon almond butter) out of the oven. And coffee. Definitely need coffee. I’ll check Dee’s FP after I get some. Holding the Good Thoughts and sending Healing Energy to everybody everywhere to your shaping – whatever the need. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  7. Good morning, 36 and cloudy in Bellingham. We’re meeting our daughter and grandson at a halfway point for lunch today, and then we’ll see How To Tame Your Dragon:The Hidden World. Ryan loved reading the books when he was a little guy and we’ve enjoyed the other movies together so we’ll see this one together too. Hard to believe he’ll soon be 18 yrs old.

    Best wishes to all.

  8. Ok. I made lunch for probably 3 weeks: got 2 packages of diced veggies on 50% discount (I think I’m in love with “riced” broccoli), bought “southwest mix” frozen veggies & chopped spinach; mixed them with seasoned corn, mashed avocado, black beans & diced tomatoes with chiles. And made tea for the week. So now I’m sitting down.

  9. Good morning, meeses! Monday …

    It is 1 degree in Madison (feels like 13 below) with an expected daytime high of 9. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast. The house was popping like crazy this morning when the subzero temperatures hit. Tomorrow we are expecting snow again but the rest of the week will just be occasional flurries. I feel that making it through February will be huge – I can see March!

    Not much going on in my news feeds – Trump and Pence will be flying around pretending that the United States is still relevant in the international order. It must be particularly galling to Republicans that their “military might” is embodied in a shortdick-waving orange-faced simpleton and that his idea of Making America Great is tongue baths for dictators. Or maybe not – John Cornyn, endangered Republican Senator, was give big wet kisses to Mussolini over the weekend!

    Busy week as end of month project deadlines loom. I need to at least try to make a dent in things promised by the end of February.

    See all y’all later!

  10. Monday Meese

    34 degrees here in Saugerties NY – high wind warning and light snow.

    Am really pissed off about being told that we should all make nice with B. Sanders…now that he has made a ‘statement’ – meanwhile the ratfu*cking by Bros goes on unabated online.

    I’m not playing the game. Will continue with “vetting Bernie”
    Now that Carmen Cruz has joined his campaign I have questions:

    • One day this past week, I wondered how the heck a bunch of Bernie Sanders tweets ended up in my timeline. Then I noticed that Mayor Cruz was retweeting them there! I quickly muted her – what a way to wreck your brand, joining Nina Turner and the other #NeverHillarys who ratfked the 2016 election and gave us Trump. How did that work out for her and the people she claims to care about?

      • Few people here are talking about what is really going on with Carmen – She was booted out of the leadership of her own party – the Populares, and has been castigated daily for not doing her job as Mayor – she is rarely in San Juan…has been in the States a lot – too much for her constituents. Consequently – her dreams of running for Gov have evaporated and she is going to be primaried in the next Mayoral election – if she runs. For months now – have been trying to figure out what her next move would be – had an idea that it would be a jump to the mainland. Here she is still viewed as the ‘Heroine of Puerto Rico’, and while folks on the island admired her spunk going after Trump, and wading in the water during Maria…her support at this point in time, many months later is at an all time low. San Juan is a mess (not the tourist area) Since I sometimes read the papers there – and Bobby updates me daily on PR news (radio, tv and print) – I have a different view of her these days. I doubt Sanders has a clue about how PRs feel about her. She will lose votes for Democrats in places like Florida since she is a very vocal Maduro supporter.

        • Yikes! I cannot imagine anyone embracing Maduro but Bernie Sanders is not very smart about a lot of things, foreign policy being a big one. His singular focus on Wall Street billionaires has blinded him to the dozens of other things that a president must be able to manage.

          • What makes things more problematic – she’s being hit by her own party, continued bashing from r-wing PRs (nothing new) but also very vocal attacks against her from the far left (the independence party members)

            A simple twitter search “Carmen Yulin Cruz Maduro” will illustrate what I mean – though most of it is on Spanish – which is why English only folks have no idea what is going on with her.

            Bernie’s people put up a Spanish lang website – with the wrong words in Spanish – so you know he is clueless.

  11. Spring has sprung here. Highs this week from 60s-80s, mornings are still cool but still, it’s nice. The mountain cedars are blooming which is bad for allergies but they smell wonderful — I call it the smell of purple. Reading the tweets from the meeting where the Methodist Church may be tearing itself apart. I hope the “simple plan” wins — it isn’t good enough, but it’s the best we can get. (doesn’t require full inclusion of GLBTQ people, but lets us who do, stay in). I posted Empress to FB yesterday, because it’s hopeful & about inclusion:

    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

  12. Good Moon Day morning, Moosekind! Howling winds here on this cold, clear day are bending the trees in the woods. I’m betting there will be power outages in the area. Currently the temperature in Ashburn is 38 F., going up to 45 F. It’ll be a good day to stay mostly inside.

    Just finished reading a marvelous article about how raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour greatly improves people’s lives. Here’s the link:

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/21/magazine/minimum-wage-saving-lives.html

    Had a child-minding gig yesterday for three hours with three delightful little girls. Sat them in a circle, passed the eldest a talking stick, and asked them to tell me their names, ages, and all about themselves in turn. They seemed to enjoy it. Then we played games.

    Just found out that Daylight Wretched Saving begins on March 10, in time to ruin my birthday. We must sleep as much as we can before then. WHY don’t they get rid of this perfectly useless World War-originated anachronism? I don’t know a single person who likes it except my friend, who teaches evening classes at the local community college in California.

    Lots to do today, so I’d better hustle. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!

    • March 10th?!!? That seems way too soon for Daylight Saving Time to return – the light is barely starting to come back in the mornings. We must ask all of our 2020 candidates how they feel about DST and make them commit to ending it. A lot of people want it to end as DST but I want it to end as Standard Time – as the goddess intended it!!

  13. Good morning, 33 and sunny in Bellingham. We enjoyed our lunch and movie with Lisa and Ryan yesterday, but I’m tired this morning so I hope to have an easy day. Working in the garden would be best for my mental health, but being in my sewing room is best for my energy level. Choices!

    Time for coffee, and my sleepy best wishes to all.

  14. OK – chillier than yesterday but I’m at work so kinda so what. It’s sunny again – a little hazy and there are some clouds in the sky but it’ll do. Yesterday was the first clear, cloudless, sunny day we’ve had in months. We generated 15.6 KWHs and the m-t-d is 190 including the 1.75 we’ve generated this morning already. Unless clouds move in later this afternoon we’ll clear 200 today and just keep banking for the last 3 days of February. The forecast has changed to partly cloudy from overcast & wintry mix so while I’m not saying February is going out like a lamb it’s being a lot more sheepish than leonine. 😁👍🌞👍😁

    Haven’t a clue on Oscars. I haven’t watched a movie in the theater since Star Wars/Jar-Jar Binks Episode One – and the only one I’ve seen on DVD/at “home” was the first Harry Potter and that was because I was visiting my younger son and he insisted. My TL is still mostly fighting off the lies of the berners both bros and bots – & the idjits who think they can benefit themselves by hitching their wagons to the berner star. That and the latest twitler & the Deplorables outrage. (Well, and Aji reporting one more expensive healthcare fuckup – & saying to leave her alone right now. Goddess I wish Karma worked faster! Aji’s a good person who’s spent/is spending her life helping people as best she can in her circumstances and is rewarded by the System in general and a few people in particular trying to kill her. Evil can’t stand Good, that’s a given. But it sure would be nice if the Law of Return would do some Good back her way in protection and dealing with the so very scary severe health issues.)

    Anyway I’m at work and need to get my coffee then get back to it. Sending Healing/Making Things Better Energy out to everybody for their shaping. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  15. Good morning meese, it’s 30 with a high of 42 in Bellevue, WA. It’s the last day of my holiday and I fly back to Sacramento this afternoon. Time to start packing and doing some last minute visiting of places I would like to go.

  16. Good morning, Meesefolk; 18 when I got up with a high of 21; typical weather, but after the 40s of Friday and Saturday, all I can say is, “Brrr…”

    I’m pretty much a wreck, watching my church’s General Conference unfold. I’ve been weepy all weekend, and I fear it’s only going to get worse. United Methodist polity is complex and very few people actually understand it (compare it to understanding the arcane rules of the House and Senate), but the gist is this: the Traditionalist Plan, which is being discussed right now, has several elements that were already deemed unconstitutional (i.e. in direct contradiction to the Book of Discipline [BOD]) by the Judicial Council (yeah, we have one of those), so it can’t proceed without amendment. The TP supporters just provided 30 pages of amendments for a 10-page plan, and the conference voted 60% to 40% against delaying consideration of the TP. So it’s quite possible that my church is going to be torn apart on the basis of a “law” that no one has read or fully digested. The discussion of the One Church Plan, which is a[n imperfect] compromise plan that would avoid schism while allowing for same-sex marriages and ordination of out-gay pastors as an option for churches and conferences, may not even happen at this rate; GC ends tomorrow at 6:30pm, period. What we’re seeing is the potential transformation of a church on the basis of American Christian nationalism in alliance with the far more conservative African churches (which are more conservative, in part, because of the colonialist outreach perpetrated by the church to begin with). I’m beyond heartsick at this point; watching this unfold is like watching Election Night 2016. And I’m watching this as a white ciswoman; I can’t even imagine how my LGBTQ siblings in the church are feeling right now. In some ways, I thinks schism would be the best route, but it’s so incredibly tangled up with money and property and even the emotional right to claim the name “Methodist”, that I can’t even envision how it would work. But at this point, it seems inevitable. It is for me, at least. Last night, I took off the necklace I have worn almost constantly since I was 16; it’s the Methodist cross and flame on one side, and says, “I am a United Methodist” on the other. If the Traditionalist Plan passes, I will be mailing it to my church with a letter requesting my name be removed from the membership rolls of the church.

    • Oh, I’m so sorry, DoReMI! What a wrench this must be for you, not to mention a severe disappointment that the church has let you down. Losing something that has been such a large part of your life will feel like a hole in your heart.

      Perhaps you can find solace through music, or meditation, or even something physical like yoga. Wishing you peace and healing. Blessed be.

    • This made me so sad to hear!

      Last night, I took off the necklace I have worn almost constantly since I was 16; it’s the Methodist cross and flame on one side, and says, “I am a United Methodist” on the other. If the Traditionalist Plan passes, I will be mailing it to my church with a letter requesting my name be removed from the membership rolls of the church.

      I hope that there is a resolution and, if not, that you rethink sending away a cherished heirloom. Instead, consider keeping it and using its power – the power you put into it for all those years – to envision a time when the church realizes that their path is wrong. It is not shocking to me, by the way, that those unwilling to change are working from the colonialist mindset. So much damage was done by missionaries of all churches whipping their rules on people who were perfectly content with their goddess religions.

      I was raised Catholic (and went to church schools until halfway through my junior year in high school) but when I stopped considering myself a Catholic (or a christian), it did not cause me any pain – it was just a label that had been placed on me due to the circumstances of my birth. It was easy for me to reject it because of the terrible history of the church and its systemic misogyny. But I know Catholic women who find comfort in their religion and realize that spirituality is something very personal.

      • What hurts is that the United Methodist church has been forward-thinking. Early to have women pastors, and at least in Austin, among the 1st churches to desegregate. Our joining liturgy has us promise to: resist evil, injustice & oppression wherever they may present themselves. And the congregation promises – promises – to surround members with a community of love & forgiveness. And here we are, oppressing people and telling our members that they are not loved.

        • Isn’t Hillary Clinton a Methodist? I think I remember her speaking about her deep faith and how the Methodists nurtured it. How sad! It will be difficult for people who support inclusiveness to reconcile that with their faith.

          • Yes, she is – and it was her youth group that took her into the inner city for volunteer work, and I think to hear some impressive civil rights leaders.

  17. Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …

    It is 7 degrees in Madison (feels like -8) with an expected daytime high of 16. The snow starts this afternoon and is expected to accumulate 2-4 inches. Have I mentioned lately how sick I am of winter weather? A flock of robins arrived a few days ago and there is not a lot for them to eat – a few leftover berries on the trees but hardly enough sustenance to maintain body heat for below 0 temperatures. :(

    Elections matter: Gov. Tony Evers has recalled the National Guard troops that Scott Walker sent to the southern border to fluff up his president. Either the Republican legislature forgot about blocking the governor’s powers to deploy National Guard assets during the lame duck session or the power is part of the constitution and they couldn’t bring themselves to go that far to destroy the rule of law.

    I am going to set my 2020 on “simmer” for a while and avoid the day-to-day. It is very horserace and petty at this point and the will-he-run stuff is getting on my last nerve. Bill deBlasio? REALLY??!?

    Today the House votes on the Resolution to reject Trump’s border emergency declaration. There is some blathering about the Senate passing it also, setting up a Trump veto. I can’t see that happening as long as Mitch McConnell is in charge of the Senate – he will not put his president in the position of having to use his first veto to protect an obviously unconstitutional power grab. We shall see!

    See all y’all later!

  18. Tuesday Meese. 23 degrees going up to 28 here in NYS. Wind is making it feel much colder.

    I didn’t bother to watch the BS town hall. Looking at some of the twitter responses from people I follow

    Puerto Rico

  19. Warm & foggy/rainy today & tomorrow, then maybe a cold snap Thursday — the 2 stations I watched differ — and bounce up to 80 on Friday. 80. But then 50s next week. So, yesterday the United Methodist church rejected 2 plans that would have kept the church together, but the “traditional plan” has components that have already been ruled out, so I don’t know what’s going to happen. I am so sad for my LGBTQ friends in the church, the rejection of this meeting has to hurt awfully. What I don’t get is that both rejected plans would have let the bigots continue in their way, they weren’t required to be welcoming.

    Also, I left my eye doc yesterday without ordering contacts. I have a month’s supply left, time to wrestle with the insurance to get the year’s supply paid for instead of reimbursed. So yesterday just kinda sucked in general. Comfort music: Ordinary Love. (why is is always the 2nd verse for me? that’s weird)

    Birds fly high in the summer sky and rest on the breeze.
    The same wind will take care of you and I, we’ll build our house in the trees.
    Your heart is on my sleeve, did you put it there with a magic marker.
    For years I would believe, that the world, couldn’t wash it away

  20. Good Tuesday morning, Moosekind! We have pale blue skies with white veils of cloud here and there. The current temp. in Ashburn is 31 F., going up to 48 F. Feeling sympathetic to those who are sick of snow. We don’t seem to be in for it this week, but you never know: last year’s first and only measurable snowfall occurred the first day of spring!

    The blueberry bran muffins are in the oven. Have household chores to do before getting on with the other matters. At 11 I’m leaving here to visit Darling Niece. We always enjoy our time together.

    I didn’t watch the Oscars or the town hall last night. Why bother? I watch TV so little I might as well not have one. It’s so boring, except for PBS and Netflix.

    Our bathroom scales apparently have died, which is upsetting. Weighing myself daily is about the only thing I do to keep my weight in check nowadays. Dearly Beloved is going to try to fix it or, if he can’t, to buy a new set.

    Another, hope you can get your insurance company to cough up for your contact lenses. I wish we had good health care coverage in this country! The Manaforts, Epsteins, and others would never miss the amount it would take to pay for a year’s supply of contact lenses.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and beyond.

    • I just have to jump through several hoops to get them to pay up front. I can’t do the reimbursement thing.

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