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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Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …
Morning low of 19 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 46. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Sunday Meese. 20 degrees going up to 38 here in Kingston NY. Glad the Rescue plan made it through. Wish the fauxgressives in the House would shut up and stop posturing – just pass the damn bill and get help out to folks.
Puerto Rico
President Biden marks Bloody Sunday
Yes! And we need to follow up with HR1.
Sunday music
Tremendous!
A chilly morning in the 40s, but high in the 70s like yesterday. I got in a 1.24 mile walk yesterday, might again today. Today: church on youtube (our music director’s last day, sob) then making next week’s breakfast. Maybe another walk today.
Waking up with the sun gets earlier every day (at least until the em effers screw up the time again starting next Sunday). The earlier sun is one of the Joys of Spring time. It’s 40 heading for 65 and we have lovely sunshine at the moment. Clouds supposed to move in this afternoon and get worse tomorrow but I will enjoy it while it’s here. We generated 15.5 KWHs yesterday – exactly 6 months since the last time we did that. The m-t-d is 77 and at least on track to 390. Looking at next week it won’t stay on track but I’m happy that we are now.
The MSM/fascist propaganda machine has spent a couple of generations now teaching Americans (& especially AmeriKKKans) to be 2-diminsional cartoon characters. Everything’s binary. (Sex of course is the most obvious – and that one’s been going on for a lot longer. Like over a millennium and getting right up to two.) Momma always said that when given a choice of A or B she’d take C. I guess I come by it naturally. But I can be at one and the same time totally delighted that a whole lot of folks are about to get $1400 while being pissed it’s a one-shot deal. I can be totally delighted Biden’s administration – & Nancy Pelosi’s House – put in over $31 billion for Tribes and other Native organizations and be more than just pissed that it’s just a fraction of what we own them by treaty (& that they wouldn’t need either “stimulus” or “relief” if we’d been honoring the treaties since we made them). I can be so grateful that we have control of both Houses of Congress and still want to slap the Blue Dogs & berners who are hamstringing us at every turn. I wish our side would quit using up our resources fighting over what we should do now we’ve won a battle while we’re still halfway through the blasted war we don’t know if we’ll actually win.
Sunday so lots of chores to do. Some of which, most of the ones at the west end of the house, I’ve already done. And the rest will be accompanied by the music in Dee’s #BlackMusicSunday diary. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
I understand not primary-ing Manchin, he’s despicable but he probably really is the best we can get out of W Va. I will still bring up his Pharma Sis profiteering daughter at every opportunity, hoping to shame him into better behavior – or maybe justice to the profiteering tax dodging daughter.
But Sinema. Jhfc, how could she possibly have thought that cutesy smartass curtsy thing was a good idea??? If you’re going to vote to keep hardworking people in poverty, do it quietly. Arizona is a big & diverse enough state that surely a decent human being can be found to primary that heartless p.o.s.
Yeah, some folks – well, if we primary them at all it had best with w/ another slightly better blue dog because no other kind of Dem will win and we need the numbers to make a majority. Other folks we can get firmer about Dem principles with our primaries. Sinema just “proved” to BIPOC everything they believe about white women is true. Right down to the flippancy with which white women will vote to let BIPOC die, if not actively kill them. I hope we can find somebody to nail her with.
Except for the EpiPen thing that led him to petulantly sink Tanden (purely personal graft), Manchin is simply channeling “West Virginia values.” He is only a Democrat because everyone was a Democrat there in the era he grew up in – I suspect he just can’t bring himself to change parties and I also suspect that he is glad now that he didn’t. He got a lot of attention, got to water down two parts of the deal that won’t sink the bill in the House but in the end he voted with the majority. It sounds like he is getting a sense of what will happen with the infrastructure bill that he really wants passed and will leverage that to either get ten Republicans to sign on or he will blow up the filibuster. We really only have two years to deliver on our agenda and if we don’t, we will lose the mid-terms and then the presidency in 2024. Now, we just need Manchin to see that and choose to change the country for the better as his legacy instead of returning to the minority.
As far as Sinema goes, she is flamboyant and her Green Party “fk you” is showing but she votes D; I don’t have to like all of our Senators, in fact there are some who tick me off, particularly the ones who put Comity over Country. I also don’t have a problem with the minimum wage increase coming out of the package – it really was a reach to try to cram it into a budget reconciliation bill and a vote on that should be a separate vote where we get every Congressperson on record with no place to hide. Plus, did we really want small businesses who are starting to open up again having to negotiate new rules on minimum wages? There are problems with $15 per hour in some parts of some states and part-time jobs for high school kids – the goal should be to put a higher floor under the federal minimum wage and get rid of the tipped wage completely and then index it. Even $15 per hour is not a living wage in most places so the solution to poverty is not increasing the federal minimum wage but providing more help to people who can’t make ends meet and to properly fund places where many low-wage people work – child care, nursing homes, and other places like that.
Well said, Jan!
Yep. I’ve thought for years the only reason Mark Pryor ran as a Dem was because his daddy’s name (and campaigning) were all that got into office. But him being a Dem in the Senate is part of why we had the majority long enough to get the ’09 stimulus & ACA through. So yes of course I voted for him. Not that it did any good. Even voting against minimum wage increase and for the PATRIOT (fascist) Act didn’t save him – or us – from ChristoFascist Cotton beating him in ’14.
As to the minimum wage, there always has been and always will be a problem with doing that at the federal level because the cost of living is so different from place to place.
That’s right, bfitz! Many years ago the WaPo ran an article on two men doing identical work for the federal government–same grade level and step level–and the difference in their lifestyles.
The Washington man and his wife rented an apartment and DC and she also held a job to make ends meet. The Alabama man had a house, a stay-at-home wife, and children. It was a profound difference.
Never stop bringing up Machin’s daughter and the cruel, vile thing she did, another!
Good morning, 42 and cloudy in Bellingham. We finally used the out door shelter yesterday afternoon, enjoying s visit with our son and his family. It was cozy with a fire, blankets, and a fresh tulip bouquet to remind us spring is coming. The shelter is smaller than I wanted but it was fine for 6 people. An unexpected bonus from covid isolation is keeping the patios in use year around. It’s added to our living space and in some ways is more fun than being indoors.
I’m counting down to the dreaded colonoscopy exam on Tuesday and I hope to never do this again! I’ve had a week of diet restrictions and blood thinner shots, a covid exam today and then tomorrow no food and serious prep, grrrr!
As always, bets wishes to all.
Ugh! I feel for you, princesspat. The best part of a colonoscopy is when it’s OVER and they tell you that there’s nothing there.
Good morning, meeses! Monday …
It is 43 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 55. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast. I am hoping the last of the snow melts – I am ready for spring. Our cranes came back and are squawking up a storm in the wetlands; they know it’s spring.
Our Fourth Estate is so predictable. “Saddled” with a president who is calm and deliberate and who is not personally disgusting like “the former guy”, they are now ginning up faux controversies like “Why Doesn’t Joe Biden Hold a Press Conference.” JHC on a popsicle stick!! The White House press office holds daily briefings, the COVID task force meets three times a week on camera, Joe Biden himself is in front of a camera at least once a day, his policy initiatives are moving through Congress – is it not like he is living in his basement or incommunicado. I don’t need to see Fox “News” reporters yelling bullsh*t questions at him to know that he is working every day for me and my family – and the future of our country. Go away, media who was willing to destroy our democracy for a sound bite.
It is a new week and I got ahead of my short list from last week so I can start hacking away at my longer to-do list. I finally got my taxes done but there is no rush to mail them out as I owe money. I am usually very careful and try to end up with a refund but I discovered that some investment accounts that I inherited had tax-deferred funds in them so I have to pay those taxes. It is free money so I can’t complain too much but it did make it look like I made more money. I won’t file until after my Biden Check arrives since my 2019 tax return is a better snapshot of my real income.
See all y’all later!
Monday Meese. Happy International Women’s Day!
It’s 18 degrees here in Kingston NY, going up to 42.
Puerto Rico
Yay!
Good morning, spring has definitely sprung here — 60s this morning to upper 70s this afternoon. Allergies are killing me, all the stupid tree pollen, ugh. I still may log off work early to walk because I want to appreciate this weather before our 6 month long summer kicks in.
Jan, FYI – I’m getting that same drop down box at other WordPress sites. I don’t know why I seem to be the only one getting it, but at least it’s not specific to Moose.
It’s 48 heading for upper 60s and sunny at the moment. Clouds supposed to move in late this afternoon. I hope very late this afternoon. Yesterday we got 15.9 KWHs, again highest since early last September, and the m-t-d is 93.36 – likely to hit 100 by early afternoon. :::happy sigh::: Yes, the clouds will move in next week but we’ll at least have that 100 in the sock before they do.
Visiting with my son yesterday afternoon. He’s even more jaundiced about the future than I am. Politically speaking he thinks the fascists are going to win. His thought is that while there are only 5% actual evil people to 30% actual good people, the other 65% are sheep and follow the ones with the loudest microphone. The evil ones have that so the 30% good people are up against 70% evil-acting people – and we aren’t going to take that propaganda machine away from them so that’s that. (Doesn’t mean he’s not fighting & voting. He just doesn’t see us actually winning the war, just the periodic battle.) He may be right. He really has a point on global warming – as long as the actions that make it worse are subsidized, it will get worse. My “canary” that would tell me we’re changing that is stop subsidizing the fossil fuel companies. His “canary” is stop subsidizing McDonalds. All of the evils the self-righteous sanctimonious vegans attribute to meat are actually the fault of fast food mega corporations being subsidized in multiple places in the tax code. The tax code changes that would take down McDonalds would also stop all the other “bad actors” who’ve been preventing us from doing what has to be done. We shall see if some of the tax-code changes Biden’s administration has talked about are truly going to excise the evil and turn us around or just do greenwash and a Band-Aid.
It’s the 2nd Monday of March. We are well and truly into it and can’t call a “new” month any more. Spring is here no matter what the dominant-culture’s calendar says. I’ve not only got several small but lovely bunches of crocus on the three sunny yards around my house but the daffs in sheltered areas are blooming, too. As to the green haze over all the bushes, vines, and trees in the riparian area that used to tell me it was Spring, well, that showed up last December and never went away again. So. Spring is hope for plenty carried in Light before the first food shows up. Or even sprouts. Or for a lot of it, has even been planted yet. But our spirits feed on that hope, on that Light, until the substance gets here. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 42 and sunny in Bellingham. I’m really struggling with the impact of the prep for the exam tomorrow. The procedure may be ok for most people. but it’s clearly not good for me as every autoimmune issue I have is now flaring. Unless it’s a life threatening situation I am never going to do this again. By this time tomorrow it will be over, but then I’ll be left with getting systems back to normal.
Sorry to be so grouchy. As always, my best wishes to all.
{{{princesspat}}} – I hope you can get your systems back to normal/not painful quickly. Healing Energy & moar {{{HUGS}}}
Oh, lawks! I was here this morning, wrote a whole long post, attempted to correct a couple of typos, and was informed that The Pond was treating it as spam.
Sigh. Well, aside from the fact that I had an enjoyable visit with my youngest grandchild on Sunday, and the fact that I feel quite ill from a cold, don’t have much to say.
Will come back tomorrow.
Bummer! I am not sure why it would consider your words spam, you are an author here and as such you should be pre-cleared. If you submit the “spam”, by the way, I can find it and release it later.
Thank you, dear heart, but it is gone with the cyber-wind.
Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …
It is 32 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 59. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.
Today the House will vote on the COVID relief package and it will – we hope – go quickly to Joe Biden’s desk for his signature. He has scheduled a prime-time address for Thursday evening, presumably to take a victory lap and to remind people that Democrats care about regular people. I found out yesterday that I will get the “dependent child” payment for my full-time student under 24 years old dependent which will double my Biden Check. That is a BHD – I was always irritated that the checks last year cut off at 17 years old when lots of people are supporting their children throughout their college careers. This bill recognizes that injustice. I will put the extra money towards a vacation when it is safe to travel.
Tomorrow the Senate will vote on Merrick Garland’s nomination, reminding everyone of the stain on that institution denying him a hearing and vote on his Supreme Court nomination and the sh*tstains Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton delaying the nomination hearing and the final vote because of their assholery. We need an Attorney General to start draining the swamp so it is not surprising that Republicans would do everything they could do to delay their moment of reckoning but it is still disgusting. I think today they may be voting some other confirmations out of committee – I should go see if there is someplace where I can follow them all; one would think the Senate web site would have it but it is as useless as the Senate itself.
Busy morning so I better get back to it. I have some errands to run later this morning – it is nice to be able to leave the house without worrying about every place I go and everything I touch.
See all y’all later!
Tuesday Meese. It has warmed up here in Kingston NY – it’s 34 going up to 56. Hoping that’s a good sign for the days ahead.
Puerto Rico
Good morning. Even though I didn’t get outside yesterday, my allergies are still out of control. Even taking benadryl isn’t really helping. We might have thunderstorms this weekend, wash some of the pollen out of the air. Until then, I’ll continue my love/hate relationship with trees.
Good Tuesday morning, Meese! It’s another sunny day, not quite as brilliantly sunny as before because of wispy white clouds here and there. It’s 45 F. in Ashburn now, going up to 70 F.
Still feeling crappeh but will go to my gym appointment at 11, even if I can manage only half an hour. I should try to get out this afternoon because of the sunshine.
Both Dearly and I had pretty rotten sleeps last night. Talked an hour and a half with M’Daughter in Texas yesterday, she who is about to get really busy with local elections. She can’t even vote in them because she lives in a place called Lakeway, but she likes being an election judge. She finds the personalities of the other judges to be interesting at best, positively bitchy at worst.
She also imparted the fascinating information that Political Granddaughter, who works for Emily’s List, is running a resume-editing service on line as a side gig. For ten years I ran a resume service, called The Scrivener, out of my house. However, I didn’t edit resumes, I created them. Had fun for a while, then got fed up with nasty customers and people who made appointments but didn’t keep them. When I realized I was glad that people were canceling, I knew it was time to go out of business.
I’m still riveted by the Harry and Meghan revelations but even I realize it’s time to attend to my tasks. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
Hahaha!! “When I realized I was glad that people were canceling, I knew it was time to go out of business.”
I find that more and more as I have advanced into semi-retirement. I am sure I will regret wishing people would go away (I still need some additional income for the short term) but some days it is a challenge.
I know the feeling all too well, Jan! Good luck!
It’s 60 heading for 67 and sort of sunny but the clouds are already starting to move in. sigh. We generated 15.1 KWHs yesterday and ended up at 108.7 for the m-t-d. But the forecast is clouds until Monday. No rain until Thursday but clouds for almost a week. sigh.
My hands had been slowly but steadily getting better. But today? – trash. It’s taking multiple tries to do anything and half the time my fingers aren’t “firing” in the sequence I’m thinking/wanting them to so transpositions to have to go back an fix all over the place. I’m alternating between depression and rage. So what else is new? Except it’s harder to damp the rage by the 4th time I’ve clicked the mouse button and nothing happens. sigh.
The neighbor “boys” – they’re around 30 now – cut all the rose-of-sharons for me for about half what the very reasonable lawn company would have. And are willing to wait until I get my tax refund before being paid. But then, it’s getting to be nice enough in the evenings (when it’s not raining) to have fires in their fire pits and rose-of-sharon burns quite nicely. They got the wood now and will get the money shortly. I will investigate to see if, presupposing the roots send out shoots and try to come back as they probably will, rose-of-sharons can be pruned/trained to be a low-growing shrub. Otherwise we’ll just mow them until they stop coming up. Unless I decide to pay someone to dig out the roots and replace them with real low-growing shrubs. We shall see what we shall see.
Dems keep doing what they said they’d do. RW keeps recommending things that send Dems up in the air about traitor Joe better not because even the best of our side expects to be betrayed (RW propaganda machine is very efficient) and takes every suggestion – made by Rs for goddess’ sake – as if it was a leak from the WH. LW keeps saying Joe promised stuff he didn’t and then accusing him of not keeping his promises. If we ever manage to break up the RW propaganda machine we might stop this cycle. But first we have to make that a primary goal. Right up there with securing the election process.
As to the Brits, where on earth to folks here think our extremely & systematically racist (and genocidal) society came from? Even a very short google search regarding the British Empire the sun never set on will show what they were and are like. We didn’t get it from nobody strange. Elizabeth II is an extremely political animal nominally heading an extremely racist society. I have no idea what her personal beliefs are – and nobody else does either. All I know is she’s made sure for decades that Charles didn’t get on the throne. Which tells me she’s a shrewd judge of character. William’s 2nd in line and seems to be getting more like his father every day. Harry’s always been a good guy. But Harry could afford to be. He’s never been closer than 3rd in line and he’s 5th in line now. Whether the goodness would have been submerged in policy/politics were he the heir or on the throne we will never know. It’s not a path he’s had to walk.
Meanwhile, I will try to get these dysfunctional hands to write a few checks and get them in the mail and then do my twitter ‘chores’ for #HelpFolksLive2021. I know some 50% of those are not true. But that means some 50% are – and they are from people who are desperate and can’t think of any other way to make it. So. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
I do hope your hands continue to get better, Bfitz dear! What a wretched thing to deal with. Can only wish you healing white light.
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 50 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 61. Showers this morning and light rain this afternoon. We have piles of snow left on the north side of our house – a few days of rain will probably finish them off.
Today the House votes on the American Rescue Plan and the Senate votes on the confirmations of Merrick Garland for Attorney General and Marcia Fudge for HUD. Vanita Gupta and Lisa Monaco had their Senate hearing yesterday and I hope their confirmation votes come up soon – AG Garland will need their help. Polls show that the American people don’t care to preserve the filibuster and would rather have bills passed that make their lives better. This may be the strongest anti-filibuster sentiment I have seen since I have been following politics. A practice used to strengthen Jim Crow and block civil rights and voting rights – and which now gives power to, not the governing minority, but the QAnon minority – should be relegated to the dustbin of history. Push will come to shove on HR1 when the right to vote – and have any chance of retaining our majority – comes to the Senate floor. Does Joe Manchin want to give Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn and Tom Cotton and Ron Freaking Johnson and Ted Cruz and Tommy Tuberville veto power over the Biden Agenda, let red states shrink the franchise, make him a minority Senator and then have them kill the filibuster? We shall see.
Scanning the headlines: a Cuomo being a terrible human, monarchy of a colonial power being racist, Florida grifter uses political party to prop up his disastrous personal finances and now wants to destroy it. No surprises.
See all y’all later!
Wednesday Meese. 25 here in Kingston NY going up to 56 (yay)
Puerto Rico
I’m not surprised that attendance at school in PR is scarce. Parents are scared that their children will unknowingly become asymptomatic carriers.