Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: April 14th through April 20th

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.

 

  • Page One of Comments is HERE!

 

  • Page Two of Comments is HERE!

 

39 Comments

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

    Morning low of 43 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 39. The forecast calls for snow. :(

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. Glad I didn’t pack away my winter clothes, it is cold outside! Ok, 40s wouldn’t be cold to most of y’all, but for Texas in April, it’s just about unheard of. Watching the news, eating breakfast. After church there’s a short meeting for us to approve a statement saying we disagree with what happened at General Conference & all GLBTQ people are welcome. Today’s song: Empress, live last week, in Brazil.

  3. Good morning, Moosekind! We’re running around like chickens, scrambling to get ready to leave. Right now it’s 62 F. in Ashburn under cloudy skies, with thunderstorms predicted late in the evening. With any luck, we’ll get on the 6 p.m. flight, but if we can’t get on, it’ll have to be the late flight.

    Haven’t looked at the news yet. Dearly Beloved went to get new SIM cards put in our phones—wish we had thought of this a week ago! Apparently, with our new provider, it takes days and days. The techs did get his phone working, but mine still can’t send or receive messages. It’s weird, because I get the news and Twitter just fine.

    Probably will not be able to check in from overseas as I’ve yet to have any luck getting the Moose Pond or the Nest on my iPad. So I’ll see you all when we return!

    Wishing everyone at the Pond a good Sunday and a good week.

  4. I got sidetracked from my checkin by Dee’s diary – read & RT’d plus boosted the tweets in it – and am now back. 😁 We’re above freezing (thankfully) but it doesn’t feel like it. Still cloudy. Yesterday we barely got 2 KWHs so losing ground here (as in that’s less than I use in a day). The m-t-d is 204. But the rain seems to have stopped and I can see places in the sky that are trying to be blue so I’m hoping we’ll get some good generation this afternoon. I’m hoping we’ll see some good something today – anything would do.

    I have no idea how Dems will ever wrap their heads around the fact that Rs are evil – at least enough to deal with them from that perspective. They cannot be shamed. They don’t have a “better nature” to appeal to. They are not patriotic as we understand the word. Nor Xtian as that particular word is usually defined. Pointing out that they are hurting someone will get a range of overt responses from “no I’m not” to “so” to “I didn’t intend to hurt anybody” – but inside they’re chortling because they not only hurt somebody directly, they upset other people in so doing. They are wannabe slave-owners with all the nastiness that goes with that. Some of them hide it better than others but anyone who wasn’t actually evil (& yes, being OK with evil is also actually evil) has left that party. The idea of brown bodies piling up – at the border, in Puerto Rico, on the Reservations…- isn’t just OK with them, that’s the plan. The separating of families and selling off the kids, whether to white Xtian saviors, as free labor, or to sex slave rings, is a feature not a bug. So all our plans, tactics, moves must work from that knowledge. Basically while we still can we must win elections. We must win enough elections to take back the power and stop the election fraud, voter suppression, gerrymandering and other techniques that are the only ways they have of getting and keeping power. If not…well, if not we will go down the fascist rabbit hole and will be lucky if enough of the rest of the world can join together to get us out again as the Allies did for Germany in WWII. And it would be the same way the Allies did for Germany in WWII. Not something I wish on anybody.

    With that totally depressing note, I will get some coffee and go back to my Sunday chores. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  5. OK – the sun is out, the system is generating at over 2-KWHs/hour, and I just discovered what Murf is asking for when he’s begging in the kitchen (butter – not a lot, less than 1/8 tsp – but he’s an old butterhound 😁😁😁) – so while the national situation isn’t any better that it was an hour ago, I’m not as depressed. Which means – I hope – I’m more capable of seeing where we can go next and be a part of getting us there. Nothing moving for anybody anywhere that I know of but no more regressions that I know of either and at least the sun is shining. moar {{{HUGS}}}

  6. Good morning, 45 and sunny in Bellingham. RonK is at the gym and I’m anticipating tonight’s GOT fun. Our son’s are having fun planning a “feast” for dinner, I’ve still got a dragon egg vase to fill with flowers, and a blackberry desert to concoct, silly fun!

    I had a nostalgia moment yesterday when looking for something in my upstairs storage closet. It’s a small room under a dormer so it feels like an attic and it’s full of family treasures….worn quilts my great grandmother made, afghans from Ron’s mom and my grandmother, a trunk full of baby memories, etc. So many memories surface when I see the items. Makes me think I should write some notes to tuck away with them as I get things better organized and labeled.

    Best wishes to all as we start a new week.

  7. Monday Meese. We are currently under a tornado watch here in Ulster County NY.

    My older dog hates storms and is trying to hide under my computer chair.

    • Rick Scott claims to be “Puerto Rico’s Senator”? JHC! Someone should give them a vote – my guess is that they would prefer a Senator who isn’t Donald Trump’s lackey.

      I noticed that Mike Pence was visiting Iowa and telling the people there that their flood money is being blocked by Democrats – without mentioning that the holdup is that his boss’ racism, withholding help for Puerto Rico, is what is causing the delay.

      • Yea – tell those people to hate Puerto Ricans and Democrats is the new disaster aid.

  8. Good morning, meeses! Monday …

    It is 25 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 52. Sunny skies are in the forecast. We will see the upper 60s later in the week.

    Bernie Sanders is panicking because he is finally getting the media scrutiny that a candidate should be getting. That someone pointed out that his “millionaires and billionaires” mantra changed to just “billionaires” after he became a millionaire is called “reporting” not a smear job. Pointing out the hypocrisy of professional politicians is what we expect journalists to do. In 2016, the press hated Hillary Clinton so much that they spent the cycle puffing up the utterly uncharismatic finger-jabbing old man with the lackluster legislative resume and record of misogyny and racism. This time around, there is a large field, and other white males to puff up, so they can report more accurately on him. By the way, he did not write a “good book” – he wrote a campaign complaint that appealed to his butthurt supporters and they bought it, probably using their parent’s credit cards. He literally cashed in on a campaign that helped elect Donald Trump and became a millionaire.

    Nancy Pelosi was on 60 Minutes last night and there is a transcript which I put up in a tab to read later. I was glad to see that she issued a statement on the hateful video that Stephen Miller put together for the idiot in the Oval Office to post on his Twitter feed. tRump is clearly playing to his base, getting the 35% to continue to love him – and then convincing the other 11% that he needs to win – that Democrats will kill live-born babies and raise their taxes. Goddess help us if we have a second Trump term. I remember my shock in 2004 that even knowing what a literal pile of crap George W. Bush was, that people chose him over John Kerry.

    See all y’all later!

  9. Beautiful, cool, perfect weather. We had rain over the weekend, but all the severe weather was away from Austin. Looking forward to next weekend. I’ll distract myself from the awful news — and you know Trump &/or his flying monkeys will say/do something awful — by thinking about seeing Snow Patrol on Saturday night, then the amazing church service we always have on Easter. I can’t believe the ticket was only $40; that was my treat from my tax rebate (& saved some out to buy a t-shirt at the show). I know I’ll barely be able to walk Sunday, but it’ll be worth it. Here’s them at a live show last year, a sweet love song: Just Say Yes.

  10. Good morning, Meesefolk; glad to finally be able to get on again. I tried and tried and tried on Friday, but no joy, even after running every anti-virus/malware/fix my bleepin’ computer tool at my disposal. I guess I just had bad timing…no problems this morning from any of my platforms.

    I can’t really say my mood has improved much, but I will continue searching for my misplaced hope. I read something this morning that made a lot of sense to me: it’s difficult to have hope if you’re not doing Love. So clearly my mission is to do more Love…even though that’s not exactly where my heart is at the moment. I’m so bitterly angry at so many of my acquaintances who are jumping on the Pete train without doing due diligence. I thought these were women who had learned something over the past few years and maybe were a bit more aware of the pervasiveness of white supremacy. They were certainly saying the right words and parroting the memes on a regular basis, but apparently their commitment was only skin deep (irony intended). How I’m going to do more Love with these White women is something I haven’t figured out yet.

    Good day to and for all!

    • {{{DoReMI}}} – check how you’re defining “love” – there are so many of them, it’s a very overloaded word. When it comes to “loving” the Deplorables, overt or covert, it comes down to something you owe yourself. Not hating, not ill-wishing, as that corrodes your own heart. You don’t have to like them or have any contact with them. Wishing them rendered harmless to others and working to make them so is fully consistent with loving them – and even more with loving the others (whom you also may or may not like) whom the Deplorables harm when given the chance. Good luck – and good working on it. Your own health is at issue here and if you don’t take care of yourself you will not be able to take care of anyone else. moar {{{HUGS}}}

    • I need to find a way to reply on my phone, so I can show you the resolution my church passed yesterday, with 97% in favor. It’s a great statement, you’d like it.

      • I hope you can figure it out; I’d love to see the statement from your church. Mine is taking the ostrich approach so far. :(

    • Over the weekend, after Diana reported that she was having problems again, I did some tweaking of the changes I had made last week . The managed cache for the site seems to need to be refreshed more frequently and I had changed a setting to make it refresh less frequently for logged in users. That turned out to be a bad idea! Unfortunately this is not a science but a “try this and see what happens” process. I do appreciate people persevering and reporting the issues. I still think the problem is bad cookies but just saying “don’t have bad cookies” is not a solution.

  11. Good morning, 42 and cloudy in Bellingham. After spending yesterday in Westeros having fun with Game of Thrones Monday reality seems very real. No dog in a Lannister t-shirt to distract me. It was fun to cook with our sons and to share GOT trivia.

    The gf Cup 4 Cup flour has made baking enjoyable again. I made a pound cake, served with a blackberry/lemon sauce, whipped cream and topped with fresh blackberries. It looked properly dramatic and was tasty too!

    I’ve got to spend this morning at my desk, then some shopping errands this afternoon. Back to real life with no dragons :)

    Best wishes to all.

  12. Welp, I managed to get in here relatively early (after 8 but otherwise…) then got interrupted. A lot. So here I am on my coffee break – complete with coffee – finally checking in. It’s 56 heading for mid 70s and sunny. Yesterday we got 21.1 KWHs, highest for the month so far, and the m-t-d is 228 including this morning’s production. So very much not bad even if not heading for a “record breaker” month. Murf turns out not to be a “butter hound” after all. He loved it the first time I gave it to him. Was OK the 2nd, and the 3rd he gave me a dirty look (but ate it anyway). He seems to like cheese though. It’s just that the cheese I have right now is pepper jack (he finished off my shredded Italian blend last Friday) and that’s not good for kitties. I’ll see about getting him some mozzarella next time I go shopping. I’m thinking of upping the amount of canned food I’m giving the guys anyway – 1/2 a can split 5 ways, even if it’s mainly to get more liquid into them, is a little skimpy. (I keep reminding myself that cats are not as expensive as kids. LOL)

    Evil Ones still being evil. They always have been. They’re just more overt about it right now. Nothing new under the sun. Prayers/Invocations for those caught in the Deplorables’ web of nastiness & genocide. Moral support where appropriate and accepted. And what money I can scrape up. So I need to get back to work so I can scrap up some more. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  13. Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …

    It is 46 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 64. It is raining now but should end later this morning and then the sun is expected to break through; clouds will linger.

    I got pinged that the Notre-Dame Cathedral was on fire and turned on the TV around 1pm yesterday and watched the coverage for a few hours. It was horrifying to see the damage that fire can cause and the seeming futility at times. Of course, it was another opportunity for the Dumbest Man in the World to weigh in with his “knowledge” of firefighting techniques. After seeing the undamaged parts of the interior, it became very clear why you don’t airdrop tons of water on delicate structures. Sheesh.

    I keep wondering when the press will discover that there are women and people of color running for president and that they have strong policy chops – Elizabeth Warren has thought about every issue in America. Mayo Pete says he wants to win people over with “personal values” before he talks about policy. Maybe that works for Republican voters but Democrats – at least the ones who vote in the primary – want to know how you align with Democratic Party policy priorities. If you won’t talk about policy it is either because you have not thought about it or your ideas are out of the Democratic Party mainstream. Either one is disqualifying.

    Busy day here – I best get to it.

    See all y’all later!

  14. Good Tuesday Meese
    41 here in NYS going up to 52.

    My daffodils are blooming

    • Yay for daffodils! Mine finally started poking out of the ground – they were so late I was sure that the voles had eaten the bulbs while the planting beds had been under snow cover for the past 2 months. They have not blossomed yet but this weeks warm weather should help.

    • Daffodils! Just saying the word makes me happy. Mine are all very late varieties, planned that way because I want them to be the exclamation point after my tulips are fading. We planted 100 or so daffodil bulbs at The Kiddo’s last fall, and they’re blooming…as well as what she estimates are 1000s of others in her wooded backyard. The pictures she sent me are stunning; I’m going down this weekend, so I’ll be able to see them for myself. I’m already thinking about bulbs for the fall; I think she needs to add some Scilla siberica by the 1000s (good think they’re inexpensive!)

    • My daffs have come and gone. So have most of the flowering fruit trees. The redbuds are still out and the dogwoods more or less exploded int blossoms over the weekend to take the place of the tulips who lost their petals over the same timeframe. The azaleas are about to and I’ve got a peony in my front yard with two tight buds on it. Which is surprising as the irises haven’t even sent up flower stalks yet much less buds. Springtime in the Ozarks. {{{HUGS}}}

  15. Well, yesterday was pretty awful. In addition to Notre Dame, the Al-Aqsa Mosque also caught fire, though from what news I can find, there wasn’t near as much damage. This is a really interesting thread, about how the Paris fire department & the people who manage the building had actually planned for such a disaster, over a very long time:

    https://twitter.com/theek/status/1117895531563372544

    Here’s a sweet, comforting song about the truly important things in life, Lifening by Snow Patrol. Here’s the part that gets me, but really all the lyrics are just gorgeous.
    Words of reassurance but only if they’re true
    Just some simple kindness, no vengeance from the gods
    This is all I ever wanted from life, this is all I ever wanted from life
    This is all I ever wanted from life

    • Apparently “fire” and “medieval cathedrals” have a long history. From a WaPo article:

      Perhaps what’s most surprising, though, is that it didn’t burn sooner. Simply put, medieval structures caught fire almost as a matter of course. The majority of Notre Dame’s exterior may be stone, but the roof was wood, as were those of most European structures from the era. In Notre Dame’s case, each beam was carved from a different tree, a feat so spectacular that the interlocking network of beams was nicknamed “the forest.” And wood burns. Medieval churches burned. The cathedral at Canterbury in England caught fire in 1174 when a nearby house fire jumped structures. In Mainz, Germany, the candles used to illuminate the city’s new cathedral accidentally brought the structure to the ground on the very day of its consecration in 1015. The cathedral at Chartres was heavily damaged by fire in 1194 and an inferno allegedly killed about 1,000 people at Vézelay in 1120.

      I have been reading a lot about the cathedral’s structure and history and it is fascinating. I was glad to see that much of the artwork had been saved. I am not a churchgoer but I can respect the incredible architecture and the value of the art and artifacts.

  16. Good morning, Meesefolk; 39 when I got up and allegedly going up to 54. I’m not feeling anything close yet. It’s grey and rainy, so the damp is probably going to claim top billing.

    I caught a bit of Mayo Pete’s interview on Rachel last night, and it reminded me of what I liked about him as mayor and why he’s garnering so much attention. If one is white and hasn’t done the work towards recognizing Whiteness politics, it’s easy to be taken in by his earnest sincerity. He made some observations re Republicans (McConnell in particular) that were spot-on, but then he turned around and started dog whistling about “economic stagnation.” I’m really hoping the SC primary slows him down a bit, because there’s no obvious reason for the “newest shiny thing” voters to turn against him.

    Good day to and for all!

  17. It’s 60 and sunny at the moment in Fay., AR. It’s ‘spozed to go up to the mid 70s again which would be nice as I’ll be able to walk home again. We got 22 KWHs yesterday, highest for the month so far, and the m-t-d is 248 which is definitely nice and on track for over 400, if not a “meet or beat” goal. So that’s good.

    No word for anybody on anything – we’re all just waiting for the boulder to fall and see how much damage it does since there’s no results, responses, or progress on any front. It’s very sad about the Notre Dame Cathedral although not really surprising. Very old and well-tended (which usually/traditionally means oiled or waxed) wood is highly flammable. Most modern equipment operates at temperatures likely to ignite highly flammable substances. The loss of the beauty and majesty is a blow. Aji gave some white folks an “aha!” moment yesterday by pointing out that the willful destruction of Native sacred spaces is equally painful – and unlike buildings usually cannot be repaired. Specifically she named Mount Rushmore – a sacred mountain in treaty lands illegally taken from them for the Dakota Gold Rush, carved by the same racist Deplorable Klansman who did Stone Mountain, and glorifying 4 of the “most virulently anti-Indigenous men to sit in perpetuity over sacred Indigenous land” – which is big and famous enough to actually get the point across. Everything’s connected to everything else – and someday, maybe, our society will not just get the point but act on the point that if it’s wrong when it happens to you, it’s wrong to do it to someone else. Individual or culture.

    I tried splitting a whole 5.5-oz can of cat food between the boys this morning and I think it worked. That was enough to keep the Twins busy at their own bowls long enough for the oldsters to eat what they wanted – before the Twins muscled in and ate the rest. The guys don’t like the kibble I’m trying to transition them to but they’re eating at least enough of it that I’m not worried about them starving. Freddie keeps trying to play with Murf. sigh. Meanwhile lots of students trying to get into closed classes – heaven help everybody when Open Enrollment happens in August – some I can help, some I can’t. (If the Fire Marshal rules says it’s full, it’s full.) I’ll get over to DoReMi’s diary as soon as I can. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

      • thank you! I don’t know why sometimes I copy & paste tweets & they show up, sometimes they don’t.

        • I would be surprised if a simple link would ever expand into an embed – it must be that you were inadvertently selecting the embed code to paste.

          When I do it from my phone, it is a 5 step process; when I do it from my computer it takes 3 steps. Some web sites will “render” the link into an embed, the Moose does not.

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