Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: January 3rd, 2021

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.

COUNTING DOWN THE TIME UNTIL DECENCY RETURNS …

32 Comments

  1. Good morning, Meese! It’s 38 F. and mizzling in Ashburn. That is, the pavements look wet but you can’t see anything actually descending. You can feel the moistness in the air, however, and notice the sheen on your coat. Won’t get much higher today.

    Nothing much to say that except that the $600 is in my bank and I’ve already started distributing. My beautiful niece in Kent sent me a photo of the flowers that were delivered yesterday. I sent them on behalf of the American branch of the family. The U.K. is now under a Tier 4 lockdown, so even if a funeral had been planned, they couldn’t go through with it. Sister-in-law was an atheist, so probably a cremation and memorial service would have been the order of the day.

    I’m due for a lab test Friday morning which means waking up to no water, no tea, no breakfast. I’ll be cross as hail until I get home and start injecting tea into my veins.

    Sad to say I’m accomplishing absolutely nothing. Have an afternoon meeting at 3 on Thursday. A fellow Communications Committee wants to interview me so I’ll have to set a morning date for that. Perhaps Thursday morning. Afternoon is my nap time. Will have to check the week’s weather because the interview will have to be conducted out of doors.

    Will be watching the Georgia election results with interest, and of course tomorrow will be watching the Death Channel (CNN) from time to time to see if riots are happening in downtown DC. The WaPo reported that a snowstorm in Wisconsin in the 1850s is related as to how the Electoral College conducts its count.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!

  2. I know why they do senior/restricted/hours when the store opens up – they’ve done their “super clean” after closing the previous night and don’t want to run everybody out while they do it again – but I wish somebody had senior hours all day one day a week instead of early multiple days a week. Because being out in 28-degree weather causes/d a Raynaud’s flare. My hands are not working well. Everything I do online today will be slow and difficult. Plus maddening and sometimes painful. sigh

    Anyway, we started the day at 25, are at 44 now, and heading for 60. Sunny at the moment although clouds are forecast for later in the day. I just hope a lot later in the day. Yesterday we got 7.2 KWHs and the m-t-d is right at 20. Slowly catching up – until the next cloudy day slips us back again.

    We’re getting close on meeting the match for JoanMar’s fundraiser. Meeting the match gets her to the halfway point and gives her some breathing room. Holding the Good Thought.

    Also Holding the Good Thought for my best friend and her family. Her sister went to her husband’s family for Xmas dinner. Everybody was supposed to have been quarantining for the event. Nope. She found out at the dinner table. Started wearing a mask even at home from that point and got tested. Test finally came back Saturday. She’s positive. That’s 8 days out from the contact she found out she was positive. My friend and her sisters are rotating taking care of their father (who has lots of health issues). My friend’s husband is just a couple of weeks out from optic nerve surgery (connected with his diabetes). So everybody’s been wearing masks even at home and everybody’s getting tested as soon as they can. sigh.

    Off to get more coffee and do what I can manage on twitler. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  3. Good morning, 48, wind and rain in Bellingham. I wasted time yesterday trying to find a wind/rain shelter solution for our patio yesterday, then woke up in the night to worry some more. It’s been 12 days since our outdoor Christmas and no one is sick, whew! So now I want to find an easier way be together outside. I don’t want to build a permanent structure, but most of the popup tents I’ve looked aren’t meant for the PNW wind and rain. I think covid confinment is getting to me, but oh well.

    Best wishes to all.

    • They are the single most confusing “movement” in recent memory. It is like the most damaged individuals in our society found each other on a web site and bonded over their shared lack of any connection to reality.

      I’m glad this guy is in custody. I suspect that the jail cells in DC are going to be overflowing with his mentally unbalanced pals.

  4. Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …

    It is 19 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 32. Foggy patches.

    The Kenosha County District Attorney declined to charge the police officer who fired 7 shots into Jacob Blake’s back at close range. No excessive force there! If that is indeed what the law calls for, we need better laws … and better cops. I hope that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights investigation can’t be shut down before Joe Biden’s Attorney General takes over. The shooting was clearly racially motivated – a Black man refusing the orders of the white officer enraged him and led him to shoot 7 bullets into him because he does not value Black lives and our society has given him permission to kill if he is afraid. I have lost quite a bit of respect for Nobel Wray, the black former Madison Police Chief, who they brought in to help whitewash this travesty.

    Well, well, well. Georgia appears to have done it. I will rest easier knowing that Joe Biden can assemble the team he wants and does not have to compromise on his choices in order to get his cabinet confirmed. And can begin appointing young, smart, principled people to the federal bench, knowing that a screeching Lindsey Graham will not have a veto over their confirmation.

    I need to get a few things done so that I can sit and watch the Electoral College certification ceremony which is expected to start at 1pm Eastern, 12pm my time. I want to at least see the opening, I understand that it could last for about 14 hours, two hours of debate for each contested state – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. I hope our electeds stay safe – 14 hours spent with the unclean #RepublicanDeathCult members in close quarters sounds dangerous!

    See all y’all later!

    • Jan, is Jacob Blake okay for funds? Was there a GoFundMe for him? I wonder how he’s doing, whether he needs therapy for depression, sufficient funds to live on, and so on.

      It is SO TERRIBLE to be Black in a White Supremacist patriarchy! It’s terrible to be female in just about any society except perhaps the Netherlands and Scandinavia.

      Goddess help us all.

      • I don’t know about any GoFundMe things but he has a very good attorney, Benjamin Crump, who will be handling the civil suits that will surely follow the whitewashing. I hope that Kenosha rethinks their hiring and firing practices after they have their asses sued – the cop who had no clue how to apprehend Jacob Blake and who got pissed and tried to kill him, should be fired. If he is so scared that he needs to fire 7 shots into the back of someone resisting arrest, he has no business being in law enforcement.

  5. Good morning. I logged off work at noon yesterday. Even took an afternoon nap. The cedar pollen should be washed out by expected thunderstorms today, and I think I’m feeling better (hard to tell before breakfast and tea kick in). Watching the news & Star Trek, trying to not flip to national news too often.

    • {{{anotherdemocrat}}} Here’s to cedar pollen being washed away. Healing Energy & moar {{{HUGS}}}

  6. Well, after three lovely sunny if cold days (yesterday we generated 7 KWHs & brought the m-t-d to 26.6) we’re back to clouds and rain. The PV system is on but that’s about all I can say for it. Not helping my hands any although they are in better shape than they were yesterday. It’s gonna be a slow on the keyboard, slower with the mouse day. But safe, warm, indoors, & connected is good.

    We made the match for JoanMar. She’s a little over halfway to the goal now. Aji’s last update said $4884 to get her out of late-fee bill-collector hell. Well, Aji didn’t put it that way. But I do. This blasted country of ours is based on bad people making money by putting good people through hell. And Hillary was right – we’re not changing any hearts. But we can change policy and allocation of funds. How much we can change them, how many people we can save, dunno. But we can help JoanMar right now. And others as we find time or funds.

    I take it we won GA. That’s too much of a “thank you” from me to jump up and down type celebrate. We have a chance. Whether or not we’ll make it, we shall see. But we have a chance. In another 14 days we’ll have the helm of the Ship of State. At this point we don’t know if we’re taking over on the Titanic or can actually keep the ship afloat and head her for port. I’m really hoping we’re able to stay afloat and not overseeing trying to save lives before the ship goes down. Considering the Rs are doing their damnedest to keep blowing holes in the ship (with the help of the LWs) who knows. But we can try.

    I’m gonna gamble tomorrow – not do senior shopping hour – and hope 2 pm is as quiet in the store as “normal”. Because I need to restock my supplements but I am not courting another severe Raynaud’s flare. For today, rest the hands as best I can. (yeah, right) Find what I did with my wrist brace/bandages and see if that helps. And keep on keepin’ on. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  7. Good morning, 46 and cloudy in Bellingham, but with the victory in Georgia it feels like a bright new day! I stayed up way to late watching the count last night but I finally went to sleep with a bye bye mitch smile. I know he and tRump are not gone yet but power is shifting…..and for today, tRump angst is easing.

    I need to tend to my desk this morning, and then I hope to resume sewing the old needlepoint pillow covers I started last year. Best wishes to all.

  8. Good afternoon, Moosekind! It has just been announced that President Biden will nominate Merrick Garland as Attorney General. Excellent! Even the repulsive Rethugs should be happy about this because apparently Garland is by no means radical (certainly not as radical as any of the Rethugs).

    Not much to say today except that it’s gray, ugly, and 41 F. in Ashburn. Poor Dearly accidentally bought two vegan hamburgers instead of one. He has learned his lesson, although he admitted that it wasn’t bad.

    Our feelings were hurting last night when we turned off the telly because the Baddies were ahead. The Good People had been ahead for most of the evening. However, we woke up this morning to much happier news.

    Perhaps our nerves will stop quivering now. See you tomorrow!

    • Reading your comment made think about how chaotic the tRump years have been – that your report from 12:30pm would be completely overtaken with news of another tRump transgression, one that threatens our democracy and led to death and mayhem, tells you all you need to know. What should have been a joyous celebration for the people of Georgia and America was delayed to deal with the latest acts of violence by the MAGAts.

      No, our nerves won’t stop quivering but having the Senate (especially after watching the awful Senate Republicans last night on my TV – I despise them) puts the penultimate piece in place. Now we wait for the inauguration.

  9. Good morning, meeses! Thursday …

    It is 23 degrees in Madison with and expected daytime high of 32. Cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    The two local papers I subscribe to – the right-wing rag in Madison and the daily paper in Milwaukee – could not have had more different takes. The Milwaukee paper headline was “Insurrection” and the sub-heads talked about tRump inciting his supporters to riot. The Madison paper simply said “Capitol Siege” as if it were something that just happened on its own; the sub-heads called the mob “protestors” in a boys-will-be-boys kind of way – also poking at the members of the House of Representatives for being afraid for their lives. THIS is why democracy is on life support – too much of the media coddles the trumpers and enables the damaged person in the Oval Office to skate away from responsibility. Thank you, Twitter and Facebook, for suspending tRump’s accounts – now remove every one of the accounts that helped organize the attempted coup. We really REALLY need to change inauguration day – it should be two days after the Electoral College certification not two weeks. To think that there is a madman in the White House with the nuclear codes and control of our military and who will have that power for two more weeks is frightening. If Mike Pence cared about America, he would 25th Amendment Donald Trump today.

    I feel sad for Jon Ossoff whose confirmed win was lost in the reporting from Washington DC (yay, Georgia!!) and for Merrick Garland whose nomination was buried under the firehose of breaking news. Judge Garland will have his work cut out for him – he is going to be judged by how his Justice Department responds to yesterday’s riot and the man who incited it. I hope that the FBI does not charge anyone before the clock runs out on the tRump malAdministration – if the rioters get pardoned for what they did, I will go to Washington DC and riot!!

    I spent yesterday glued to my TV and I am now sadly behind on projects I had hoped to get done before some queued up weekend work. So I better get to it!

    See all y’all later!

  10. Phew. Thursday Meese. I’ve had no sleep.
    Auntie Maxine


    Barbara Lee


    Stacey Plaskett


    Karen Bass

    Lucy McBath

    Sharice Davids


    “Today, violent rioters breached the United States Capitol Building in response to what should have been a ceremonial verification of an election. Enabled and incited by the President, and with intentions to discredit our Democracy, sow fear, and incite violence, these rioters stormed the United States Capitol. This disgraceful mob assaulted Capitol Police officers, vandalized the floor of the United States Senate, attempted to break into the House Chamber in an armed standoff, broke Capitol windows, destroyed property and forced the campus into lockdown. The lives of my colleagues, law enforcement, Congressional staff and even the protesters were put in danger today by this assault on the rule of law,” said Rep. Hayes.

    “These actions are an affront to the American people, to our democracy, and to the sacred nature of our electoral system. While voters have a right to be disappointed at the outcome and even a constitutional right to dispute the results, they have no right to violence or to violate the American tradition of a peaceful transfer of power.

    In my nearly 15 years of teaching American history, I could have never found the words to explain this act of sedition to my students. The damage that this President and these rioters have done to our democracy is incomprehensible. The work of repairing the chasms in our electorate and faith in our republic rests squarely on our shoulders.

    Lauren Underwood


    Ayanna Pressley

  11. Puerto Rico

  12. Good morning, it’s cold but not freezing. There were some protests at the Texas Capitol yesterday and they closed the building & grounds — e-mail from agency HR & director said people working on site should be cautious going home. I’m going in Friday morning, now planning that a little more carefully. Think I’ll just dash in very first thing, pretty much literally throw my done work in the tray, check for new applications & run out — less than 30 minutes in the building, back home by 8. Anyway, today: just work, and logging off at 4 to (maybe) walk.

    • {{{anotherdemocrat}}} – stay safe. The traitors seem to be hitting capitols so most of us are (relatively) OK but you’re at TX’s ground zero. Holding the Good Thought. And a “don’t notice her” spell. moar {{{HUGS}}}

  13. Good Thursday morning, Moosekind! It’s turning into a lovely clear day in Ashburn. When I took Monty out I could see a ragged crescent of waning moon in the night sky. It’s 33 F. on its way up to a high of 44 F.

    We were glued to the TV yesterday. We had planned to go to PetSmart to buy a new winter coat for Monty because he cries when we put his sweater on him. It’s just too difficult to get his little front legs through the holes. There has to be a better garment available. Anyway, we abandoned that plan in short order.

    The Rethugs are despicable. I wish Outgoing could be removed now. I’m pretty sure Pence put it to him that he either pipes down or they’ll use the 25th to remove him. I read a statement that a source close to Outgoing told a reporter that Outgoing has lost his mind. I think he lost it in 2015 when he said he’d run.

    This morning I’m to be interviewed by a fellow member of the Communications Committee so I’d better hop to it. This afternoon there’s a Zoom meeting of the Committee at 3.

    Have been completely irresponsible this whole week, have done nothing in the way of serious work. Well, I’m signing off for now—hope everyone at the Pond will have a good day!

    • We have a pet coat that has a strap under it and fits loosely around the legs so the dog mainly slides into it. I hope you can find something that works. Does PetSmart let you bring your doggie in for a fitting?

      In 2015, when tRump came down the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his candidacy, his intent was to gain publicity to generate enthusiasm for his media plans. Now he will go to prison and die there penniless. That won’t repair the damage he – and the political party who embraced him for tax cuts and anti-abortion judges – has done. It is unlikely that he will have a political future but we need to redouble our efforts to insure that the Republican Party can’t just pivot away from what they have done. Already yesterday I was hearing the NeverTrumper’s on my television arguing with those who say the Republican Party should be burned to the ground – suggesting that a new, less-trumpy Republican Party will be “just fine.” Goddess NO!! There has to be a price to pay this time – the party of Lee Atwater should never hold power in our country again.

  14. It’s 35 going to 40 and drizzling. We had snow, which is still on my PV panels, but that should be gone by the time we get enough light to actually generate anything. We got less than a KWH yesterday (.8). This is looking like a 180-if-we’re-lucky month. sigh.

    Well, we had our Putsch yesterday with remnants still ongoing. Of the few times I got on my TL I saw people saying that. “It’s the Putsch” with a lot of “we told you” added in. Yes, it was. And yes, quite a few people said there would be one. Yes, this is bad. This is dangerous and I’m worried about folks getting hurt. I am not worried about twitler taking over and staying in office. History people, history. Hitler’s Putsch was short, violent, and didn’t work. But Germany did not address any of either the conditions that made Nazis popular or the system that allowed their propaganda to keep being spewed. Hitler spent a short time in jail. A whole lot less time than originally assigned. And used that time to write Mein Kampf while the rest of the Nazis were continuing building their political machine. It was not a full 10 years from the putsch until he was named Chancellor after a number of Nazi party political wins. He didn’t take over by violent overthrow. He became Chancellor and dictator legally through the political system existing in Germany at the time. We’ve just had our Putsch. Now we either dismantle their propaganda machine and organizing capability or there will be a legally-installed dictator here in 10 years or less. (Which is why McConnell and the real R party heads are not supporting the putsch. They want that legal pathway kept in tact.)

    So. We won GA. We’ll set the agenda and pass whatever can be gotten through on a 50-50 MVP decider vote. We’ll do what we can to deal with pandemic and depression which we’re in even if not technically. We will have the helm. We will have some time. We will see if we can do enough in that time. But we do have the time. So that is hope to hold onto. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  15. Good morning, 37 and cloudy in Bellingham. Yesterday was upsetting and exhausting, last night was long and restless, so no surprise that I feel awful this morning. I’m going to do the desk tasks that didn’t get done yesterday and then read book #3 in The Chronicles of St Mary’s series. Historical mayhem is a fictional setting is a needed escape from reality!
    Best wishes to all.

  16. Good morning, meeses! Friday …

    It is 27 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 28. Cloudy skies are in the forecast with fog this morning and fog tonight.

    I have been trying to figure out what happened to Capitol security and I think I understand it now. I am not going to go with the conspiracy theories that suggest that the MAGAt-looking chief of the Capitol Police was in on the coup but it is clear that he was blinded by his belief that white protestors will always be well-behaved and that he needed no special security precautions when thousands gathered for their white supremacist rally. Someone said that he treated them like picnickers from a high school in Terra Haute who arrived for a visit to the Capitol. That his officers calmly let them into the Capitol area – a move that resulted in the murder of one of their own – will be a permanent blemish on his record. I hope that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer find someone to take over who is willing to root out and fire the white supremacists in that force; they won’t be safe until they clean house.

    Excellent Justice Department roll-out by the Biden-Harris transition. I don’t know much about the deputy AG designate but Vanita Gupta was a DOJ rock star in the Obama Justice Department and she and Kristen Clarke are both brilliant and dedicated. What a refreshing change it will be from the Sessions-Barr years.

    The rats are fleeing the sinking ship. My guess is that the Chou and DeVos resignations are either because Pence refused to take their counsel to 25th Amendment tRump to get him out of the Oval Office until Biden could take over OR that they did not want to have to make that decision to the detriment of their political careers and their attendance at right-wing cocktail parties. I will attribute no nobility to their decisions – they knew tRump was a disgusting pile of human excrement and spent their time in office fluffing him up to further their hateful causes.

    It’s Friday! I have a short list that I have to get to. I spotted a few articles about donors and former supporters turning on Josh Hawley and saved them in browser tabs and will feast on the Schadenfreude after I finish my work.

    See all y’all later!

  17. Friday Meese. 23 here in Kingston NY going up to 37.
    I really am numb after watching the Capitol Police pretty much invite the terrorists in – and saddened for those who were injured and died doing what they were supposed to do.

      • Fascist-owned media will soon direct them to a new Dear Leader. Part of whose schtick will be revenge for the “insults” to their old Dear Leader. We have got to dismantle the propaganda machine & disrupt their communications.

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