Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: January 17th

January 16, 2021 JanF Community 81

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 …

January 20, 2021 Noon ESTCountdown

38 Comments

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

    Morning low of 23 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 28. Isolated flurries are in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. Sunday Meese. 33 going up to 41 here in Kingston NY.
    This is so wonderful

  3. Puerto Rico

  5. Good morning. Had weird dreams last night — was going to a friend’s house but ended up somewhere else. My friend’s key worked in the stranger’s lock, and the stranger & I were trying to figure that out. Anyway, I wish there was a way to make my tea stronger (yes, I added instant tea to it, still not strong enough). Watching the news & eating my almond butter sandwich.

    • {{{anotherdemocrat}}} – everything in a dream is you, so maybe you’re finding that parts of yourself you thought you knew aren’t who you thought. It was amicable so you’ve also just met another part of yourself that you didn’t know who seems pleasant and may become a “friend”. :) Healing Energy & moar {{{HUGS}}}

  6. It’s 36 heading for 48 and trying to be sunny. We generated 7.7 KWHs yesterday, m-t-d at 92, and hopefully will do at least as well today.

    I hope my hands are doing better today. I’m not in pain and almost wish I was because then I’d know when it went away that I’d have my hand/finger strength needed to boost tweets. As it is all I can do is try – and do as much with function keys and other keys to move around and save the mouse clicks for posting comments or boosting tweets. And where possible do the “thread” from the 1st tweet rather than boosting each one individually. Because apparently I have so many clicks and then nope. Thassit. (Also a whole bunch of flat surfaces around my house are going to get dusted and not wiped down. I can’t hold the cleaning stuff firmly enough to actually wipe anything. Again, weakness, not pain. I deal with litter boxes then there’s nothing left with which to deal with anything else. sigh.) So. I will do what I can – and I will do it to music in Dee’s diary. As long as I can click the play buttons.

    The Deplorables will do what they can to destroy if they can’t overthrow everything. Decent folks will do what they can to stop them. It would of course be easier if the LW would stop attacking us for keeping the promises made rather than the promises they wanted made. Having to waste energy protecting a flank from the troops who should be protecting it means there’s less to fight Deplorables with. moar sighs. (Just as well I haven’t been online much the last few days – and not likely to be much longer today.) But our team will keep the promises made. LW will never admit to the good it does b/c it won’t do the perfect. Same ol’ same ol’ rox/sux wars. We’ll keep on truckin’ anyway. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

    • wondering if there is some alternative to clicking? Some type of voice thingee (I am so low tech)
      Sending healing thoughts your way

      • There probably is an app of some sort but I know nothing about apps. I’m at least as low tech as you are. LOL.
        I very much appreciate the healing thoughts. {{{HUGS}}}

  7. Good morning, 47 and mostly cloudy in Bellingham. Our son gave RonK the book, Pie Camp for Christmas and yesterday was the day to test it out. Success…..a tasty berry pie with a gluten free crust! The step by step info and photos are inspiring so with this initial success pies will be our life again. His mom her father were excellent bakers so it’s in his genes.

    Baking pies may be the best tRump angst antidote yet :) Best wishes to all.

    • Madison was quiet. I caught a news report from Lansing Michigan and they had some people show up with long guns but they eventually dispersed. I suspect that most of these guys just like to dress up and scare people and that the sight of guys who look and sound like them getting arrested for their part in the Capitol riot may be serving as a check on them. It is one thing to dress like a bad-ass and carry rifles to “own the libs” – it is quite another to get arrested by the FBI and have to pay an attorney and post bail and maybe lose your job.

  9. Good morning, meeses! Monday …

    It is 27 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 25. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    I was sad to hear that taking an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution is taken so lightly that there are concerns that members of the National Guard, brought to Washington DC to protect the inauguration, are being investigated for ties to the right-wing extremist groups that want to overthrow the government. It is not surprising – the chance to play with guns and bazookas must be quite a draw for certain types. The Merrick Garland Justice Department is going to have their hands full investigating the Capitol riot and helping root out white nationalists in law enforcement: federal, state and local.

    In some ways, a subdued inauguration is appealing. I always thought it was unseemly to solicit huge sums of money from donors for parties and events and make appearances at balls and banquets to give those people their money’s worth. The notion that money gets you special access is not small d democratic and should not be big D Democratic, either.

    I strained one of my legs and I can’t bear weight on it so I am going to be constrained in what I can do today. I can hobble around on crutches but everything is going very slow. I have to decide if I should call my health care provider to get it evaluated or if I should just give it another day or two. It feels like something popped but the pain is not constant so it can’t be that serious – I hope. I am not even sure what they would do! Anyway, I hope to get some accounting work done today so that I can clear the decks for Wednesday. I will NOT watch the inauguration but I will record it on my DVR and listen to it on the radio. I will watch it after I am sure that nothing bad happened.

    See all y’all later!

      • It seems that as we age, parts break down! The alternate (not aging) is not very attractive so we have to press on. :) It is already better now than it was when I got up so maybe just “waiting it out” will be enough. I have no idea what a medical provider would do in any event.

    • Sending lots of Healing Energy. (& unless your healthcare provider is the kind who wants to do X-rays & MRIs for everything, you’re probably already doing what they’d tell you to do – stay off it, ice if there’s inflammation, elevate if possible, and probably 2x the “recommended” dose of Ibuprofen or Tylenol. That what’s replaced the “take two aspirins and call me in the morning” routine.) & moar Healing Energy.

      • Thanks, bfitz! The only thing I can think of would be that they would get me in for a PT evaluation but they may want to see if the ibuprofen and rest works well enough. I did ice it yesterday but in order to ice today, I have to make my way downstairs which I only want to do once so it has to wait until I can finish some things that can only be done from my office.

  10. Monday Meese. It’s #MartinLutherKingDay

    Film

    This

  11. Puerto Rico

  12. Good morning. Supposed to be nice here today — sunny, windy & 68. Unfortunately that makes the cedar trees really happy. Still aiming for a walk this afternoon followed by a shower to get the pollen off) Today: no plans, maybe clear out the DVR.

    • Wanted to put in a pic of my statue, couldn’t do it in a comment, so I tweeted a picture, and here that is:

  13. Good Monday morning, Moosekind! Never made it here yesterday because Sundays are so blinking busy. It’s partly cloudy with tentative sunshine, blue sky trying to break through gray and white clouds, and quite breezy. At the moment it’s 42 F. in Ashburn, on its way up to 44 F.

    Yesterday, in addition to cooking breakfast for Dearly, I went to get a mani. My fingernails were in truly awful shape after not being manicured for three weeks. It sounds trivial but my nails are so weak it’s sometimes difficult to function like a normal person. Changing the sheets on the bed tears them up. I frequently have to wrap at least one in a bandaid.

    But enough on that boring subject. I made another batch of Cornish pasties yesterday and do not intend to do it again until next Christmas. However, after we ate three between us for dinner, there are five left for Dearly’s lunches this week. Good!

    Now I’ve got the week’s bread supply rising unevenly in its loaf pan. The loaves are shaped somewhat peculiarly before they’re frozen. I’m hoping this one will look normal by the time it’s risen enough to be baked.

    Have the usual on my agenda. Who is the Goddess of Procrastination? I’m her acolyte. I’d better snap to it, though, because I have a meeting on Thursday and must report on the work done. Clue: so far, almost none.

    Sending love and healing thoughts to Jan’s leg and bfitz’ hands. Oh, the creaks and groans of age! Alas, the alternative is to endure or to pop one’s clogs. Speaking of that, there is a certain amount of ill feeling in my building on the part of those who were not lucky enough to “win” the vaccine lottery. Dearly and I and some of our upstairs neighbors were among the 350 who did. I mean, it was just The Powers That Be pulling names out randomly, but still—I can understand why the Unchosen Ones feel affronted. I would too.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond. Two more days, meese, just two!

    • The vaccine lottery is a vestige of the sheer incompetence of the tRump malAdministration’s pandemic response and the liars and half-wits put in charge of the vaccination rollout. To put governors in charge and then give them no money will go down in the the annals of dumbfkery that will be the underlying theme of this era. I cannot wait until the adults are back in charge.

      • It’s only dumbfuckery if it’s not deliberate. Deliberate is mass murder on a genocidal scale. Which I believe it is. (And yes, it will be so good to have Decent people in charge again. Competent is needed, but Decent comes first.)

  14. I’m obviously running late to check in. It’s already 46 (from 28) and heading for mid 50s today. But overcast. sigh. I’m indoors anyway so I’d rather the light than the warmth. Yesterday we got 7.8 KWHs and the m-t-d is right at 100 – not on track by any means but still in the 3-digit category so that’s good.

    32 years ago the 18th was also a Monday. The president we were waiting to swear in was Daddy Bush. I wasn’t paying any attention. Mother breathed her last in my presence shortly after 8:30 a.m. – I didn’t look at the clock – and at this point (10 a.m.) my sisters, 2 best friends of the time, and older son were all in the room. As the undertaker/mortician/whatever waited patiently to take her body. Memories of the day, the week, are jumbled – like a bag of puzzles pieces, only the strongest still showing anything. We who’d waited with her until her ship sailed for the Isles of the West gathered for dinner that night at a new Mexican restaurant. They didn’t have a problem leaving a place setting and a chair empty at the head of the table for her. Bless them.

    The days went on then as the days go on now. More hope now than we (Momma and I) had at the time for the nation because there’s so much wrong now finally seen and maybe starting to address. In some ways the nation is in worse shape than we were at the time because those who like those wrongs are fighting violently & legally (changing the laws, rolling back protections) to keep them. In the years since then we as a nation have made progress, progress that wherever she is she’s happy to see, in human rights. Human rights/well being and environment – just about everything stems from those and Momma was always interested, working to the Good when she could.

    So – after many interruptions in the writing of this – I’ll go off to do what I can for human rights & well being. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

    • We who’d waited with her until her ship sailed for the Isles of the West

      What a lovely turn of phrase, bfitz. This is a keeper. I will think of you all day, hoping that your poor hands will feel better. Will not write at this time because you might be tempted to reply!

  15. Good morning, 39 and partly cloudy in Bellingham. My resolve for today is to actually do something. This last round of tRump trauma seems to have sucked all the energy and focus I thought I had away. I watched the We The People Concert last night, and while it did not have the impact of a lice performance in Wa. DC it was a nice to just realize that the Biden/Harris administration will soon be official.

    I’ve been going to Village Books on MLK day for years but thanks to covid there will not be book readings today. I so enjoyed going with my grandkids to listen to the readings and then have lunch together at the book store cafe. I may go read a few children’s books myself, just because.

    Healing wishes to all.

  16. Good morning, meeses!Tuesday …

    It is 21 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 21. Cloudy with some flurries in the afternoon.

    I need this a little closer:

    January 20, 2021 Noon ESTCountdown

    Today I am going to start ignoring the “Joe Biden can never unite this country” and “We are stuck permanently with 74 million butthurt white supremacists who want to kill us” stories. The click-bait will change – it will be less the existential crisis that comes from having a literal criminal who is also a malignant narcissist and a white supremacist in the White House – but the bait will be there trying to unnerve us; don’t take it. We can find something between unicorns and rainbows (the Obama inauguration) and American Carnage (the tRump inauguration) – maybe a return to pragmatism and simple plodding competence will reset things. I do expect some truly wonderful things as well but a return to competence will surely be embraced by some of the 74 million, they will not all be enemies. Donald J. Trump will be leaving the presidency with a 34% approval rating never having gone over 50% for the 4 years he has been befouling the office. That means that a majority of people who voted for him want him gone as well and when many of the 74 million realize that they were voting against the fear created by the Republican lies about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and not the reality of a Democratic administration, that number will shrink. Anyway, tomorrow will be an enormous relief and the daily burden of waking up to find out what fresh hell had been visited on us will be lifted.

    My leg feels some better but I am going to see a doctor this morning. Something is not quite right and, in any event, I am going to need some help figuring out the stretches and exercises I need to do in order to keep both legs strong. I need them!

    See all y’all later!

    • Healing Energy & Holding the Good Thought for exercises or whatever to keep you going. {{{HUGS}}}

  18. One more day Meese. 30 degrees here in Kingston NY – going up to 39.

    Puerto Rico

  19. Good Tuesday morning, Meese! For once I’ve arrived here at a reasonable hour. Got up much too early today, but enough about that.

    It’s quite ugly outside, gray with slanting clouds. The blue tried to peek through earlier. Anyway, right now in Ashburn it’s 32 F., going up to 49 F. Next time it’s sunny I’ll wash the two dog beds.

    Surprise, surprise, I actually got some work done yesterday! Need to complete those two today and start on the third project. As dear Ben Franklin (at least, I think it was he) used to say, “Nothing concentrates the mind so powerfully as the prospect of being hanged in the morning.” Translated, this means the looming meeting on Thursday has finally cured my procrastination.

    The people who live in my hallway are mourning the unexpected passing of the chocolate Labrador who lived in the first apartment in the hallway. He was such a gentleman, was Satchmo! He always wore a bow tie when he was taken out for his walks. He was very sweet and affectionate as well. I’ve been in tears several times. We weren’t told the cause of death and I don’t exactly like to ask. I wrote a note of condolence, as did several others, and left it on the ledge outside Satchmo’s parents’ flat.

    He’s the third dog to die (that I know of) in the nearly three years we’ve been here. There was one named Lulu, a sweet little creature, shortly after we moved, and poor little Fritz the Schnauzer, who was 12 years old and a cancer survivor.

    Monty has just uttered his second angry bark. Gotta go! Best wishes to all, especially to Jan’s leg!

  20. Warm morning ahead of a rainy cold front — wore t-shirt & sandals for my dash into the office. No plans for today besides work.

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