Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: July 28th through Aug. 3rd

July 27, 2019 JanF Community 97

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!
 

 

37 Comments

  1. It was 67 at dawn and 70 now heading for 90 which is a bit warmer than last night’s forecast said. Not sure what the heat index will be. Right now it’s foggy and muggy. With the rain yesterday we only got 7.7 KWHs but the m-t-d is already 524 so while getting up to 562 would be nice, I’m fine with whatever we get. Looks like next month is gonna be a slow start but we’ll worry about that when we get there.

    I knew Kamala Harris would pull out the healthcare issue – it was never her plan itself that was the problem, it was how to put it. She finally pulled that part together. I just hope somebody who’s got some clout with her will find a way to get her to the Native American presidential candidate forum. She’d have the opportunity – which she needs & needs to take advantage of – to make things right with Natives. She’s got some history with them from her AG days she needs to address. Just because it’s the right thing to do. But if she has to have a political reason, they are the “swing voters” in many of the western states. States that could flip Blue with high Native turnout. Bernie was the 1st to accept the invitation. Castro’s accepted the invitation and has already worked with Native leaders, has a Native liaison on staff, and presented a plan tailored to Natives – honoring the treaties, respecting sovereignty, and dealing with the specific issues of Native poverty where it differs from anybody else’s poverty. Kamala needs to do as well if she wants those votes and those states.

    I wish I could sleep in the day time. Once the sun comes up, I’m up and that’s it. The cats get me up before sunrise in the darker days of the year but they don’t have to get me up in the summer. Not that I’m anywhere near other folks’ short of sleep (another democrat, Aji…) but I’m tired. Or depressed. Could be that. So much wrong that I can’t do anything about. Perhaps coffee will help. I know it’ll help with the headache. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  2. Good morning, Meesefolk; 70 this morning and going up to 82. With a little luck, I’ll overcome my recent lethargy and spend some time in the yard today. I slept like a rock last night, so I’m thinking that my laziness and doziness of the past few days has been more related to the heat than anything. There are about 10 days a year when I wish we had air conditioning, and we had 2 of them over the weekend.

    I doubt I’ll watch the debate tonight. I think I’ll try to find a liveblog or livetweets of it instead. A part of me feels bad about my lack of “engagement,” but the fact is, if their last name isn’t Harris or Castro, I’m not all that interested. If someone else becomes the nominee, I can look up their policies for the sake of persuasion, but during the primaries, I don’t typically play the persuasion game. I like to know enough to correct misinformation or errors, but beyond that, I (perhaps foolishly) count on my fellow Dems to do their due diligence.

    Good day to and for all!

  3. Good morning, 62 and partly sunny in Bellingham. tRump angst in the night, new house/lost view blues this morning. Garden therapy needed asap! I’ve got a hair cut appointment this morning, and ivy to prune this afternoon.

    I’m also reading the newest book in the Maisie Dobbs series, The American Agent. Some series get old after a few books, but the combination of interesting character growth and the events of WW 1&2 keeps my attention.

    Time for a shower and some coffee. Best wishes to all on this sunny/cloudy July day.

  4. Hi Jan….here’s the photo I was trying to post yesterday. This is the seating area outside the back door, close by my veggie garden. Thanks to the deer fence my beans are growing, but the rabbits are still eating their fill. Thankfully we get the taller stuff.

    IMG_3604

  5. Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …

    It is 55 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 77. Sunny skies are in the forecast. Depending on when the 77 occurs – and how long it holds – I may be able to spend another day without air conditioning. Fingers crossed!

    I did not watch the debate but I do have a couple of articles up about it. When I opened Twitter last night, I saw a lot of clips of screaming bernie and shut it down. I won’t watch CNN – they are Fox Lite and hire deplorable people. From what I understand they made my point by channeling Republicans and at one time even called undocumented immigrants “illegals”. JHC! If that is true, I hope someone on our side called them out – they should have all left the stage.

    It sounds like tRump will be backing down from his Iran sanctions and his China trade demands. He is finding out that running a criminal family business is not the same as running a country and managing our place in the international community. Thank goodness our allies are able to pick up the slack until we can get smart people back in charge of our foreign policy.

    Busy day! I need to get my August project plan in place and tie off the loose ends of July.

    See all y’all later!

  6. Good Woden’s Day, Moosekind! At 7:15 a.m. we have overcast skies with scattered thunderstorms predicted for the day in Ashburn. Currently it’s 70 F., going up to 87 F.

    It is amazing to contrast the headlines on Orange and Huffpo with those in the WaPo. We were too tired to watch the White People Debate last night, but apparently the takeaways were Elizabeth’s absolute decimation of John Delaney, and Mayor Pete’s trenchant point that the Dems will be criticized whatever they do, so why not go for the big prize? Yet the WaPo headline states that “Moderates Push Back.” Bla bla bla. CNN was its usual execrable self, I understand. Jan, I would never pay any attention to CNN at all except that Dearly Beloved watches it continually.

    Anyway, I’m looking forward to tonight’s debate. Hope I can stay awake for the whole thing, considering I’ve been up since 4:30. Got lots to do today, including posting a Lammas story to my website.

    We had a good time last night at the birthday dinner. Cooking corn and burgers on the barbecue grill is one of the things we miss the most about living in the Home for the Aged. Elder Son is a world-class sweetie for inviting his old parents for dinner. The dog-sitter must have been successful because even though we arrived back here an hour after she’d left, Monty hadn’t destroyed anything.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!

    • Since I control the remote in my house, I can veto CNN! :) The CNN of the Iran Hostage Crisis and the First Gulf War and Breaking News has given way to Republican enablers and literal piles of garbage like Birther Cuomo and the terrible people who worked for the Trump administration. CNN helped elect tRump by showing his campaign rallies in real time, unfiltered and unfactchecked. They are intent on doing it again because chaos brings eyeballs and a stable democracy is bad for their bottom line. I despise them all.

  7. Well, I had the TV on the debate last night, but there was so much yelling, I had most of it muted. Anyway, looking forward to tonight. I didn’t make it to the gym yesterday, but I did buy a pair of pants for $7. There’s a class at the gym that I’ve been meaning to check out, but that won’t be tonight because it ends at 6:45, meaning I’d just barely get home in time to watch. So, today will just be 30 minutes on the elliptical or treadmill or something. Anyway, here’s Wild Horses

    What are you holding back
    I know you’ve wild horses enough inside of you

  8. At dawn it was 66 but it’s already 70 and heading for lower 90s. Global weirding – in the old normal the last week of July topped out over 100 and the heatwave broke with Lammas. The new normal is “you’ll find out when it happens” – sigh. Must be very frustrating to meteorologists to have spent all those years in school learning weather patterns just to have them go sideways with climate change. But it’s sunny – at least at the moment – and the combination of not-hot-enough-to-require-the-A/C and lots of electricity generation is one I like. Yesterday we 21.75 KWHs bringing 2019’s July into 2nd place for generation and has the possibility of taking first if we get enough sunlight today. So I’ll call that a W00T!!!

    I didn’t watch the debates but was online so caught a few of the comments. Best I can tell the format was designed to not resolve anything. Nobody had time to present their plans or defend them or discuss differences with other people’s plans. With their success in 2016 the MSM owners have apparently decreed 2020 will be a popularity contest. Not that it isn’t anyway to a certain extent but this is pure “based on how many likes you can get” – hopefully this round will thin the pack and the next round will have time for substance. Still have tonight to get through first though. sigh. Although I expect it will be more interesting at least. I truly hope Kamala does the Native forum – & makes things right with Natives as a whole (or as best that can happen anyway). She’s got such wonderful plans – & I think most of them would also benefit Native populations as well as Black and other minorities – that not supporting her feels like betrayal of some people I love and want to support. But she’s got some serious issues about damage she did to Natives in CA when she was AG – so supporting her feels like betrayal of other people I love and want to support. So now the whole thing just makes me sick at my stomach and want to cry. Not a great way to go into an election – even a primary. sigh.

    So. I’ve two playing kitties, two watching the world from different windows, and one sleeping. Thank heavens they’re cats and not kids. Momma dealt with 5 of us. Or sort of anyway. By the time my younger sisters (twins) were as physically and emotionally as mature as the kitten twins are, both I and my next sister down were married and had a baby each. And when my sister-twins were little my next sister down and stuck-in-the-middle brother were at about the emotional maturity level as the kitten-twins currently are and I was old enough to help. Ah, the difference of species – and circumstances. Welp, time to get my morning started. Definitely water then coffee. Close up the house to preserve the coolth. Probably a walk before it gets too warm. Then we shall see what we shall see. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  9. Apologies Meese – Wednesday in the Catskills, thunderstorms on the way, and I got up early to knock out my Sunday piece – and forgot to come over here – distracted by some comments about last night – which I didn’t watch – but followed on twitter.

    The best shade was dropped by The Root –
    see their entire tweet blog

    I’m biased:

    • Not that I have a basis for comparison regarding “best shade” but it’s definitely funny as hell – even for me & I haven’t got a clue who some of those people are. :)

  10. Good morning, Meesefolk; 63 w hen I got up and expecting a high of 77 today. Perfect weather, and of course, I’m at work. Ah well, I outsmarted Mother Nature…it’s supposed to be hot and yucky on Saturday, but I work then too, so there. (I was never good at the whole “outsmarting” thing.)

    Add me to those who did not watch the debate. Instead, I finally got around to watching the PBS documentary, Chasing the Moon. Apparently it’s a three-part show, and I have no idea which part I watched; I need to figure that out and catch the rest. It’s funny how different my memories of the moon landing are from The Hubby’s. He was home and glued to the tv for most of the day; he remembers every blessed detail. I was at Girl Scout camp, and we only got a quick announcement when the lunar module landed. In the evening, when the moon walk happened (I had to check…the walk happened 6 hours after the landing), the camp powers-that-be brought in a television, and we all sat on our sit-upons in the dining hall and watched from there. I mostly remember being hot, uncomfortable, and straining to see the portable television the leaders had placed on piles of boxes on top of a table. I seem to have the most un-Forest-Gump-like luck when it comes to iconic moments. When Nixon resigned, I was in the middle of a wilderness trip in the Boundary Waters. Some people came by in a canoe and asked if we had heard the news about Nixon resigning the week before; it took awhile before we believed them.

    I can’t continue to ignore the piles of work on my desk; good day to and for all!

  11. Good morning, 65 and cloudy in Bellingham. The hammering from the construction across the street started early this morning, and what we were told would be a simple 2 story house now has a third floor. Fortunately we didn’t orient our garden to our former view of the water :( Oh well, the view is gone, our neighbor lied to us, and life goes on. Makes me even more grateful for our quiet secluded garden.

    I watched some of the debates last night, but it all seemed irrelevant….too many sound bites and little content. And what is a new age guru of sorts doing on the stage anyway?

    Marianne Williamson had a big night in the Democratic debate. Here are 7 things to know about her.

    But in spite of the attention she has gotten at the debates, Williamson has barely cracked 1 percent in most polls, though she still has until Aug. 28 to turn things around. She has not said whether she will quit the race if she fails to qualify for the debates or if she would consider a third-party bid.

    Best wishes to all.

    • If braggarts on Twitter are to be believed, Williamson is being propped up by Republicans who think it’s great fun to ratfk our primaries. I tend to believe it, because the alternative is believing that there are a sufficient number of Democrats who are contributing funds to her “campaign.”

      And for the record, I don’t like your neighbor.

      • I suspect that there is more than one candidate propped up by Republicans to sow chaos in our primaries – and to make us look unserious. I doubt that Williamson has the money or the smarts to run a third party campaign so her goal is notoriety which she has achieved. She will be able to command more money for her speaking engagements and will sell more books or whatever her media product is. We need to clear the field of non-politicians because you need to understand how government works in order to run it. I don’t know what the next cut-off is but I hope it is 5% – we should have one debate and everyone else needs to go home.

    • This: “makes me even more grateful for our quiet secluded garden.” A reminder that we can often make our own peaceful places and “views” that can’t be disturbed. I hope it brings you comfort. As someone who has seethed more than once over the bad behaviour of neighbors ruining my views, in retrospect my being upset harmed only me. p.s. I don’t like your neighbor either.

    • {{{princesspat}}} I don’t like your neighbor at all. It’s a very good thing you have your secluded garden. As to the woo-woo person, her distortions of the various positive-thinking faiths & traditions have made her a lot of money – and killed some people she told that they created their own health issues and taking medications is proof that their faith isn’t strong enough. She of course will sell more books/lectures/etc – and harm more people – from helping to eff up our primary. sigh. But for all her twisted hype there is good and healing energy in this world – and a channel of it runs through your garden where it calms the mind and soothes the spirit (and allows your various medications to work better). More {{{HUGS}}}

  12. Good morning, meeses! Thursday …

    It is 55 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 79. Sunny skies are in the forecast. Yesterday I was able to avoid turning the air conditioning on until around lunchtime – I am hoping for at least that long today. Outside lower 70s air feels great.

    I did not watch the debate but I followed it on Twitter until David “I hate wimmins” Axelrod weighed in that Barack Obama would want to have Joe Biden as our nominee. I am pretty sure that Obama has not endorsed anyone and for his friends to suggest otherwise is disrespectful to him and to the other candidates. Someone on Twitter pointed out that Barack Obama did not choose Biden as VP because he admired his politics, he chose him to soothe the white guys who were worried about a black president. Bingo! Anyway, the format – and being on haters of democracy CNN – does not lend itself to actual discourse. I will scan a few headlines but not go too in-depth.

    It is time to begin August as I always do, wishing Dee Happy Birthday and everyone Happy Lammas!

    See all y’all later!

  13. Thanks Jan. I’m 72 today! (and feeling it in this lousy weather)
    66 with fog going up to 87 – we had massive thunderstorms and local flooding last night.

  14. Puerto Rico

  15. After Gabbard’s nasty performance last night – my response:

    Also linked to DKos endorsement

  16. It is so, so hot. 80 degrees at 6am, highs around 100, plus humidity…. The weather guy was very excited about a 20% chance of rain this weekend, because the high pressure dome would be moving. The debate last night….. Again, too much shouting. But Castro did good, and Yang surprisingly is getting more attention. I hope whichever woman gets the nomination puts both of them in her cabinet.

    • Happy birthday, Dee, our cherished, Lammas-born Sister! Hope you’ll have a nicer day for your birthday.

      It’s my daughter’s birthday too. I tease her about having “Witch” genes, especially since her husband’s birthday is November 1!

  17. Good Thor’s Day morning, Moosekind! Sister Dee is coping with thunderstorms in New York State, but here it’s as clear as can be. Last night it looked so ugly outside we expected rain at any minute, so covered the loveseat on the porch and dragged in the chair cushions, but nothing happened.

    Currently it’s 72 F. degrees in Ashburn, on its way up to 88 F. If rain is coming, I’ll believe it when I see it. The sprinklers come on regularly around here to keep the grass green and juicy.

    It’s Lammas today, and that means bread and berries, so I made Blueberry Bran Muffins and very tasty they were, too. As we are provided with abysmally small freezers here, I’ll give some of the muffins to the neighbors.

    Was so repelled by the stupid “debate” format last night I just couldn’t watch it. CNN is the pits. I’ll stop watching altogether if the candidates continue to multiply.

    We’re taking our little grandson home for the weekend after dinner. However, he’ll be back again Sunday night.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.

  18. Happy Lammas to all and Happy Birthday to Dee! Definitely the latter is a gift to be cherished from the former. 💕🎂🎁🎵🌞

    Overcast and drizzling right now in Fay, AR – PV system is on but just barely. A very slow start to a month with a desired but not expected target of over 500 (highest for August was 2015 with 533 KWHs – but that was the only over 500 August). We closed out July very well though – at 562.5 that’s the highest July production for this system ever. That’s higher than 3 out 5 June totals so definitely a W00T!!! there. Give thanks for the blessings. High today predicted upper 80s but the rain – mornings for the next couple of days – is bringing cooler highs (upper 70s) with it. Climate weirding.

    No, I didn’t watch the debates last night. But I was on Twitter for longer than I meant to be. Castro is doing really good stuff and I like him – the “but” is I wish people would quit saying he’s the “only” about things he’s not. No he’s not the only one who said we don’t want to go back – Kamala said “We’re not going back” at the end of a litany of what “they” want to take us back to. No he’s not the only one with a good immigration policy or a good criminal justice reform policy. Kamala has both. And as with the Black women healthcare crisis, she starts at the beginning – with implicit bias training added to other educational parts of training law enforcement as well as the medical industry, knowing that the same old training is going to give us the same old result no matter how much we try to police the police. He’s got his own version of medical, housing, education, etc plans. They are good plans, very good plans. But he’s not the only by any stretch. What Castro has that he really is the first and only is Native issues – he’s rock solid on them. His multi-part plan developed specifically to deal with repairing as much as possible the evils our society has done them is excellent and I hope is adopted as part of the Dem platform whoever ends up with the nomination. He’s also while not the only the most consistent voice for Puerto Rico. And of course he’s the only Mexican-American in the field. His work at HUD is an only, too. Those are very strong reasons to favor him. But saying “he’s the only…” for things he’s not won’t convince folks who know better, it’ll piss them off. And giving him the “Obama treatment” in the primaries and campaign may put him in the White House – but it will insure once he’s there he gets that version of the “Obama Treatment” which isn’t right or fair to him any more than it was for President Obama. Harris and Castro are my picks – at this point I’m not interested in anybody else. Harris/Castro has been my “dream ticket” from the beginning. We shall see what we shall see. Real primaries – voting primaries – are still 6 months out.

    So. A cloudy day. Mostly sleeping cats. Wish I could too. Worried about some folks. If we had real healthcare – yes, universal and comprehensive but also care – none of the folks I’m worried about would be in trouble. And a bunch that I mourn wouldn’t be dead. I understand the M4A people (the one thing bernie’s accomplished is to make sure all universal healthcare plans have to be called M4A – even though Medicare isn’t anything like what they keep saying it is – or people won’t believe it’s universal) wanting it right now! but that isn’t possible. It is no more logistically possible to get universal comprehensive healthcare right now than it was possible to mount the Normandy landing in 1941. :::wave wand – poof!::: is not how it works. So we keep trying to get the job done while fending off the hamstringers from the left. And I need coffee. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  19. Good morning, 67 and partly sunny in Bellingham. Listening to Lisa Thiel sing “give thanks” and reading all your kind thoughts re my garden is helping me come to terms with our lost view. I know it was never “our view” but after so many years of seeing the water move and change it’s an adjustment to now see an over sized house. The hammering is less annoying this morning so I’m making progress :)

    Yesterday was a busy day of housekeeping, and for some reason I was head ache inducing hot all day so I’m enjoying the quiet cool breeze this morning. Best wishes to all.

  20. Good afternoon, Meesefolk; 52! when I got up this morning with a sunny high of 81 today. It’s days like this that make me think that summer is kinda, sorta ok. :D

    I didn’t end up watching the debates last night, although I thought I might. I decided that the chances of me yelling at the tv were pretty high, and I wanted to have less blood pressure events and more calm in my evening. I’m still dealing with some post-audit changes at work which already have me stressed to the max, so going home and engaging in more stress-inducing activities seemed unwise. Instead I read a few of G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown stories. I always feel a bit of guilt that my privilege allows me these kinds of breaks, but until I learn to deal with stress without running away from it, it’s the best I can do.

    And now back to work; the next few days are going to be busy on top of the stress, so I may not be around again until Monday. Good day to and for all!

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