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!
Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …
Morning low of 28 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 46. Partly cloudy skies are in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Sunday Meese. Raining and 44 here in the NY Catskills.
In case you missed it – Higher Heights Town Hall in SC with Kamala
Thank you. I hadn’t seen it – just a few clips on Twitter – and I always want context. Good, bad, indifferent -gotta have context.
Puerto Rico
Seems to me the MSM hates brown and black people as much as Thing does. They’ll never cover PR, VI, or Vieques.
We need to win the next election or we’re sunk.
Good Sun Day morning, Moosekind! It’s not really sunny yet, but the big, fat, puffy gray clouds are moving off after dumping some much-needed rain on our area. Currently the temperature in Ashburn is 41 F., going up to 51 F. later. It’ll be sunny and windy this afternoon.
Thankful to be able to get to the Pond this morning. When I logged in (the Moose or WordPress constantly kicks me out), Safari whined that it “couldn’t find the server,” so I went over to Orange. Speaking of that site, thanks to everyone who came over to read my Kamala diary of yesterday and recommended it. The fact that it got on the Rec list was a big surprise to me, but a pleasant one.
Yesterday after going to the gym I went to Fairfax to pick up The Littles and take them shopping at Target. Miss Pink Cheeks had exactly two hours between the end of her math class and the beginning of the Chinese school she attends on Saturday afternoons. Next year Mr. Kindergartener will be going with her. Anyway, we managed to buy nice shoes for each of them to wear to the Candy Cane Tea next month, and they enjoyed a kid-type lunch of pizza and something called “Icees.” After I returned home I barely had time for a short rest before going out to dinner with Dearly Beloved and friends. Hoping today will be a quiet day of typing up interview notes and perhaps watching “The Crown” tonight.
Reading the front section of the WaPo has put me into a gloomy mood, they’re always so down on the Democrats and so admiring of Thing’s corruption and ability to ignore the rules.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
Your diary was wonderful Lady D. It deserved the rec list.
Thank you, Sis!
I adore that woman. I feel the same way looking at her as I did looking at Obama’s beautiful face when he was campaigning. I’ll never forget his expression when he came out on the stage that November night in Chicago when the news was announced that he’d won. I could imagine the twin tracks of his thoughts: that he was the first black president in American history, and that that honor carried with it an awesome weight of responsibility.
{{{Diana}}} – I very much enjoyed your diary although of course I can’t participate or say so over at DK. You beautifully laid out all the ways Kamala understands and connects programs for the well being of all Americans.
Thank you, bfitz!
Saw A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood yesterday — it is a lovely movie. Not a bio pic, it’s more about the effect he had on this person. Just, really sweet — in a good way, not treacly. The chili cookoff my Dem club had was nice. Not huge, not embarrassingly small. There were 2 veggie versions, so I got to eat some, too. And I got in a 2 mile walk! So, all in all, yesterday was good. Today: make next week’s tea, church, and get in another walk. Maybe I can get in the habit.
Sunday sermon
Must read this later today, Dee, when I’ve finished my errands in the car.
It’s 38-feels-like-33, heading for 60, and sunny in Fay., AR this Sun-day morning. I might even get a walk in this afternoon (early afternoon before there’s shade on all the sidewalk) – be nice. The rainy days brought down most of the oak tree’s leaves. All of the ones that actually shade the solar panels. Yesterday we got our highest generation day for the month at 8.5 KWHs and the m-t-d is 130.6 – so I’m more hopefully of getting to 150 for the month than I was yesterday morning. heh.
Connect only connect – I don’t know why people keep being surprised at the MSM ignoring BIPOC & strong Dems and pushing Bircher/KKK/Nazi-supporting memes. The John Birch Society was founded in 1958 to MAGAt Amerikkka, to take it back to the glorious days of the 1880s with all their social ills that so enhance the “freedom” of WASP male supremacist oligarchs. They immediately started buying am radio stations and by 1980 had pretty much turned at least 75% MSM into their propaganda machine. It’s close to 100% now between the 90% or so they own and the rest they “influence” under threat of hostile takeover. They leave a few, very few, “liberal” talking heads to point to so they can pretend they haven’t done exactly what they have done. Unless/until that is dealt with, somehow broken up, our wins will be few and temporary. Again, just enough to point to and pretend they haven’t done exactly what they have done. The Rs have been their political arm since Goldwater. It took longer to capture Congress – 1992 election cycle. And they’re getting close to having the Courts. None of which will ever be covered by MSM unless/until…
MVgal visited Amelia yesterday. Amelia called while she was there but it was only to say “hai” – which we did. Amelia left me a DM I just read about how lovely the afternoon was and how kind/caring MVgal is. And about the presents, decorations, and catnip mousy for Winston she showed up with. Blessings on many counts. Barring another family-generated nastygram Amelia should be balanced/stable for a while. And of course I’ve known MVgal is a kind/caring/wonderful person for years. 💖💖💖
I’ve gotten most of my household stuff done – except the floors – so can read for a bit. Cloud’s sleeping on my lap – he doesn’t get up often but he stakes out the territory for a longer time than the other kitties. Honestly the floors are getting into the “disgusting” category – reached it some time ago by my grandmother’s standards – but it really hurts my back to do them so I have a hard time getting started. Once I get started I can keep going until they’re done – but deliberately doing something you know will hurt…well, I have a hard time getting started. Goddesses above and below only know how Aji functions – unfortunately I think it’s because doing doesn’t hurt any more than not doing. So. Healing/Helping Energy everywhere it’s needed and accepted, to their shaping. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 48 and partly sunny in Bellingham. As often happens, my basement mess is a mixed blessing. Cleaning it up has resulted in several donation boxes going to Wise Buys,which supports programs for women and children, and to Ragfinery, where textiles are recycled so they don’t go to land fills. I’m really tired and my knees haven’t liked the activity but we now have less stuff and a much cleaner and more usable basement utility area. I’ll continue to edit and donate but this is a good start.
So now I can refocus on T Day and Christmas and id I keep the RICE program going I may even have some fun! Best wishes to all on this nearly sunny day.
Good morning, meeses! Monday …
It is 30 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 46. Mostly clear skies are in the forecast. The scary winter storm heading this way appears to now be veering north of us, just giving us rain. That is a relief for holiday travel – I hope the weather services can be trusted on this because I have to be on the road tomorrow and I don’t relish returning home tomorrow evening in a blizzard!
I was expecting the weekend news to be quiet but of course that is too much to expect. Trump fired the Navy Secretary for supporting SEAL commander Admiral Green in his plan to bring order and discipline to his force, another ethically compromised billionaire who will refuse to disclose his tax returns has entered the race, and there are tapes of a Giuliani meeting with the indicted Russian! Yikes!!
I was pleased to see that the media is accurately reporting that any Democratic Party candidate who can’t reach the Black community has no chance to win the nomination. I am not sure yet who that will include – I think South Carolina will probably make it more clear who the front runners will be. I saw a tweet yesterday that it is 100 days until Super Tuesday when the majority of the delegates will be chosen. By the time it gets to Wisconsin in April, it will be over and I will vote for whichever non-Sanders non-Warren frontrunner has emerged or vote for Kamala Harris if Biden has imploded and the race is still wide open.
I finally broke down and purchased a wide screen monitor because more and more of the programs I need to use require a wide screen resolution. However, it is taking some getting used to! I have it set for 1600×900 which gives me a much bigger desktop to reduce the icon clutter but the letters are a little smaller than I prefer. I think I can change the font but I am going to wait until January when I will have to upgrade my main computer to Windows 10 in advance of end-of-support for Windows 7 on the 14th. A lot will change with that upgrade and it makes no sense to tweak it twice. Anyway, busy day here as I need to get some accounting projects done in advance of end of month which is on the other side of the holiday.
See all y’all later!
Cool-ish morning – 55 heading for a gorgeous 80 this afternoon. I’ve now walked at least a mile for 4 days in a row. Yay, me! Tomorrow & Wednesday it looks like it’ll be fine to walk, Thursday it’s supposed to rain, but I won’t have to walk ungodly early so that’s fine also. Bloomberg entering the race – what about 2019 says “we need a rich white guy to save us”??? If Bloomberg – and Steyer – really wanted to make a difference, they could buy Fox News and make them do actual news. They’d still have money left for huge voter registration drives, and what I think is the most important thing: funding Dems in state house races to flip legislatures before redistricting.
Well said, anotherdemocrat! A Steyer-Bloomberg buyout of Focks News would do a world of good.
Glad you’re getting your walks in. I’m managing about a mile and a half on nice days but… {{{HUGS}}}
Gosh, Windows 7! I loved it! If it were still around I’d consider buying a laptop with that on it. Sorry it’s going away.
I wish the wretched tech community would take a lesson from Coca-Cola and let people stick with “classic” versions of software. It would make life so much easier.
When they had a big push for Win 10 a couple of years ago, with free downloads, I downloaded it, but I’ve never been able to make it…. do the thing. So, I have 10 on my laptop but I’m still using 7.
If I had been forced to switch to Windows 10 a couple of years ago, I would have been very crabby. But I now have it on 3 of my computers and all my clients are on Windows 10 (I forced them to upgrade in advance of the change) so I know how to tailor it to my liking and where they hid all the techie stuff. I am getting increasingly irritated by the things that no longer work on Windows 7 so in some ways it will be a relief. I missed Windows XP also but came to like Windows 7 and I am ready. I will probably change over over the week of the 23rd so that I have time to adjust before calendar flips and things get hectic.
Monday Meese
Raining here in the Catskills -36 going up to 51.
Good Moon Day morning, Moosekind! Sunny and nice here in NoVa, with 37 F. our current temperature. There will be much less wind today, thank Goddess and the entire Egyptian pantheon! It was so bad yesterday that Dearly couldn’t even take the Mont-ster for a walk. Our high will be 55 F.
Felt very slow and sleepy yesterday, with the result that I kept falling asleep in the green chair and therefore missed every interesting thing on telly. Understand that the first half of “60 Minutes” was well worth watching.
Got up too early again but will try to stay awake through the early afternoon so I can attend the “Current Affairs” discussion. Also have several other errands to do, including shopping at Trader Joe’s to get something for dinner. The food here gets more and more boring.
Wishing a nice, quiet Monday to all at the Pond!
Temps are being a yo-yo here in Fay., AR – according to the forecast gonna get to 65 today, 70 tomorrow, 40s for the next two days, then 60s, then 40s. For goodness sake’s, it’s the last week of November! Anyway at least it’s sunny today. Yesterday we got 7.5 KWHs and the m-t-d is 138 – we’ll definitely reach 140 and probably at least 145 today. Then we shall see what we shall see.
Everybody hold the Good Thought for Amelia – she’s found a church in her family’s denomination that has a big helping-homeless ministry and the (female) priest/minister texted she’d been out sick but would call to set up a visit when her Sunday duties were done. Ideal would be the church fund keeping her where she is while they also help her find a safe apartment as well as help her through all the paperwork hoops for the section 8 voucher. Most of the time all I ask for is “better” but this time I really want ideal for her. I’d appreciate any and all efforts from any and all Traditions to get her there.
So much evil going on causing so much pain to good people. I stopped believing in a “personal” god who gave a damn – or even paid attention – about individual people when that penny dropped. But I still believe in entities stronger and more powerful than we are whose Energy can be channeled to bring about good even for individuals. So I do what I can to that end. Healing/Helping Energy to all who need and accept it, to their shaping. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 44 and cloudy in Bellingham. When I was a young mom, with four little kids, I worked part time for a very wise antique dealer. Over the years we became very close and when she died a few years ago I grieved, but her presence lives on in our home. She was especially knowledgeable about advertising and what is now call “Americana” collectibles. When I helped her close her shop she gave me her collection of wood orange crates because she wanted then to be preserved. I’ve used them in various ways for years and yesterday I found all of them to use as a display/storage wall in the basement. Stainless steel shelving units like we used in the newly painted area would be more useful, but sentimental me had a sentimental day remembering Stella and my time with her. I’m tired today, but grateful for the memories.
Now it’s time to move to T Day prep. I’m so relieved I delegated all I could. I’ll write a shopping list for Ron, and make the cranberry relish today. Best wishes to all as we begin a busy week.
I’m tired today, but grateful for the memories.
Pleasant memories are very good. {{{HUGS}}}
Kamala2020 from DigitusImpudicus
Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …
It is 28 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 43. The forecast calls for rain; north of us will get up to a foot of snow as a Panhandle Hook swings through. I shortened my travel plans to just the bare minimum and should be safely back home by noon in case the weatherguessers are wrong about the rain/snow line.
I think I am going to take a Twitter break or at least a nighttime cutoff. Last night I came across a tweet that quote tweeted Mitch McChinless bragging about the 160 judges that he and tRump have put on the courts including the new Circuit Court judges ready to spend a lifetime destroying everything we care about. The tweet was from Vanita Gupta who was an assistant attorney general in the Obama Administration who pointed out that not a single one of those judges is Black – she called it a “whitening” of our judiciary. My upset over the damage being done – damage we can’t fix in my lifetime – was so visceral it made it difficult to fall asleep. If we can’t take back the White House in 2020, I am not sure what happens but it should scare the crap out of everyone. If Sanders or Warren or one of the billionaires ruins our election changes, they need to be permanently shunned. That Sanders, who helped Trump to victory in 2016, was allowed into our primary is a disgrace. Anyway, there is too much to despair about too close to my brain on my Twitter feed right now and I need to give it a rest until I can figure out how to curate it better.
See all y’all later!
So warm this morning I did my mile in short sleeves. And heading to a high of 80. I think it’s supposed to cool down in the next couple of days. One last early morning tomorrow, then a 4 day weekend. The Texas Republican Party e-mailed their 2020 strategy to Democrats. How do you do something that stupid? Why are the Democratic candidates & party even in their address book at all? Crazy.
Tuesday Meese. 36 going up to 58 here in the Catskills – balmy weather before we get hit with Thanksgiving storms
I’m upset (which is nothing new)
Did some investigating of the black parents group that protested E. Warren and though they were trashed on twitter as tools of Walmart – that’s not really what is happening.
They deserve to be heard.
My Black Kos topic for today.
I read Bravenak’s blog and her research; I’m assuming “upset” is your word for pissed as hell, because the accusations that were thrown at those parents were so damn wrong. Factually wrong. Historically wrong. Conveniently wrong (for Warren, not the parents). Insensitive. White-centered purity BS. But other than that…
I remember when charter schools got started in AR – with Hillary being very involved. What she was envisioning/supporting was supposed to help integrate the public school system and were more like Magnet schools than what charter schools became when the Waltons & Bushies saw the WASP supremacist possibilities as well as the economic ones and teamed up to privatize the program. There are actually some of the old concept charter schools out there. Just not very many. But then Magnet schools have pretty much been turned into another tool of segregation too. sigh.
Kiddo’s school, a performing and visual arts school, was in the magnet school tradition. It was also very integrated, probably 50% African-American, 48% white, and 2% identifying as something else. Of the African-American students, most of them came from Detroit, as an alternative to failing neighborhood schools. (At the time Kiddo attended, it was located at the equivalent of 10 1/2 Mile and on a bus route, so it was quite convenient for Detroit students. It’s now in a building a few miles north, but still within reasonable traveling time…and still on a bus route.) It was also the first charter school in MI to unionize; when they held the vote, only one teacher voted against going union. The teachers had no beef with the administration, but their rationale for unionizing was because they were making a statement and wanted that message sent. I can’t claim that the classroom education Kiddo received was topnotch, and in fact, her math education was merely (and sometimes barely) adequate. But the education she received by getting out of all-white, very rural, very conservative Hometown was priceless. The fact that it dragged me out of that same bubble was an unintended, but very welcome, consequence.
Yeah – sounds like Kiddo was attending the sort of charter school they were intended to be before the Deplorables corrupted them for fun and profit.
Good morning, Meesefolk; 34 when I got up and going up to 50 today. That’s like a heatwave (or the equivalent to ADs shirtsleeve walking weather). If we hadn’t just recently seen the last of our big snow dump melt, I’d consider it normal November weather, but my sense of normal has been thrown off by that early snow.
I spent the tail end of last week sending out resumes by the dozens; it was a good week for new listings, although in retrospect, I wish I’d held some of the applications for this week. I have to show Unemployment a minimum of two job applications per week, and it’s going to be a struggle to meet that this week. The blitz of resumes has resulted in two interviews being scheduled; one today and one tomorrow. I’m not particularly keen on the job I’m interviewing for today (almost an hour drive away), but we’ll see what happens. The interview tomorrow is much closer and much more up my alley, but it’s going to take a totally different “elevator pitch” that I still need to sort out.
As a result of all my busy-ness, I haven’t been paying much attention to politics, but I did catch the attacks against the parents who spoke out at Warren’s rally. I do not have a knee jerk reaction against charter schools, because Kiddo attended one, so when I see them being mentioned, I’m always aware that Dems typically over-react with little understanding that charter schools are not all evil. All that happened this time, with the additional element of race thrown in (which is actually very much part of the charter school debate but not often acknowledged by white Dems). It’s so damn easy to be part of the Purity Patrol when you’re white.
Good day to and for all!
The Milwaukee School District was on the bleeding edge of “school choice” and it destroyed the school system. The superintendent at the time, Howard Fuller, embraced it because it looked good on paper. He later admitted it was a huge mistake. Educating children should not be turned over to for-profit enterprises who are not accountable to anyone. So the words “charter schools” will always raise hackles here. When President Obama came to Madison to promote charters back in his first term, he got a very cool reception.
I think the for-profit industry is a huge problem; it certainly is in MI. Kiddo’s school was not a for-profit; the charter was held by the county ISD. There are other schools in our area which have charters held by MSU, UM, and a few of our other state universities. Those schools are almost like laboratories for their education departments and the latest teaching techniques/theories, but the teachers are fully certified (although, of course, they always have student teachers at their fingertips).
I think it would help us all to always add “for-profit” in front of any charter school that is intended to make money and in your case “university-affiliated” for those Michigan schools (although being “university-affiliated” with MSU is probably not a drawing card these days). And maybe “religious” for those who are affiliated with the right-wing haters. In Wisconsin, the Republican legislature does not care if the school discriminates against LGBT or people of color and made sure that the school districts whose money is siphoned off to pay for them are left out of any decision. It is a perfect lose-lose situation for taxpayers and public education. The guy who just got elected to our Supreme Court for a 10-year term runs a voucher-eligible religious school with his wife that refuses to accept LGBT students or children of LGBT parents. And they wonder why liberals are so angry!!
Here is a bit of the history in Wisconsin from NPR. This is the problem here:
In 2014, after 25 years, the program had not led to any observable educational improvement for the people living in poverty in Milwaukee. But it saved the Catholic schools!
Well, it’s 60 and may or may not get to 70 today but the sunshine has gone away again, darn it. Yesterday we got 7.3 KWHs and we’re at 145 for the m-t-d – we’ll still need some sunshine to reach 150. Which I doubt we’re going to do today. Maybe tomorrow.
Everything’s a roller coaster these days. Macrocosm of climate down to microcosm of the priest/minister not calling Amelia back and everything in between. I’ve never liked roller coasters. Amelia needs a safe place to live. She can handle the health issues and so forth once she has that. People who want to institutionalize her (& there are some) based on how she handles the constant threat of homelessness are…well, I’m not sure what but it isn’t polite. Aji & Wings need sales desperately – but they also need what they’d thought was community when they gave to it over the years to give some back – the neighborly “want me to clear the snow?” or “can I pick up anything for you when I’m in town?” sorts of things that should be happening whether or not they’d given as much as they have because it’s community. There doesn’t seem to be community any longer. The Birchers/fascists have pretty much succeeded in isolating their chosen victims. Us. And are moving in for the kill. We shall see whether or not community builders are successful enough for us to stop them. Or at least to survive them.
Anyway, it’s a day and I have stuff to read & coffee to get. Healing/Helping Energy to all who need and accept it, to their shaping. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
P.S. – Messages from Diana – she’s locked out of Moose again. She asked me to tell “Good Luck” to Jan on her out-of-town journey, to princesspat on the cranberry relish, and to DoReMI on the job interviews.
It took me quite awhile to get on this morning, but I think the disruption may have been local since I also had issues getting onto my bank’s site. It was the first time I ever got a 404 message when trying to log in here.
That may also be true for Diana – she said in reply to my reply that she couldn’t get on one of her financial sites either. But who knows. Internet allows for what passes for community these days for which I bless it but it also has a whole lot of drawbacks.
The 404 is from a malformed link and I think what is happening is that saved links are getting mucked up, what worked once is not guarantee to work again. If the site is entered directly, with the “http : / / www . motleymoose . net” I think it works. It is very likely the PHP issue – we are out of date – but the last time I tried to update to a newer version, it wiped out our login screen so I need to set aside time to troubleshoot. That may happen this weekend but only if I get accounting work done tomorrow – it has a hard deadline.
Good morning, 36 and partly sunny in Bellingham. My long term hairdresser has retired so today will be my first cut and color with a new person. I’m a bit nervous :)
And no surprise I’m really tired from the basement turmoil, so I’m going to tend to my desk and try to rest today. Our daughter and her family arrive tomorrow, Thursday will be a busy cooking day, and the rest of the family arrives for our T Day on Friday. I don’t mind being flexible about the day so we can all be together. I have requested no dogs at dinner time though…..13 people and 5 dogs is too much when we are indoors. So the dogs will have their own T Day at our sons’ houses.
Best wishes to all as we make it through another day.