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!
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Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …
Morning low of 61 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 77. Chance of thunderstorms is in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Sunday Meese. 48 going up to 75 and sunny here in the NY Catskills.
Sunday music journey posted
I didn’t get in an early morning walk, so probably no exercise today. It’s not in the 100s yet, but muggy mid-90s is still unpleasant. It’s supposed to rain & cool down. We’ll see. Memorial Day plans? Well, there’s 60-80% chances of rain the next few days, so…. movies? Maybe I’ll finally get around to watching Picard.
It’s 71 heading for 84 and my PV installer is religious and doesn’t work Sundays. sigh. Of course it’s not his fault the roofers didn’t do their job Thursday and he had another job already scheduled for Saturday. But “window of opportunity” – this year’s cloudiness and rain (which I wish we could send Aji, at least the rain part) means every day without rain is a gift from god/dog (goddess/es) to those who work outdoors. Of course they probably take it as a test of their faith/obedience to not work on Sunday even when it’s the only day in a week they can work. Xtians are like that. (Fundies are – RCs have early morning mass so farm workers can attend and then get back to their fields/animals.) So that’s my rant and complaint to start the day/week. On the other hand, the roof looks great. These guys did a good job from what I can see from the ground. From a distance their attention to detail around the vent caps, chimney, vent turbines stands out. So that part’s good. (Even as it makes me more pissed off for Puerto Rico’s sake. The hail storm happened on 5/4. With the 2-day delay it’s still less than 3 weeks since it happened & right at 2 since it was reported. With materials and debris trailer on site by Friday, a 4-man crew did the entire job including clean up in 8 hours.)
I’m taking a break before doing the floors (surprise, right? 😁) and doing a tour of the internet. Damp weather – and it’s damp even though it’s not raining nor scheduled to until dark – messes with my muscles and joints. Doing the floors is painful enough without that. So having done everything else on my list, I’ll give myself some rest and more coffee before tackling them. Channeling Healing/Helping Energy to everybody, to your shaping. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
That’s hard luck, bfitz! Let’s hope June is nice and sunny. I take it that your excess generation is stored for future use or balancing out or something like that?
{{{Diana}}} – It would be nice if June were sunny. But I’m not gonna bet on it. It’s definitely not forecast to start sunny. Yes, whatever over what I use that my system generates is “credited” against future months. That’s their system rather than paying me for it and starting fresh each month. I’m OK with that because if they did pay me for overage and start fresh each month any month I used more than I produced I’d have to pay them. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Good Sunday morning, Moosekind. Yesterday, after the early morning ugliness dissolved, turned out to be spectacular, the nicest day we’ve had so far this year. Temperatures in the 80s, blue sky, sunlight all day, puffs of white cumulus cloud dancing across the blue—it was a great day for a walk.
I took my walk just before lunch and as I passed the clubhouse, I smelled hamburgers grilling. I immediately conceived a craving. When I came back to our flat, Dearly and I briefly discussed jumping into the car and heading for Burger King up the road. I could’ve got a vegan Impossible burger with shared fries and Dearly could have got the real thing. We finally decided that neither a hamburger nor a haircut was worth dying for.
However, if the lockdown ever lifts, you just watch out! Two gnarly-haired old zombies are going to break loose and par-tay!
Anyway, we’re back to gray, cool, and depressing, weather-wise. The low was 58 F., the high will be 74 F. Currently it’s 61 F. This evening might be a good evening to finally make that apple pasty with the tasteless Golden Delicious apples the food people have given us. I can always use some of the more flavorful Fuji with it.
I’ve got a loaf of bread rising on the oven (thank Goddess for Ready Dough frozen bread dough), so we can have bread for the week.
Many Sunday chores have been done: I still have to make lunch, though, write some people, and finish reading the paper. Wishing a nice, restful Sunday to all.
Good morning, 55 and partly sunny in Bellingham. We ordered a pick up dinner from a restaurant on the waterfront and drove to a park where we could see the water and eat in the comfort of the car. Then we put on our masks and joined our son and his family for photos of Emma in her prom dress and cap and gown. It was chilly but fun…..even the small dogs were wearing prom attire :) I know Emma is missing sharing the end of her senior year with her school friends, but the family moments are creating lovely smiles.
More mask sewing for me today and tonight we’ll barbecue ribs at our son’s house. He picks up the keys for the new rental house tomorrow so ready or not he’s moving. He much prefers the house he’s renting now but owners have plans to remodel it and move into it themselves so he has no choice. He has been moving tools to his shop, packing and sorting books, and generally preparing, but he’s a collector so there’s a lot to go through. Fortunately it’s a short distance from the old house to the new so some things can be just put into cars and no time consuming packing and unpacking will have to happen. And he has hired movers for the furniture, but a move is still a move and we’ll be glad to have it over.
Best wishes to all on this quiet Sunday morning.
Good morning, meeses! Monday of a holiday weekend that doesn’t feel holiday-ish …
It is 68 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 84. Possibility of thunderstorms. Yesterday we got into the mid-80s and needed to turn on the air conditioning in the afternoon. We will probably turn it on earlier than that so the house does not have a chance to heat up. We were just running the furnace a few days ago – I would have preferred that we have a break between heating and cooling – where nice breezes can come through the house – but not this year! I am glad to have the a/c – I am not sure what people whose break from the heat used to be to head to the malls (which are now shuttered or restricted).
Dane County and Madison “open” tomorrow. Most of the rest of Wisconsin opened last week and the Wisconsin Dells water parks were open for business. The photos were sad, though; hardly anyone there and you wonder how long they can afford to run with 10% of their customers. That is not by choice, they planned for 25% capacity, but people don’t want to go where they might get infected. It was not “Tony Evers destroyed the economy” but “Trump’s incompetent management of the pandemic destroyed the economy.” As I have said before, you can’t make people go out when/where they don’t feel safe. The horrifying photos from the Lake of the Ozarks and Ocean City MD and Daytona Beach won’t make people feel any safer. That is a small subset of the population – most people did NOT go out and blow COVIDs on each other – but they will be the enduring image of an America impatient and selfishly endangering those at risk.
It is interesting how the Trump campaign is using women from racist Southern states as surrogates to blast Joe Biden for his “you ain’t black” comment. Nikki Haley and Marsha Blackburn scolding Democrats for being racist? I cannot image how that would inspire black voters to vote for trump. Our old friend “ReeseTheOne” thinks it will flip black male voters back to the Republican Party. Yikes! I hope he is wrong. There was an inkling of it in Georgia in 2018 when a large number preferred Kemp over Abrams.
After reading about the Great Clips hair salon franchise in Springfield MO letting haircutters work while they were sick and possibly infecting 140 customers, I have decided to love my DIY haircut for a while longer. My hairdresser works as an employee for a full-service salon with a national footprint who will not want to open without major safeguards in place. I can wait.
See all y’all later!
Memorial Day Monday Meese
54 going up to 72 here in the NY Catskills
Good Monday morning, Moosekind! It’s another gray, ugly, cloudy day with no rain, but at least it’s warmish. At the moment it’s 62 F. in Ashburn, on its way up to 78 F. We’re apparently in for another ugly week of cloudiness and possible thunderstorms. This gets old rill fast, as bfitz knows.
Not much to say this morning. Allergies. Five-thirty wakeup. But—the regular newspaper people were allowed back in today, so our paper was there at five-thirty! Iss gut thing, ja. The kids were doing a decent job of getting the paper to us around 7 a.m., but the problem is that we oldsters are awake long before that.
Today’s plans include getting as much done as possible while I still have the energy. After lunch, it’s all downhill at our house.
Wishing a good, although weird, holiday to all.
Big thunderstorms overnight, and more coming. Today’s exercise will be a standing abs workout I found. It’s 15 minutes, so I’ll probably do it a couple of times. Tomorrow morning I’ll walk. For now, I’m eating breakfast & watching the Harry Potter marathon.
It’s 65 heading for 78 and while the sun is shining at the moment I doubt the PV guy is going to chance it lasting long enough to reinstall my PV system. He’s not here anyway. I will be soooooo glad when this is wrapped up. Aside from needing my PV system back generating electricity, Freddy, one of the twins, pisses all over the place when he’s upset – and he was very upset at having roofers working overhead. I haven’t managed to find it all, I know it’s there – I can smell it, and I’m out of Nature’s Miracle. (When I figure out where it is I’m going to try baking soda with a vinegar rinse.)
When I was a kid, Memorial Day was the last Sunday in May and the only “special” thing, besides visiting military cemeteries if you had a family member in one, was the Indiana 500. Making it a “Monday holiday” and sales extravaganza has never felt right to me. At this point in my life I’m not sure the cause is just (actually pretty sure most of them aren’t), but the service and sacrifice are as worthy of honor as if it were. I think. The Dream that is America is worthy even if the reality has a long, long, long way to go.
Channeling Healing/Helping Energy to everybody, to your shaping. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
It was the oil industry that got all the holidays (except Christmas, Thanksgiving, and July 4) changed to Mondays. They wanted people to take to the road.
Dam’ fossil fools.
The Retailers’ Association (or whatever they’re called) had a big hand in it too. {{{HUGS}}}
My annual Black Memorial Day post is up
Good morning, 54 and raining in Bellingham. One of my better childhood memories is of going with my Aunt Mary to decorate family graves on Memorial Day. We would collect grass clippings and rose petals from various gardens and following her precise instructions the grave sites would become small gardens. That cemetery is still in use and many of my relatives are buried there, including my father’s brother who died in WW11.
My mother’s parents lived on a very remote Nevada ranch and the private cemetery was an easy walk from the main house so we would go their most evenings after supper to “tend the graves.” Two of their sons died in WW11 and as a child I had no concept of the grief they were living with. For me it just the way we ended our day, tending a lovely garden spot in the Nevada hills.
The Nevada I grew up in was sparsely populated so the photos and history I find online are often about my long ago family. I’ve been reading and reflecting this morning, thankful so much history is available to me. I met RonK while in college, and our family life is centered in Wa. State, making my Nevada childhood seem long ago and far away.
Time to start my real life day. Best wishes to all on this rainy Memorial Day morning.
{{{princesspat}}} With my family, it really is long ago and far away. The only members of my family I ever actually knew who were on active duty during WWII came home. (If Daddy hadn’t I wouldn’t be here. LOL) Great uncles I never met were in Korea – and came home. My ex came home from Vietnam. If anybody in my more or less direct line back died while serving, it’s prior to WWI and I haven’t a clue. Even if my family’d stayed put in the same state from generation to generation, which we didn’t, we never had graves to tend so it never registered emotionally what this day is about. Once I got grown up, it registers mentally – but I still don’t have a personal connection to the day. I hope your “real life day” goes well. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, meeses! Tuesday that feels like a Monday …
It is 64 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 82. The heat index will be 86 and there is a chance of thunderstorms. In one week we went from “wind chill” to “heat index” – boo, hiss! I want a string of nice 72 degree sunny days.
I am still trying to understand the whole “let’s reopen and take our chances” thing. First, why are restaurant and bar owners so antsy to reopen – how long can they run if they or their staff get sick and have to stay home? How well can they do at 25% or even 50% capacity? Do they really expect people to flock to their establishments when the virus is still out there and still making people sick and killing them? The people swarming to the resorts and beaches are a small subset of the people – it is like seeing a tRump rally and saying “wow, everyone in [insert name of red state locale] really loves Trump!” It looks big because it is on every media outlet. Will the unfettered movement cause a spike in cases – of course it will but one thing I can say with 90% certainty is that it will NOT make people long to be part of the unsanitary hordes. If anything, Memorial Day weekend and the coverage will make people hunker down even more. It is not just the 100,000 people dead – almost 2 million people have gotten sick, some very very sick and sick in ways that will leave permanent damage. Few people want to die but no one wants to get sick in a country that has no paid sick leave and no universal health care. The next few weeks will be interesting – I think that by the beginning of July the contours of how the pandemic will play out for the rest of the year will be coming into focus. One wonders if black NBA, MLB and NFL players want to suit up and expose themselves to a virus that seems to target them just because the rich white guys running the sports franchises think they should.
I have declared this short week “catch up week” and will organize summer projects and develop a schedule that I will stay with. Hey, it could happen!! Unlikely but worth a try. :)
See all y’all later!
Tuesday Meese. 61 here in the NY Catskills going up to ….86!!!! Yikes.
On Karen-ing
Puerto Rico
Good Tuesday morning, Meese, and guess what, it’s gorgeous outside! We’ve a clear blue sky, increasing sunlight, and it’s already 60 F., going up to 81 F. in Ashburn today. Yesterday, for some mysterious reason known only to the weather goddess, the gloom cleared off after lunch and it turned into a beautiful day. Too bad I was too enervated to go for a proper walk.
On the home front, I’ve decided the new normal for myself is that wretched 5:30 getting-up time, followed by trying to do as much as possible before the Big Collapse after lunch. As the weather grows hotter, I’ll be taking my walk soon after breakfast. I’ve got to water the garden today and at long last repot the lavender and basil.
Was pleased that I actually managed to finish one article and that it’s not as dorky as I thought. Hope to get some work done on the next one too. I just haven’t decided on the angle yet—whether to put the surprise at the beginning or the end, and how to give each subject equal play. Oh, well, I’ll figure it out.
Steven Pearlstein in today’s WaPo talked about a “new normal.” He seems to think we lefties are as radical as hail and oh, why don’t we all try to work together on a bipartisan solution to reopening the economy? Is he drunk, or smokin’ weed? It’s not the left that’s obstructionist, it’s…oh, well, never mind. I have no use for the obtuse. Anyway, I do know it’s going to be a long, long time before I feel safe enough to eat a meal in a restaurant, here at The Home or elsewhere, and a long time before I feel safe enough to enter a store of any kind.
Have to admit, the staff here do their best to cheer us up. Yesterday Dearly opened our door to find two small brown bags on the welcome mat. Each contained an actual small bottle of Coca-Cola, a bag of trail mix, a small American flag, a button, and a little note about Memorial Day. That was nice, because all our American flags are downstairs in the storage unit, which we are not supposed to visit. We will save the Coke for gastrointestinal illness, should that occur. Drinking that stuff for pleasure is something that does not happen with yrs truly.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and I hope everyone is enjoying nice weather.
I got in a 30 minute walk — did 6 bursts of 30 seconds of running. Didn’t really go much further than normal, but it was the first time trying it in several months, and when I was doing the program before, I was on the elliptical machine. It is definitely harder to run out in the world. Anyway, I’ve got to get to work.
It’s 65 heading for 72 and damp. Didn’t stop drizzling until 8:30 although it was supposed to have stopped by 6:30. The PV guy called at 7:30 and we’re going to chance it. He said he’d be out as soon as he finished another “errand”. He’s planning on installing one panel at a time instead of putting in all the mounting racks then hanging all the panels. The latter is easier but the former is safer with the kind of weather we’re having. It will also make the reconfiguration easier. With as cloudy a year as we’re having, the system needs all the sunlight it can get. That means the panels need to be as far west on the roof as possible. I’m hoping for 2 rows of 6 west of the HVAC/hot water heater vent but there may only be room for 2 rows of 5. The other 4 or 6, depending, will go east of the vent. Whether or not in 2 rows I’ll have to discuss with him. That part of the roof is shallower because it covers the porch and the roof angle is already not at optimum for this latitude.
The money/paperwork part of dealing with the roof is still in process. (The PV guy will get the other half of his money when the system is up and online but that’s simply a personal check from me. I set aside the PV part off the top of what the insurance company sent as “front money”.) I will be so glad when this is over and done with. Then I start getting my finances back in order. Such as they are. Oh for a spare 20 grand! Not that it would get anybody out of the holes they’re in but it would help. Definitely that would cover Aji’s taxes and north-field well drilling and keep Amelia housed for about 5 months – with grocery and dogfood money left over for Fineena and Bobby (& some other folks as well).
I’m about to find out if my clothes will dry inside without a fire because it’s too warm to have one. Unless of course I want to breathe smoke all day. (When it’s warmer outside than inside the chimney doesn’t draw, it does the “back draft” thing.) We shall see what we shall see. So. Hang up clothes on the racks. Get more coffee. And always Channel Healing/Helping Energy to everybody everywhere (including an Aussie hospital where Mopshell currently is), to your shaping. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 52 and mostly cloudy in Bellingham. Our son got the keys to his new rental yesterday and I’m feeling much better about his move. When first we looked at the house the renters were in the moving process an it was really a mess. Looks much better empty! It’s not clean and needs some repairs but the owner told our son to make a list of what needs to be done and she will pay him to do the work. Given the tight rental market here he had to make a quick decision and just sign the lease so it’s good to know he won’t be doing the cleaning and repairs on his own dime.
I finished sewing masks for a friend yesterday and have four more to do for my BIL and then I’m done, yay! His are cut and pinned together so it won’t take to long. Covid cases are increasing in Eastern Wa. and in New Mexico so I hope to have them in the mail tomorrow.
Best wishes to all.