Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Feb. 2nd through Feb. 8th

February 1, 2020 JanF Community 91

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

    Morning low of 32 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 46. Mainly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. This week will bring good news from Iowa – the end of the Iowa Caucuses for another 4 years! It won’t end the race for the butthurt white vote – that will last until November 3rd. Let’s just hope that the sucking up does not dampen enthusiasm.

    The headlines are saying that Mayo Pete does not have to win (or even do well) in Iowa in order to continue his campaign – I think the headlines are wrong!

    Editor’s Note: I could not find a Weekly Democratic Party Address because it was the Senate’s turn to do one and they were busy deliberating whether to suspend the Constitution for the benefit of the last chance Republicans have of hanging onto power. (The Constitution lost, by the way.) But there is hope – if we can demonstrate that voting power still trumps cheating, we can strengthen the franchise and rebuild our democracy.

    • But there is hope – if we can demonstrate that voting power still trumps cheating, we can strengthen the franchise and rebuild our democracy.

      Well said, Jan!

  3. Sunday Meese
    32 going up to 42 – but we may get some snow here in the Catskills.

    Puerto Rico

    • Thanks, Dee. All I can say is, “Eff FEMA.”

      Have been wanting to ask (I’m incurably nosy) about your husband, Dee. Is he adapting well to the new house? Is his health improving, and is he telecommuting to work?

      Just wondering, because it sounds as if you two have been through quite a bit lately.

  4. Chilly morning, but it’s supposed to be a warm afternoon — 70s. I’ve got tea steeping & laundry churning. I hate to miss church, but I really should stay home. Watching Ali Velshi on MSNBC, he had a great segment about how capitalism is broken.

    • Hope you’re feeling better, another. You’re doing the right thing by staying home.

      Today marks a week since my cold began. Yesterday I had to take a couple of cold meds after being off them for two days—still not feeling 100 percent. Take care of yourself!

      Yesterday afternoon I made a cup of green (decaf) tea and put a slice of fresh orange and a slice of fresh lemon in it. It made me feel better and stopped my cough for a while.

  6. Good Sun Day morning, Moosekind, although actually there’s nothing sunny about it—it just started raining. It’s 43 F. in Ashburn at the moment, going up to 51 F. later.

    Breakfast has been cooked and eaten, a shower has been taken, a bit of spot cleaning has occurred, and laundry has been started. What utter bliss not to have to go anywhere today! We’ll have our SuperBore dinner right here at home: guac and chips (only allowed in our house on special occasions), spare ribs and summer slaw, and Mango Pango for afters.

    Yesterday evening we hired a dog sitter (she walks the dog of our neighbor across the hall), and went to Elder Son’s house in Arlington for dinner. It was amusing, during the drive, to see that some haven’t yet got round to taking down their Christmas lights.

    Mr. Preschooler was bouncing off the walls when we arrived and kept it up for hours. A Harry Potter movie was running in the family room, but Mr. P. did not appear to be paying much attention to it. He must have been half-listening, at least: yrs truly was mystified by his referring to “Baltimore” several times, but Daughter-in-law explained that as yet he’s unable to pronounce “Voldemort.”

    Ice skating is on for two hours before the Bore begins tonight, so we’ll dozily keep an eye on it. Daughter-in-Austin (well, Lake of the Hills actually) informed all and sundry on Facebook that she is not going to bother watching the stupid SuperBore or the lousy SOTU, she is going out to register voters in Austin. Despite the fact that her poor face looks terrible as she had Mohs surgery on Friday, she went out anyway on Saturday for the hour-long training course. She showed a pic of her completion certificate on FB. Have to admire her dedication.

    I keep saying I’m going to do this or that and then not doing it, so I won’t say anything this morning. Wishing a quiet, satisfying Sunday to all at the Pond.

      • When I lived in Madison we/they used to say Madison only two seasons – winter and July – so only 6 more weeks of winter is good. LOL. {{{HUGS}}}

    • {{{Diana}}} – weather travels from west to east. So hopefully you’ll get a couple of nice days along about Tuesday. I enjoyed the re-post of your “Roses…” story but the comments were closed so I couldn’t say so in there. more {{{HUGS}}}

  7. Good morning, 37 and cloudy in Bellingham. We remain high and dry, but there is significant flooding in the county and northbound lanes of the I-5 freeway were closed yesterday due to a slide. Thankfully my old maple trees look sturdy outside my window this morning, and the tall fir tree behind us hasn’t lost any major branches. I think I’ll call the arborist for a tree health assessment next week though. Wet soil and high water levels make tall trees vulnerable to wind and rain storms. It’s quiet today but winter isn’t over.

    We have no super bowl viewing plans for today. Ron will roast a chicken and watch the game and I’ll see what the day brings. I’m continuing to feel better but I’m being very careful re what I do because when I get tired fatigue hits hard. I did get the last of the Christmas linens ironed and put away yesterday so now my sewing table can be used to cut out a new project. I’ve got lots to choose from!

    Ron’s mom was born 102 yrs ago today so she is in our thoughts this morning. Between her birthday and my mom’s and grandmothers days in January I’ve been very aware of the passing of time this winter.

    Best wishes to all on this quiet Sunday morning.

  8. Blessed Imbolc to everybody. Brigid is giving us a true Spring day today. It’s 62 already heading for 72 and sunny. We’ll be back to winter weather by Tuesday but today is Spring. We started the month off well with 9.4 KWHs, best since Samhain, and hopefully with do as well today. I’ve been doing some extra cleaning. I can’t call it Spring Cleaning – this house hasn’t had that in over 15 years – but more than usual. Which is why I’m later than usual to check in. Once the temps get above 65 I’ll open the windows and air out the house. The cats will love that.

    Hoping/praying/invoking/Channeling that Brigid and any/all other more powerful beings brings us true Healing Energy by next Samhain. From my human perspective that means a solid Blue election cycle. I cannot see anything but evil in anything else. I am human so consider human surviving and thriving to be a good thing. From my current and at least 20 years past perspective I think we need Divine intervention. Which doesn’t mean we’ll get it. sigh.

    Everybody I have a personal connection to is in some degree OK but not good. Health issues, loss of job or other revenue issues, necessary services jumping their rates issues…it seems to never end. But everyone is still alive and at least in good enough shape to be online, even if not as often as they used to be. I’m fine and will be unless the Rs steal my Social Security. I know that’s a real possibility but it hasn’t happened and may not happen. I’ll deal with it if it does. Meanwhile I did finally get my last 1099 (the day after I requested a reprint so I’ll probably end up with 3 or 4 of them – LOL) and did my taxes yesterday. My fed has been e-filed and accepted. That will get me back on track financially. I’m still not going to be able to help folks as much as I used to. I hope I’ve managed over the last 10+ years to pay enough forward to “cover” – the harvest is only good if not only the seeds are planted but they are also “fed” and watered. The state is a paper filing but I’ve got that ready to go in Monday’s mail. It’s a few hundred – I’ll stash some of it back for emergency aid and the rest for things like taking my son out for his birthday in March. And maybe even treat myself. heh.

    It truly is a bright day today. I hope that helps the Healing/Helping Energy reach where it needs to go. So bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  9. Good morning, meeses! Monday …

    It is 28 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 36. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast. After a record high of 51 yesterday and a sunny – groundhog-shadow-seeing day – tomorrow we will begin a couple of weeks with high temperatures below freezing.

    On Iowa and New Hampshire: “It’s Time for Democrats to Ignore These Two States”

    The problem with Iowa and New Hampshire is that they are horribly unrepresentative of a party that is now, according to the 2017 Pew Typology Survey, 54 percent white, 19 percent each African-American and Latino, and 9 percent other. Iowa is 85 percent white non-Hispanic, and New Hampshire is 90 percent.

    So what the Democratic National Committee needs to do is choose two other, more representative states. I would suggest Florida and Michigan. Florida is more diverse than the country as whole. The United States is 60 percent white non-Hispanic, 13 percent African-American, and 18 percent Latino; Florida is 54, 17 and 26. Michigan is somewhat less diverse than the country, at 75, 14 and 5, but at least the black population is representative, and there are other strong arguments for making an important Rust Belt state an early test.

    These states are diverse in other important ways. They have major cities, smaller cities, suburbs, university towns and farms. They have economic diversity. And of course both are swing states with lots of electoral votes (29 and 16, respectively). They matter in a way Iowa and New Hampshire (six and four) do not.

    Let’s hope that our next party leader has the guts to do this. I saw an article yesterday where they interviewed an old Iowa guy who said that the Democrats “lost him in the 1960’s” – gosh, what could have caused that? And why the hell are we trying to win old racists like him??!!?

    I have a bunch of work stacked up that suffered from too-busy-in-January neglect. I think (hope?) that I met the hard deadlines imposed by government regulations but a bunch of additional deadlines (March 1st) are looming which I need to put on a list and paste on my monitor. We have a Spring Primary election on February 18th to whittle down the Supreme Court race to two candidates for the April 7th election. It is likely to be the incumbent Republican, a Scott Walker appointee, and a woman who has garnered endorsements from Democrats (in theory the post is non-partisan, in practice it is hyper-partisan – the Republican incumbent has an office in Wisconsin Republican Party headquarters!) but it is wise to not take anything for granted. As usual, there is an unqualified gadfly who managed to get enough signatures to get on the ballot and I want to make sure that the Democrat wins. Anyway, I have some banking errands to run today and then will go early vote. Even if I was so inclined, I won’t vote in person anymore – they changed my polling place to a church, bastids. Churches are on my shortlist of institutions that have damaged our democracy – Republicans practice a religion that allows them to hate human beings and their churches are accomplices.

    See all y’all later!

    • They changed our polling places to churches several years back, so yeah, I early vote. I understand them moving them from the elementary schools. Very disrupting as the only place big enough to have the voting machines set up was the school cafeteria and of course the safety issues of that many strangers coming into the school while it’s in session. But nope on churches.

    • Wow. Until I moved to this Home for the Aged, which is its own voting precinct (so handy), I always voted in elementary schools. I’m amazed that a precinct would be in a church. Didn’t the Founding Patriarchs call for the separation of church and state?

      Completely agree with your policy on churches, Jan. I also think their tax-exempt status should be revoked.

  10. Will Bunch on the Friday night disgrace:

    There is still an opportunity to vote on November 3 in such numbers, and with such unity of purpose, that a president’s ability to cheat won’t matter. And Friday night’s vote did not silence your ability to speak out, or shackle your ability to march for justice, not yet. Keep remembering that whatever you think you would have done to fight slavery or segregation or the worst horrors of the 20th Century is exactly what you are doing to fight tyranny today.

    Also remember that the American Experiment has been powered for 244 years by this one initial spark: Our hatred of monarchy. On Friday night, 51 senators all but voted to crown King Donald I, and with that vote a flame of democracy was effectively snuffed out. But the second American revolution begins today. Join us.

    Read the whole thing but keep that closing in mind. He referenced this as a reminder of the power of protest:

  12. I’m staying home again today because stuff I read says I’m probably still contagious. I’m going to buy treats to take to work tomorrow, I feel really guilty. Anyway, that’s my day — can’t do much, because of the stupid cold. Science Channel has How The Earth Works for most of the day.

    • {{{anotherdemocrat}}} – I hope you are better enough to go to work tomorrow. Feel better as well as not contagious. Healing Energy & moar {{{HUGS}}}

  13. It’s 59 heading for 70 and while not exactly sunny, not exactly not either. Enough sunshine I don’t need the lamps on anyway. Yesterday was another 9.4 KWH day so the m-t-d is 18.8 – lovely late Spring/early Summer days to celebrate Imbolc. They’re going away and we’re heading back into Winter as of this afternoon. When the temps start dropping they’re gonna keep dropping until Thursday morning (and won’t come back up much then). The weather may not be “normal” – ever again – and climates are definitely changing but the cycle of Earth around the Sun is as constant as anything ever is or can be.

    I’ve got my AR tax papers out in the mailbox for today’s pickup. I’ve called the city to pick up the brushpile in front of my house (mostly the new neighbor’s stuff – he’s cleaned up the backyard as my friend wanted to but never had the time or energy – but he cut some tree limbs for me as a thank you that are part of the pile). So I guess I’m starting into Spring in a good way. I need to borrow my car back from my kid sometime this week. We’ve a School Board referendum – to basically keep getting the tax we’ve been paying bonds with to do some desired-to-needed upgrades to the schools – and early voting is this week. I’ve got to try and find out something about the various “non-partisan” judges running in the 4 races coming up in March. I don’t know much about the State Supreme Court guy I’m voting for but I know his opponent’s husband is the head of the Republican Central Committee. And I know who I’m voting for Circuit Judge Dist 3 as she’s running for re-election and I worked with her when I was a JP. But I haven’t a clue on the Circuit Judge Dist 4 or the State Dist Court races. Everybody is so very careful not to m-e-n-t-i-o-n not just party affiliation but anything that might give you a clue of party affiliation on these non-partisan judges. Makes it hard to find out much of anything about them. sigh.

    Holding the Good Thought/Channeling Healing/Helping Energy to everybody – heaven knows everybody needs it. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  14. Good morning, 36 and partly cloudy. The rain sounded heavy in the night and the hills have a dusting of snow this morning so the bit of blue sky I see outside my window is very welcome. tRump and election angst got the best of me yesterday so I hope I can stay busy today and ignore Iowa and impeachment.

    Sophie is enjoying this season of Dr. Who so her quilt is well used. I never did finish the pillow cases so today may be a good day for easy sewing. Best wishes to all on this somewhat sunny Monday.

  15. Good evening, Meesefolk; the snow we got over the weekend has already melted away, just in time for the temperatures to drop again. But it doesn’t look like snow is in the immediate forecast…meh. I’d kind of like another nice snowfall, but only if I can order the type of snow we get. Fat, heavy flakes are pretty coming down, but more than I want to shovel anymore. May I have a drier, but still fluffy, snow, please?

    Work is going well, although I’m still feeling a bit overwhelmed and occasionally panicky, as a result. Tomorrow is a case in point. I have to attend my orientation, but I also have to present at it. I was in training at my regional office today, and while that meant I was finally able to learn just what I was expected to present, I still have to pull it together. I’m sure some folks would just wing it or read verbatim from the employee handbook, but that doesn’t work for me. And it certainly wouldn’t work for the folks having to sit through that. So I have a good 1-2 hours of work ahead of me tonight. I can’t allow this to become a habit (been there, done that, not going back to those days), but if I prep my presentation right, I’ll never have to do it again (the prep, that is; the presentation will happen about 2x per month). I’m really ok with the trade-off this time, because my lunch was bought and paid for today (not only that, but it was from one of my favorite, but really, really expensive restaurants that I only go to about once a year). It seems like a fair trade…this time.

    Speaking of lunch, I have to go get mine packed for tomorrow. I’m going in early to finalize end-of-January stuff before orientation, and I don’t trust myself to be functioning at optimum level prior to 7am. Good day to and for all!

    • Just like teaching! “if I prep my presentation right, I’ll never have to do it again (the prep, that is; the presentation will happen about 2x per month).”

      Good luck to you!

    • It’s normal to feel panicky and overwhelmed the first 6 weeks or so of a new job. It’s so nice to have normal things going on – even when they’re uncomfortable. (Of course that’s if things are relatively stable and “corporate” or the Rs don’t throw new rules and regs at you every couple of months.) Yup, do that prep good and solid and you’ll never have to do it again, no matter how often you have to deliver it. Great they gave you a good lunch. That’s a good sign anyway. Enjoy yourself. {{{HUGS}}}

  16. Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …

    It is 28 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 27. Mainly cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    “Chaos in Iowa!” screams the headlines. I hope this clusterfk finally and completely destroys Iowa caucusing as a “thing” that we should care about. One unrepresentative white state down (literally!) and one more to go – then we can get started with the serious business of picking a nominee who has the support of the diverse voters of our party.

    I will not watch the SOTU even on the hope to see the meltdown of tRump when he goes off-script and elicits gasps from the assembled lawmakers. I will read about it in the morning – I am sure the memes will be hot and heavy.

    See all y’all later!

  17. Tuesday Meese
    36 degrees here in Saugerties NY, going up to an unseasonable 53 here.

  18. Gee, who could have predicted that having an untested app be the reporting method for a caucus that is already messy/unorganized/outdated would be a disaster? May this be the thing that kills caucuses as a way for selecting candidates. I’m at work, hope it goes okay. Snow Patrol’s Heal Me is probably a good song for today.

  19. Good Tiu’s Day morning, Moosekind! Currently it’s cloudy and 55 F., going up to 64 F. with showers predicted. Yesterday was heavenly, so blue-skied and sunny (and 67 F.) that I went for a walk after my visit to the doctor. That groundhog was right. I even saw yellow forsythia in bloom—in February, for Goddess’ sake!

    The doctor said I was disgustingly healthy and look 20-25 years younger than my actual age. I laughed when she said that, but felt pleased that I only look 80 instead of my actual age of 104. She said to keep on doing what I’m doing and didn’t even seem bothered by my cholesterol and blood pressure numbers. That’s nice! Don’t have to go again until August.

    So we really don’t know the results in Iowa. For Goddess’ sake! I was hoping for a Bernout, but agree with Jan that this may put paid to the stupid caucus method of choosing a nominee. It gets more ridiculous every year. Would you believe there was a time when no one paid much attention to primaries because the real heavy lifting for a nominee was at the conventions? I can remember the 1960s. I don’t think we had a TV before then.

    At the risk of becoming hugely unpopular, I will ask Goddess to preserve me from EVER watching the SuperBore again! The commercials were super-stupid, the half-time show was super-vulgar (all that twerking and crotch thrusting went over like a lead balloon with me), and the game itself was super-boring. It did become somewhat interesting toward the end, causing me to look up from my book once or twice.

    From what I’ve read, journos are gamely making the best of the blatantly sexy antics of the two women. As an ancient curmudgeon, I do question the propriety of subjecting the participating children to such performances. I wouldn’t have put Miss Pink Cheeks into a situation like that. It’s true she’ll be 11 in a couple of weeks but she’s still a little girl. I never even noticed the children-in-cages theme because I was too embarrassed to take it in.

    Oh, well, enough of that. I need to throw on some clothes and go out to the courtyard because there is some Business that needs to be cleaned up. (I ran out of bags.)

    Wishing everyone at the Pond a good day and will advise everyone to stay away from media. There will be endless, endless discussion of Iowa and so forth. I’ll watch the SOTU until it becomes unbearable because I want to see the expression on Nancy’s face when he walks in after the Sergeant-at-Arms says, “Madame Speaker, the president of the United States!” I’ll never get tired of hearing “Madame Speaker.”

    Alors, à demain!

    • I never watch Super Bowl half-time shows because I don’t know who the performers are and to me it seems like simply another way to exploit women, valueing women’s bodies over everything else that defines them.

      I turned off the game with 11:57 left on the clock – after it looked like it would be a blowout. When I found out in the morning that it was an exciting finish, I found the game on the NFL Channel (they replayed it several times yesterday) and watched the last part of the game. It was very exciting and I was glad for the winning quarterback! The pre-game hype – and the Fox announcers – made it clear that they were fans of the Next Tom Brady, 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, and they ignored the actual quarterback of the future, the exciting (but not white, sorry Terry Bradshaw and Troy Aikman!) Patrick Mahomes. I was pleased to see any Super Bowl without the New England Trumpers playing and hope that it becomes a trend. :)

      • I never watch Super Bowl half-time shows because I don’t know who the performers are and to me it seems like simply another way to exploit women, valueing women’s bodies over everything else that defines them.

        Thanks for saying that.

        Sometimes I wonder (sigh) whether the Pill truly did liberate us. I loved it for the five years I used it, because to me the benefit I wouldn’t become unintentionally pregnant far outweighed the remote possibility that something weird would happen to my health 30 years later. But the thing is, the Pill kinda killed our right to say no. “No, because I don’t want to get pregnant,” is much more tactful than “No, I’m afraid of getting an STD.” The simple fact is we never get to say what we really want to say, which is “No, you don’t attract me at all in that way, and sex with you is just not worth the risk.”

        I’m glad I’m not young.

  20. Krugman nails it:

    There’s a silver lining to the mess in Iowa. It was always ridiculous to give so much power to a deeply unrepresentative state, with a deeply flawed process (who was it who called caucuses an “artisanal primary”?) But Iowa shaped media narratives 1/

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