Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Aug. 30th through Sept. 5th

Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings posts give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.

Welcomings will be posted at the start of each week (usually Saturday night with a Sunday date). To find the posts, just bookmark this link and Voila! (which is Moose for “I found everyone!!”).

The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining (or bragging!) about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or simply checking in.

So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?

NOTE: The comments page will 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 (right before “Leave A Reply”) and use the Pages Tool, shown here with 3 pages of comments available.

37 Comments

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

    Morning low of 54 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 72. Sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

    • Note: I ran out of time and did NOT make any site changes yesterday (Saturday). I will try to gather the information I need to do the cleanup work over the long Labor Day holiday weekend.

      • Whenever you can get to it is a blessing. Thank you. & I hope things do settle down for you to a more comfortable pace. {{{HUGS}}}

  2. Good morning. I watched Black Panther last night, I can’t believe he shot those amazing action sequences while receiving cancer treatment. Now, I’m watching Le Tour and the news. They’re taking super precautions with riders, staff & spectators — crowds are tiny for TdF, almost everyone along the roadside wears masks, at the start/finish they are kept far away. All riders & staff are tested frequently and if two come up positive anywhere in the organization, the team is out. Even so, I doubt the race will go the whole 3 weeks. Today: church them making next week’s overnight oats.

    • Just found out that ABC is showing Black Panther, without commercials, tonight. To be followed by a special about Boseman’s life.

  3. It’s 73 heading for 82 and overcast – we get clouds, we even get thunder, but so far no rain. The grass isn’t even wet with dew much less rain. We did get 13 KWHs yesterday and with the little driblet we’ve done so far this morning the m-t-d is right at 498. So even as cloudy as it is we should get to 500 today. And if it clears off in the afternoon as predicted even more.

    It seems 2020 wants to take all our heroes. That sux. Maybe it’s supposed to be that very hard lesson of “don’t have heroes”. Of being what we admire in others. (In our own way, of course. We can’t be them, that never works and is actually sort of insulting/appropriating if we try to.) But I wish to hell it’d leave the youngsters alone. We Boomers (& older) are getting into the age group that walking on is natural. Of course we miss the ones who do. We mourn them but also rejoice in their lives. But it’s natural. Stop taking the kids. (As in folks my sons’ age or younger.)

    Anxiety and fear building up. A little for myself because if we don’t win in Nov. the Rs will finally get their cherished dream of draining Social Security. If I lock down, stop all giving to anybody for any reason, and rehome some of the cats I might have 6 years of living on money from TIAA-Cref. If I continue the way I live now, maybe 3 years. And I’m really not thrilled about the choices after that. But that’s a maybe I don’t have to face now and hopefully will never face at all. Mostly I’m anxious for my online & offline family – especially the ones who need so much more than I can give. And the looming beginning of every month kicks it into high. Which isn’t helping anybody.

    Aji showed a beautiful pendant yesterday – silver hand holding copper coils, evolution/involution – that has much meaning for Wings’s people, for Aji’s people, and for anybody whose Tradition includes the Spiral Dance by whatever name. To me, my Tradition, it means we hold the Path’s map in our hands and must do the work to follow it. I hope whoever needs this teaching to be wearable, to be a firm and physical reminder, finds it soon. Not just because Aji needs the money although that would be nice. All of Wings’s jewelry is imbued with Spirit, again by whatever name, and carries the lesson beautifully sung for the specific person seeking that path.

    I’ve done most of the Sunday chores. Need to finish the floors. (didn’t have to say that, did I? LOL) I’ll check the internet first. It’s still muggy enough I have to be careful about raising my core temp too much so I’m doing the floors in batches. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  4. Good morning, 53 and partly sunny in Bellingham. To the small dogs dismay I clipped ivy growing around the back entrance rockery and steps yesterday and they had to stay on the porch. Our garden doesn’t have a fence and they are speedy little dogs! When I came back in they were in full lap dog mode so I rested my leg and they rested on me. Their family comes home today.

    I’m going to try to avoid the worry of focusing on the news today…..too much tRump angst. I’ll be relieved when the Biden/Harris campaign becomes more active. Right now it seems tRump’s toxic message is dominating everything.

    Best wishes to all as August comes to a close.

  5. Good afternoon, Meese! The Mother has bestowed a beautiful day on us, a real foretaste of fall. The air is clear, the sky is blue, the humidity low, and the temperature as of 12:09 p.m. is 80 F. The high in Ashburn today will be a whopping 82 F.

    Monty has just finished doing his bonework on the screened porch. It’s so pleasant today that I’m leaving the door open to catch the breezes. After breakfast I hastened to get my walk in., then went for a mani. I weakly consented to a gel mani this time: I’m so sick and tired of my fingernails splitting and tearing right down to the nail bed. But enough about that.

    Not sure why but I feel optimistic and quite happy. This may be due to a decent night’s sleep (thanks, Tylenol PM) and the beautiful day, but I feel that we’re going to win. Dearly, on the other hand, is very pessimistic. We get so much of Thing on TV that he fears the Orange Slimeball will win.

    Feeling so good, in fact, that I may be able to finish pulling the book together today or tomorrow, so i can send it to our bfitz. Got to get this thing out, Christmas is coming! This time I’m going to opt for 25 paperback copies as well as the Kindle version. Guess what everyone will be getting for Yule! (Yuk, yuk.)

    We had a most unsuccessful visit to Younger Son’s house yesterday. It was great to see Mort the White Boxer, but Monty has horrible manners. I wanted to keep the two dogs apart, but Dearly foolishly thought they’d be great buddies. NOT! The snarls and yelps obliged us to separate them again, so as soon as we could clean up after ourselves, we left. Mort’s family arrived a few hours after. Monty dislikes other dogs because he always wants to be the cutest dog and be told how adorable he is. (Snort.)

    One thing we don’t like about our sons’ houses is that they’re really dark and lack normal television, so we can’t see a weather forecast or anything. They have weird channels that have to be accessed through cuneiform on Babylonian-style remotes.

    Well, that’s enough from me today. It’s high time to make lunch and read the paper some more. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!

    • Ha! “They have weird channels that have to be accessed through cuneiform on Babylonian-style remotes.” One of my brothers has something like that also and when I stayed there on a trip in late February, I had him show me the exact sequence to get the weather channels. His was some sort of Internet streaming service and I guess it is nice to be able to jettison cable (I despise it and get my TV over the air – antennae and satellite) but it adds an unnecessary layer of complexity to the question “what will it be like outside today?”

      • …it adds an unnecessary layer of complexity to the question “what will it be like outside today?”

        (Fervently) Yes, it does! Would you believe that when I first bought my Kindle Fire a couple of years ago I had to get my five-year-old grandson to show me where “home” was?

  6. Monday Meese. 51 going up to 75 here in Kingston NY
    Couldn’t post anything here early Sunday morning – glad whatever was glitching me is gone.

    Puerto Rico

    • Sorry you couldn’t get logged in! There should be nothing different about the Sunday morning processing unless the backup ran long;I will look at it. By the time I circled back around to post a note about delaying work on the site (7:30am or so EDT) I had no problems posting.

  7. Good morning, meeses! Monday …

    It is 57 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 77. Scattered thunderstorms are in the forecast for this afternoon. It will usher in a few hot days and the air conditioning will have to go back on after two blissful days breathing outside air.

    tRump is determined to use Kenosha Wisconsin as the backdrop for his campaign ads. The governor, the attorney general and the mayor of Kenosha would prefer he stay away so that the city can start healing but they need the video! He won’t go to Portland or Seattle because those are blue states but he sees an opening to fire up his base here in Wisconsin. I am sure people will be protesting his appearance there and I hope they won’t give him his “glorious” photo op. Maybe a few well placed “Fk you, ahole!” signs and middle fingers on the route from the airport to where ever he is going to meet with the white supremacist Sheriff and chief of police. I don’t know the political affiliation of the mayor, if he had anything to do with hiring and keeping the police chief in place, he has to be a Republican – no Democrat would want an out and proud white supremacist as chief and would have fired his ass after his news conference giving cover to the killer from Illinois. The Kenosha County Sheriff is elected and his attitude reflects that of the exurban and rural areas of the county. If anyone tells you that Kenosha County was going to go blue this fall and that now it won’t because of the protests, they are full of crap. They are trumpers, stoked on hate and blinded by the white. He will be visiting his peeps but expect the lazy media to tout it as his law and order chops turning the city red. My morning newspapers are reporting on the Ron Freaking Johnson CNN interview where he was channeling his boss saying that the armed militia coming to Wisconsin and killing Wisconsinites are “very fine people.” He is not up for re-election until 2022 but I hope Ben Wikler, head of our Democratic Party here, is working to identify a candidate to run against him. And saving video clips.

    I started posting this about an hour ago and then discovered that the update I needed to run for my accounting software required a reboot so I saved off my comment and ran queued Windows updates as well. NOW I have to get back to work.

    See all y’all later!

    • I am tired of people handwringing about the protests…whining that continued protest will make people vote for Trump.

      • They are trolls. The troll meme right now is that everyone needs to back away from Black Lives Matter because it “plays into Trump’s hands.” No. It is shining a white hot light on the white supremacy that is the Republican Party and which he is leveraging to try to win “re”-election. No one wants the violence except the anarchists and their presence at peaceful protests is something that has been a problem pretty much forever. They have never been part of the civil rights movement; they want the chaos to bring down the government much like the berners hope for a tRump win because then people will turn to their dear leader to “save them.”

        Seven Kenosha County supervisors sent a letter to Trump to come to their county – they don’t represent the city itself – to pump up their base. Some of them are in the Assembly District represented by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos who famously said after the 2018 election which elected Tony Evers that the votes in Madison and Milwaukee shouldn’t count because they don’t represent Wisconsin (“If you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula, we would have a clear majority.”) Those are the loving arms that will embrace Trump when he arrives in Kenosha today. They do not represent the majority of Wisconsinites.

  8. Good morning. I moved my walk/run to tomorrow because it is so ridiculously hot — 83 with a heat index of 90. At 6 freaking am when I usually walk. Supposed to be a cold front later this week, but all the lows were around 80. Sigh. Watched Black Panther again last night. I hate 2020. So Steve Scalise’s spokesman says circulating fake videos is “common practice”. I hope some creative people broadcast some faked videos of him.

      • They never show remorse for their awfulness. We will have to settle for knowing that it bothers them A LOT that they are now powerless backbenchers and will only become more powerless after the next election when their boss is turned out of office.

  9. I’ve had an abrupt change/delay in my plans for this morning. It’s raining like mad and there’s no way I’m gonna go get (or they’d load) those firewood bricks in this. The main drawback of the wood bricks is that if they get wet they turn back into the sawdust and other sawmill waste they were made of. It’s supposed to stop raining if not clear off by 11 and if it does I’ll go then. Meanwhile it’s 14-watt-per-hour type dark which bodes ill for much generation today. Yesterday we generated 10 KWHs and the m-t-d is 508 – if things don’t lighten up 510 will be iffy. But anything over 500 is good and we’ve got that. It’s 75 right now heading for 85 with heat index around 90, Which could most certainly be worse for this last day of August.

    Evil ones being evil. Our team working to stop them. Family/friends hanging on. Barely in cases, but hanging on. We “give thanks for the Blessings” and keep going. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  10. Oh, lawks, I just lost my entire comment from moving the cursor up the page!

    OK, will start over, but briefly this time. Good morning, Moosekind, it’s 68 F. in Ashburn at the moment, on its way up to a whopping 71 F. Rain is expected all day, on and off, but hasn’t begun yet. I can bring it on by going for a walk.

    We had a nice, relaxing day yesterday. Today is Laundry and Changing the Sheets Day, so that’s what I’m doing right now. Hope to work on the book so poor bfitz can spend the entire upcoming holiday weekend copy editing!

    OK, that’s enough from me. Wishing a peaceful day to all at the Pond with no bad news.

  11. Good morning, 56 and partly sunny in Bellingham. Maggie and Milo, my grand puppies, went home yesterday. They are sweet little dogs but it’s nice to have clean sheets and a break from being a dog pillow!
    I’ll have a quiet day today. RonK is driving to Maple Valley to be with his brother on his 80th birthday. They will barbeque oysters and ribs, zoom with their brother in Kennewick, share instant pot cooking tips, garden talk, political talk, etc. Thanks to covid confinement we are not hosting a family affair and to be honest that’s a relief to me this summer.

    Best wishes to all as we ease out of August.

  12. Has anyone else heard about “Covid hallucinations”?? Sever replies in this thread refer to them.

  13. Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …

    It is 52 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 72. Sunny skies this morning and a possibility of light rain this afternoon.

    I was glad to see that Joe Biden is going to punch back when tRump and his surrogates lie about him. From Pittsburgh yesterday:

    “We are facing multiple crises — crises that, under Donald Trump, keep multiplying,” Biden said. “COVID, economic devastation, unwarranted police violence, emboldened white nationalists, a reckoning on race, declining faith in a bright American future. The common thread? An incumbent president who makes things worse, not better. An incumbent president who sows chaos rather than providing order.”

    “The simple truth is Donald Trump failed to protect America. So now he’s trying to scare America.”

    I will go looking for a full transcript later and put it up in a post.

    September! There is full moon energy to be grabbed so I am going to go get my share and get some accounting projects done so that the end of quarter does not sneak up on me like it did at the end of June.

    See all y’all later!

    • Sigh. I wonder whether I’ll get to see the full moon tomorrow night. We rarely get to see it in this area, owing to the foggy minds of the Rethugs in Congress. Their collective miasma wafts over the Potomac to taint the atmosphere in Blue Virginia.

  14. Tuesday Meese. 60 degrees here in Kingston NY going up 70. Clouds all day.
    Getting ready to post a rant. Am pissed about all the folks chiming in to tell folks to stop protesting – especially former Tea Party Republicans

    Puerto Rico/USVI

    • Please post the tweet with the rant! The lies that protesting is somehow sinking Biden is concern trolling. The people who say that they were for Biden but are now for Trump because people are protesting against the disregard for the lives of Black people are lying.

  15. Good Tuesday morning, Meese! It’s going to be hideous all day, with a dark, ugly sky hanging over us–but no rain to go with it, of course. The current temp. in Ashburn is 66 F., which is pleasingly cool. For normal people this would be a good morning to sleep in. Our high today will be 80 F. We’ll have mid-80s the rest of the week, but that’s better than 90s.

    Can’t believe it’s September first. The Plague Year advances apace! The race is heating up. Yesterday MomsRising sent 10 postcards for me to write and mail back. They’ll send them out nearer the time. We have to be nonpartisan in our message of two lines or less.

    Dearly wants me to walk the dog today although that task usually falls to him. He wants an uninterrupted morning at his desk. I’m making good progress on putting the book together but had to stop last night to upload a story to my website. Would you believe Facebark rejected my ad? It used the dreaded word “chastity,” as in, “After Centurion Quentin breaks his Mithraist vow of chastity, he…” I rewrote it and now they’re running it, the dirtbags. When I think of the other ads they let through…well!

    Anyway, I’ll keep on keeping on today. Best wishes to all at the Pond!

  16. Another day with heat advisory, this afternoon will feel like 111. But storms overnight & only 90s for the rest of the week. I’ll go back to walking tomorrow, because it won’t feel like 90 at dawn. Currently watching Le Tour. So, there’s now a fake Biden video, and Trump is ranting about “dark shadows”. Great.

  17. It’s 72 heading for 77. It’s also raining. I’m not gonna get my wood bricks today either. It’s very overcast. The PV system is on, barely. Like cranking at 19 watts. Yesterday we got another 10 KWHs and wrapped up August with 508 – not bad at all. The marker year – summer 2015 to summer 2016 – was a very sunny year. This year hasn’t been and this is only the 2nd time we’ve gotten over 500 for August at all. The September target is 459 but anything over 400 is great.

    I’ve got my laundry hanging on racks in the living room. Hopefully it’s not too humid inside for it to dry. And that the 1/2 cup white vinegar I put in the wash water will keep them from souring. Otherwise it’s just another day in quarantine. I’ve got to go to the grocery store, probably tomorrow, as I still haven’t managed to reorganize my shopping lists to not include my son getting fresh produce for me. (Poor guy, he’s practically running the place alone. He should have at least 5 full-time employees or 10 half-time employees and right now he has one. Even the folks who worked for him at the other location bailed on him this first week on campus. As for hiring students like everybody talks about – they have classes. An 18-credit hour load is split up over 5 days a week smack in the middle of exactly when he needs them to work. & nobody has an answer for what to do about it.) I’ll work on that list today and hopefully manage to not have to do grocery shopping again for 2 weeks. But I’ll still have that Tractor Supply multiple runs for the wood bricks as soon as it stops raining. I was hoping tomorrow but the forecast doesn’t look like it. Maybe Friday. I hope not Saturday as they’re really crowded on weekends and I have to go actually in the store for the first run. After that I can call them from around at the loading dock. Oh well. Not exactly a 1st world problem but not exactly not either. (& I wish I could get my hair cut. Maybe call Great Clips and ask what their precautions are…)

    Heading for Dee’s diary. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  18. Good morning, 63 and cloudy in Bellingham. Between laundry and desk chores I had a rare productive day yesterday. I don’t like cleaning old files but the teetering stacks waiting to be filed had to be dealt with and I needed to make room. I could do more but I’ll prolly wait until the stacks pile up again.

    I have a long overdue mammogram scheduled for this afternoon and I’ll be glad to cross that off the list as well. And next week I have the dreaded colonoscopy exam and then I should be done with the onerous list!

    Best wishes to all on this first day of September.

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