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 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.
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COUNTING DOWN THE TIME UNTIL DECENCY RETURNS …
Wednesday Meese. 27 going up to 38 here in Kingston NY. The snowstorm put a big crimp in my plans – have to head out today to see what I can find in the store for Xmas gift for the hubby.
Puerto Rico – I’ve been using my daily Puerto Rico tweet to ask questions of those who follow my Twitter – not a scientific survey, however the results are interesting. My readers/followers who I also follow are politically aware, Democrats or leftists – and are diverse in race/ethnicity/gender/age/sexual orientation
Yesterday I asked this
I got 186 answers – which is small (quantitatively) but excellent for a qualitative probe
Overwhelmingly, most respondents said they learned little or nothing about Puerto Rico in school – those who did, explained where and why
Today, I decided to ask another question – will see how the results go
I knew about testing the birth control pill, Enovid, and the Depo-Provera shot on Puerto Rican women, but not about La Operacion. Shameful!
Warm morning — 60s already, high around 77 but a cold front is coming tomorrow & it’ll go back to the 40s. I’m getting groceries delivered this morning, it’s $10 extra including the tip but I was reading about how some clusters have been traced to stores, and last weekend, I saw too many Covid Larrys (that’s what I call them) with their noses hanging out of their masks. So my treat for the 25th of veggie buffalo bites and some mushrooms to add to my mushroom risotto will be here soon. Working till 4 today then I’m going to take a walk, I swear I will.
{{{anotherdemocrat}}} Definitely better to be safe and have them delivered. Here normal shopping hours are not safe but the special “senior shopping” which is also for pregnant women and folks with disabilities hours are mostly OK. Good luck getting your walk in. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Yesterday our “senior hours” were overrun by youngs who either don’t care and wanted to get holiday shopping done or can’t read. At least they were masked but they were definitely not as careful about following the aisle directional arrows as the seniors who normally shop at that time.
I know every generation says this about the younger generation – but really, this lot is so self-centered! They not only want what they want when they want it, but somebody’s supposed to provide it for them – and they don’t care who gets hurt in the process of them getting it. Seriously an “entitlement” generation. I wish…I don’t know what I wish because I don’t know what to wish. But I stay out of stores on principle this close to holidays.
Good morning, Moosekind! Just as I was sitting down to post here, M’Daughter in Texas called so we were on the phone for an hour and a half. I’ve met some marathon talkers in my life, but none equal M’Daughter. She talks without pausing for breath. Well, I love her anyway and we haven’t talked for a while, and I’m not in any particular hurry today, so that’s OK.
We have partly cloudy skies this morning in Ashburn and our current temp. is 31 F., on its way up to 48 F. From our bedroom window I can see two still, shining pools of water in the greyish-brown, leafless woods. I like winter because you can see such a lot, like the squirrels’ nests in the trees. We haven’t seen any wildlife lately, though.
Because of Daughter’s call, we’re running far behind schedule this morning and Monty is impatient for his walk. Daughter is at a beach near Corpus Christi. Younger Son is on his way to North Carolina.Elder Son and family will be going away Monday through Wednesday to a nearby resort, probably Wintergreen. They go there a lot.
There’s nothing on the agenda today except tidying up a bit and wrapping two presents for Dearly. Have a couple of books to read. It’s really nice not to have much to do!
Wishing a nice, quiet day to all at the Pond.
Lousy night but then slept in until almost 9. It’s 59 and overcast at the moment but a front is blowing through and in about 2 hours the temps will drop and the sky will clear. Yesterday was nice. We got 6.7 KWHs and are at 104 for the m-t-d. (Well, sort of nice – very windy and the guy down the street was burning stuff again. Fortunately most of it wasn’t blown towards me. The little that was though was bad enough.)
Rash is still bothering me. I can’t wear anything on my forearms or hands. My hands are cold – hello Raynaud’s – and my fingers don’t want to work. Especially the one that does the mouse clicks. sigh. But I’ll do what I can to boost stuff on twitter. And not do anything else requiring mouse clicks. It’s hard waiting out the last few weeks of dangerous screaming temper tantrum twitler is throwing. But Joe is putting together a team that will repair as much of the damage as is humanly possible. (I wish our team would quit insisting he give his plans to the enemy! STFU about immigration and kids in cages. Telling twitler & ICE what he means to do is like sending Hitler the plans for Overload. You effers really want the panzers waiting when we get there? You really want dead babies to bury instead of live children to rescue?)
Anyway, off to do what I can to boost where I can. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 29 and the fog is nearly gone. I can see a bit of blue sky so looks like our rain, snow or shine outdoor Christmas Eve will happen as planned. Our son will help me put the fire pit, seating and umbrellas in place today and I’ll get as much food prep does as I can and try to stay rested enough to enjoy some family time together tomorrow.
Best wishes to all.
Good morning, meeses! Thursday …
It is 14 degrees in Madison (feels like 0) and that is also the expected daytime high. The weather widget says it is snowing but I am sitting in the dark quiet of my office so I don’t know! Tonight the overnight low will be 1 degree with wind chills of 18 below.
Today is a work day, or at least a work morning. I will work on a few projects and then break mid-morning for our delayed Solstice celebration. It is not much different from years past – we have not traveled for the Christmas holidays for a very long time; it is a difficult time of the year to travel and I really don’t like crowds.
I hope Joe and Kamala and the team they are assembling can repair the damage being done because of the Republican cowardice in not removing their impeached president. When you impeach and remove, you don’t have to watch helplessly as a mentally unbalanced crime boss destroys the government on his way out the door. In a just world, that would be a lesson to be learned – in our world of stupid, it will be forgotten by the next election.
See all y’all later!
Thursday Meese. 35 degrees and it will rain all day here in Kingston NY, going up to 54.
Puerto Rico
Thank you for your work keeping Puerto Rico front and center! I can’t help but believe that having people like Dr. Miguel Cardona in the Biden Administration sharing his story and being the face of the Department of Education will make Puerto Rico not just an afterthought. There will be good and caring people in government again and they will look like America, not like the members of Donald Trump’s golf clubs.
Remarks by Dr. Cardona are here.
Brrrr! 35 in Austin — yesterday I wore sandals & capris. Today’s plan: go buy some more of that chocolate cherry bread, Christmas Eve church, and I really swear I’m going for that walk — after it warms up some.
It’s cold. Air temp’s 20 but the windchill is 9. Partly cloudy and a whole lot windy is what I’m looking at for today. None of this makes joints or hands feel good. We generated 6.7 KWHs yesterday – 108 is the m-t-d – and reached the 4 Megawatt Hour mark for the year. So while it’s not being a particularly good month and wasn’t a particularly good year, we’ve still reached the marker that says I’ve generated enough electricity to cover what I use at home plus another 10% “tithe” that someone else in the SWEPCO system used. (Yes, I know SWEPCO got paid for it, call it a gift to them or theft from them, doesn’t matter. Somebody used green energy my system produced instead of the coal-fire SWEPCO plant energy.) So as with everything else, we may not be ending the year on a good note by any stretch of the imagination but we are ending it on a “we made it” note.
There are those who think impeaching twitler without any chance of removing him from office was worse than a waste of time. That it encouraged him to do even more evil than he was going to anyway. For a while, prior to us doing it, I was of that mine myself. But there comes a point where folks who believe in rule of law have to do something to show that, even knowing it’s not going to help and will probably make them more/worse enemies. If your only power is to arrest/indict/impeach even if you know the crooked judge & jury will throw it out, you have to use that power. So that’s what we did. Yes, they laughed at us – are still laughing at us – but we did our duty.
Days are sort of blurring into each other. I suppose it doesn’t matter that much. The only reason I really need to know what day we’re on is to be sure I don’t miss the “senior shopping” hours on stores who only do that once a week. LOL. Anyway – it’s Christmas Eve, may a little good sneak in while the commercializers aren’t looking. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 26 and clear in Bellingham with temps in the 40’s this afternoon. Patches of snow are lingering, but with no wind or rain we should have a nice outdoor Christmas lunch. Washing the patio furniture and getting the umbrellas in place “just in case” yesterday seemed strange but this whole Covid year has felt off, so Merry Christmas regardless!
Take care everyone, may you all enjoy a Christmas moment.
Good Thursday morning, Meese! Gray and raining here in Ashburn. With a current temp. of 46 F. on its way up to 60 F. and cloudy skies, today is a good day to stay IN.
Didn’t wake up until 7 a.m. so have been off-schedule all morning. At least I’m washed and dressed by now and the bed has been made. It’s nearly noon.
The flowers I sent to my friend yesterday finally reached her in her hospital room this morning. The first ones I sent are dead, of course, but I wanted her to have a bit of Christmas cheer in her hospital room. I can’t think why her son never thinks of sending her flowers. Women like them and flowers show people that you care. I sent some to a male cousin who was recovering from a rather dicey operation. A friend who responded to my wondering whether men even like receiving flowers advised me that my male cousin has a WIFE and that she would be appreciative! And she was. Even took a pic of them and posted it on Facebook.
Will attempt to tidy this place a bit. Last night we watched “Love, Actually” on a regular TV channel. BIG mistake. They chopped it up so much with commercials that if we hadn’t fast-forwarded through them it would have taken three hours. Next Christmas we’ll watch it on Netflix and I’ll leave the room when they get to the porn bits. It’s not that I object to sex, far from it, but I don’t like watching it.
Tonight we’ll watch “A Christmas Story” for the millionth time and laugh at all the funny bits for the millionth time. I never even knew about it until my children told me about it.
Not much to say except that two of my family, one here and one in N’Awlins are going to cook roast beef in Yorkshire for Christmas dinner. They used to love to come to our house for Christmas dinner in the old days.
Wishing all a nice, quiet, happy day with no bad news from anywhere.
it.
Good morning, meeses! Friday that will seem like a Saturday …
It is 7 degrees in Madison (feels like -9) with an expected daytime high of 18. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
It is beyond frustrating that the headlines say “House blocks $2,000 checks” and “Congress refuses to act for COVID relief.” House REPUBLICANS blocked the checks and Senate REPUBLICANS were poised to vote it down even if it had passed the House. And the REPUBLICAN president is the one threatening to veto the bill and shut down the government. I cannot imagine what it would feel like to know that life-sustaining unemployment checks will end tomorrow and that the eviction moratorium will be lifted in 6 days. I thank the goddess that my family is fortunate enough to not have our future tied into the parts of the economy that took such a huge hit during the pandemic. I am not sure what next year will bring but as long as it includes widespread vaccinations, we will likely survive financially.
Merry Christmas to those who celebrate the holiday!
See all y’all later!
Merry Christmas. We have flooding here in Kingston NY. At least the rain is washing away the snow.
Puerto Rico
OMG, hope none of the earthquakes were life-threatening!
Music special
Good morning, and merry Christmas! Cold, but not freezing here. I was going to walk yesterday, but my head started feeling funny – not a headache, just odd. So I’ll try again today, after it warms up. Right now I’m watching Dr. Who & eating breakfast. I’ve got mushroom risotto and veggie “buffalo” bites for dinner. Woohoo!
and Christmas/New Years wishes from my favorite poet – come on, ’21! We hope for better:
Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it – & whatever you celebrate May Your Winter Holidays Bring You Joy.
It’s currently 18 (wind chill 6) but heading for 42 and sunny. Sunny is good. Yesterday we generated 7.5 KWHs and are at 115.8 for the m-t-d. Not entirely sure what I’ll do different today other than eat more of stuff I normally eat anyway. And “toast” the day and my “kith and kin” online and off with a bottle of Q ginger beer. In what used to be normal times I’d have celebrated the Winter Holy Days last Sunday with my family – at least the older son’s and in some years the younger son’s as well. Today would have been just another in the limbo between the solstice and the calendar new year. So not much different.
Good wishes, joy and comfort (& all required to create comfort) to everyone. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 38 and cloudy in Bellingham. Our outdoor Christmas was chilly but very fun…we even opened gifts together, and between the fires and the blankets we stayed warm enough. RonK and I were very weary at days end, but very grateful for family.
Ron had his stitches removed yesterday morning, and when he is healed from this round the surgeon will remove a few more spots that are not yet a danger but could become so. He’s looking better every day and it’s good to know he and his doc have a careful plan.
Our son will be here for breakfast soon and we’ll open a few more gifts and then I’m going to try to relax and read a real book. Best Holiday wishes to all.
Merry Christmas, Yule, and Kwanzaa, Moosekind! It’salready noon, so you can tell it’s a very slow day at our house.
We had cinnamon rolls and coffee for breakfast, this being the one day of the year I allow cinnamon rolls to be consumed. We’re listening to music, having already opened our presents, and we’ve been enjoying the Christmas morning texts-with-pix of the grandchildren.
Just about to pop a Cornish pasty in the oven. We had them last night and Dearly was ecstatic! I have to make the hard sauce for the pudding and chill it, take the beef out to warm to room temperature before roasting it, and roast the parsnips. Christmas is a LOT of work for women, what with card, letters,and cooking, but it’s only once a year. (Thank Goddess.)
In less than a month we’ll have a SANE, intelligent, experienced president and a brilliant, experienced, exciting vice president.
Wishing a happy day to all Meese!
Good morning, meeses! Saturday …
It is 18 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 28. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
The right-wing Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court was bemoaning the “tone of the discourse” in Wisconsin because the conservative justice who has been following the constitution, instead of those who bought and paid for the other conservative justices, has been getting death threats. She created the situation – she and the other justices of her ilk have let the right-wing donors go directly to the Supreme Court for every butthurt they perceive and now that someone has pointed out that it is not supposed to work that way, the deplorable mob that wants to turn Wisconsin into another state where the minority rules is upset. Justice Brian Haggedorn is no liberal but he did earn a real law degree from a real university and doesn’t think that the state constitution is simply a decorative wall hanging for his office. Unfortunately, Wisconsin can’t retire Chief Justice Patience Rogensack until 2023. Maybe she will choose to retire.
We are now within one week of closing the book on 2020. My plan is to gather up EVERYTHING negative and leave it with the old Gregorian calendar on my wall (which I will carefully remove and recycle although the temptation will be to burn it). I am not one to make New Year’s resolutions (it is not really my new year) but I have some adjustments I will make going into the new calendar year, some mental, some physical. I definitely need to figure out a better way to manage my time and organizing projects around emptying my house for an eventual move in 2022.
In the meantime, I have 2020 projects to finish and I best get to them.
See all y’all later!