Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: December 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 to view previous pages, shown here with 3 pages of comments available and Page 2 circled.

25 Comments

  1. Good morning, 38 and cloudy in Bellingham. I’m slow and sleepy this morning, but my list is long so I hope another cup of coffee will help me focus. Best wishes to all.

  2. Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …

    It is 23 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 30. Sunny skies are in the forecast. Quite a plummet into the deep freeze! It is expected to warm up but with that warmup will come rain and possibly snow.

    Senate Republicans are garbage human beings. They hounded Saule Omarova out of her possible job as Comptroller of the Currency by painting her as a communist because she is from a country in the former Soviet Union, because she is not loved by banksters and because she is a strong woman. Fk them with a rusty anvil (the same one used on Joe Manchin, we can just keep it in the corner of the Senate chamber.) Someone suggested that she be installed as Deputy Comptroller, a position that still has great power to regulate banks, as a poke in the eye to Senator John “Literal Asshole” Kennedy of Louisiana. He won’t of course because his blind devotion to the notion of Senate Comity won’t allow him to retaliate against the worst of the worst. I saw an interview with the Republican Senator from Indiana who said that he is against both the vaccine mandate and weekly testing as requirements to enter the workplace because TYRANNY! I am not sure why private business doesn’t kick the Republicans to the curb – are corporate tax breaks really worth embracing a literal death cult and putting your employees health at risk? What next, blocking OSHA rules that you can’t run machinery when you are drunk or that you can’t wear flipflops on the assembly line? This Supreme Court will knock down the mandates, by the way, because they do not believe that federal government agencies can make rules, something called the Lochner principle. Our economy will never recover if large swaths of it can no longer function in-person because the unvaccinated and their political party are wrecking everything. Goddess help us.

    Well, now that I am up a little too early even for me, I should try to get some work done. I have one early morning project to do on a client’s computer so I should do that first.

    See all y’all later!

  3. Wednesday Meese. 28 going up to 39 here in Kingston NY, with some snow flurries predicted. Hope it is just a dusting.

    Puerto Rico

  4. Cold morning but again warming up to 75. Tomorrow will be warm, and Friday is predicted to be record-setting. Wfh today, and there’s something wrong with my tablet, so I’ll be trying to make it turn on in between working (it just won’t turn on, there was no sign of trouble, and charging doesn’t do anything). Anyway, hope everyone has a good day.

  5. Good Wednesday morning, Moosekind!

    It’s gray and 35 F. here in Ashburn. We’re supposed to get snow flurries, but I don’t think we actually will.

    I do know that instead of driving out to see my friend 30 miles away, I’ll have to spend my morning filling out paperwork for this wretched gang of doctors in Leesburg and going to the Medical Center here to demand paperwork from them. Doctors are so annoying. Why do they want to see a copy of my driver’s license? Isn’t a copy of my insurance card enough? And they are not getting my Social Security Number!

    So I’m already in a pissy mood when I should be rejoicing because I had 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep last night, thanks to the sleeping pill. If one could but have it every night!

    Well, I don’t have time to pray the gray away today, so I’ll just get on with things. At least I was able to get most of my Christmas cards out yesterday.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.

  6. It was 26 just after dawn, 30 now, heading for 60, and sunny. I like the sunny part. Yesterday we actually got over 5 KWHs so didn’t lose too much more ground but the m-t-d of 38 is still not on track for 180. sigh.

    Amelia’s still recovering from Monday. Jill’s still got drama out the wazoo – added negative is the good judge she was supposed to have is quarantining because his wife has COVID (why yes, the new variant – how’d you know) and the one she’s stuck with tends to not believe in abuse unless you’ve got blood to show him. Stranded without water, food, dogfood, transportation, or communication? Well, you obviously survived. That kind of judge. Aji’s managing all her “usual” posts so that’s good. I haven’t heard from the rest in a few days. The political and environmental situations are bad. Whether our folks can manage to make them better, enough better, I don’t know. At least they’re trying.

    I had to take the cold remedy last night and of course the more often I take it the less well it works. But I did get around 7 hours of sleep. Too much of it was light dozing rather than solid sleep but it was still sleep. Sinuses are not as bad as they’ve been but they certainly aren’t good. Same can be said about my hands. sigh. But. . . I’m here. In better shape physically and financially than most folks so I do what I can to help.

    Off to twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  7. Good morning, 43 and light clouds outside my window. I’ve got branches, berries and greens waiting for me in the garage so that’s where I should be but I’m slow and sleepy so my day is late getting underway. Best wishes to all.

  8. Thursday Meese. 28 going up to 38 here in Kingston NY, and sunshine predicted.

    Did this program. Takeover/Not Going Quietly
    In case you’d like to watch – YouTube posted below

    Ady Barkin, Juan Gonzales and me

  9. Puerto Rico

  10. Good morning, meeses! Thursday …

    It is 25 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 39. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    I am not sure what about “vaccine mandates and testing insure that workplaces are safe” that red-state Democratic Senators and governors don’t get. This is not about tyranny, it is about letting our economy function IN-PERSON so things can get back to normal. If I still worked in cubicleville and I had to worry about if the person in the next cube had a deadly disease and was spreading it without consequences, I would have to think about whether working at a place like that was worth it. Businesses should embrace the mandates, it gives them an excuse (government mandate!) to do what they should be doing anyway – keeping their workplaces safe and their employees healthy. For crying out loud, they are complaining that they can’t find workers! How attractive is it for sane people to work in a COVID-embracing environment? People are stupid. Yes, I know that the end game for Republicans is to make COVID Year 3 so awful that they can ride it to victory in the mid-terms by blaming the deaths and economic woes on Joe Biden. For that to work, it requires people to believe the lies for a very long time – it can be done but if there are enough “breakthrough cases” of “holy mackeral, Republicans are lying to me!” they are sunk.

    I am following the work of the January 6th commission with interest. Mark Meadows suing Nancy Pelosi is such an obvious attempt to run out the clock I hope it is laughed out of court. The commission was not going to get anything from the testimony of Meadows or Bannon or any of the others resisting interviews anyway so it is all just dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s – they have to file the contempt charges to protect their right to subpoena. It sounds like they have enough documents and willing witnesses to make their case.

    I finally got my scanning station set up in my reorganized office space and can begin clearing stacks and boxes of documents that I ran out of time to deal with in Phase I of office downsizing. I had intended it to be a project for quiet winter days but I have not had any of those yet! I always forget how busy December and January are with end of year work. I need to get my accounting work caught up so that I can seamlessly move from 2021 to 2022.

    See all y’all later!

  11. Good morning. Got the tablet working, brought it to the office. It is so warm, just wrong for December. 67 this morning, mid-80s this afternoon. Close to 90 tomorrow. But climate change is a hoax. Sure.

  12. Good Thursday morning, Meese. Woke up at 5, got up at 5:30, and unfortunately I can’t nap after lunch today. We’re meeting at 1:30 p.m. at the Blue Ridge Clubhouse, so I won’t be able to have a nap until later.

    Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we have a pale blue sky covered with a veil of white cloud—rather like a washed-out watercolor. There’s a pale sun struggling valiantly to warm the landscape, but it’s 34 F. and not going up to 43 F. until much later. On Saturday we too will have temps. swinging up into the sixties.

    The weatherperson mentioned on telly last night that we’ve been in moderate drought, and if we don’t get that rain this weekend we’ll be in a worse situation. We’re already six inches under for the year.

    Just made banana-walnut bran muffins for breakfast, which were very tasty. The only sweetening comes from the half-cup of mashed banana and two tablespoons of molasses.

    Will be spending the morning reading over the essays I asked my writers to submit on the subject of an intense experience. It’s hard to now know to deal with such a diverse group: one or two are interested in writing poetry, the rest only want to write nonfiction, whether memoirs or something else, and I am the only (as far as I know) writer of fiction. I don’t want it to become an English class, but something must be done about smothered verbs, overuse of adjectives, and dangling modifiers. Onward and upward!

    Well, that’s enough from me today. I hope everyone at the Pond will enjoy a peaceful, productive day with no bad news.

  13. It’s 54 heading for 70. Sunny at the moment but we shall see how the day goes. The widget says not. Yesterday we generated 6.2 KWHs. The m-t-d at 44 is still not on track for 180 but it’s maintaining its 4 KWH gap. For the first time since I upgraded to 4-K system we’re not going to make 4 MWHs for the year. sigh.

    Amelia’s still exhausted. Jill’s still living in drama central. Aji’s doctor said she’s got “really, REALLY clear” lungs using the new inhaler and the Lupus meds are working. Haven’t connected with anyone else. Both politically and environmentally things are getting worse. Our guys (mostly) are doing damage control and slowing the deterioration. I don’t know if we can stop/reverse it. But we have to try.

    It’s gonna be warm enough today and tomorrow that I don’t need to have the oven on but Saturday is back to chilly. So I’m trying to figure out something to eat until Saturday and bake the chicken breasts then. heh. Hands are iffy today. What little sleep I got happened between midnight and 4:30 – I stayed in bed until daylight just because it’s warmer but that didn’t make me any less groggy. Oh well. Off to DK for Dee’s diary and twitter for my regular chores there. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  14. Good morning, 36 and raining so another slow start for what should be a busy day. I’ve got more flower fun to finish, the dining room to set up for Sunday’s buffet party, then some shopping errands, and on it goes. Adding to the fun our clothes dryer is making an alarming noise so it can’t be used. The repairman comes on Dec 21st, so for now I’m doing a load of laundry every day and hanging it to dry in the basement. Thankfully we kept the old clothes wires and the pipes from the furnace give off heat so things dry overnight. Towels are a bit scratchy though.

    Best wishes to all.

    • Appliances always choose the worst times to break down! I remember my garbage disposal dying the day before my daughter’s graduation when I had a houseful of out of town guests and a planned meal. The plumber had to work around them all but he got the disposal fixed in time.

  15. Good morning, meeses! Friday …

    It is 32 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 37. Rain expected this afternoon and evening and turning into a nasty wintry mix overnight into Saturday.

    I was glad to see that Tish James dropped out of the New York gubernatorial race. She has some really important work to do as Attorney General and she faced an uphill battle against the sitting governor who seems to be good enough and electable. It will be interesting to see if tRump shows up to be deposed by her in the civil case against his firm – with the bad news he has been receiving lately, it is more likely that his head will literally explode in rage and will perish. Good for the DC Circuit to uphold the Constitution in a case that already had Supreme Court precedent backing it up. Of course, the Roberts Court has no interest in precedent and especially precedent that goes against their party’s leaders. Supreme KKK Leader John Roberts will go down in history as a political hack whose court destroyed the pillars of democracy – I hope that history goes on to say that in 2022, people were fed up and voted for Democrats in huge numbers, gave us the majority we needed to end the filibuster and added 4 more seats to the Supreme Court to dilute the trumpers.

    Businesses are now starting to consider sending workers back to remote locations because of the surge in COVID cases. Nice job, Republican death cult members, your plan to kill the economy is working! I hope that the American people see through it – or enough of your voters die trying to suck oxygen into their virus damaged lungs – and refuse to give you the power to make things even worse.

    It is Friday and I have a lot to do before the sun comes up. I need to get my stacks of work down to a more manageable number – right now there are 6 project stacks which is 4 too many. I think I can get 3 of them done today – if I would just get off the Internets. :)

    See all y’all later!

  16. Friday Meese. 33 going up to 45 here in Kingston NY.

    Puerto Rico
    Dominating the news today from the island is a gangland style slaying in the town of Cidra — related to drugs. I refuse to post the very graphic video being circulated. What is worse are the social media comments calling Puerto Ricans savages…etc.

  17. Really warm this morning,back to my summer wear of short sleeves, capris & sandals. There’s a holiday get together on the porch at lunch, so I wore a t-shirt with a squiggly tree. One of my few holiday shirts that isn’t from the Trail bbq of Lights 5K.

  18. Good Friday morning, Moosekind! The sky is gray and will be cloudy all day. It may rain in the small hours of Saturday morning or, then again, it may not. The current temp. is 42 F., going up to 54 F. Next week we’ll be in the mid-50s. I miss the old days, when it was cold in December.

    After a too-early wakeup yesterday morning, I went through my Thursday, which included a rollicking meeting of the Writers’ Group after lunch. A couple of people couldn’t make it because they were in the hospital or visiting the doctor (that’s an occupational hazard of life in a home for the aged), but we critiqued everyone’s essays and had a very good time. I awarded small prizes for the ugliest sweater and the craziest socks. I also passed around little squares of Ghirardelli peppermint bark. My goal is to make sure everyone stays awake.

    However, after we went to the Pub for dinner and came back, I fell asleep in the green chair. Slept right through “Wheel” and “Jeopardy.” Then I couldn’t sleep in the rightful bed! Duhh. So I staggered into the living room and slept the night away in the recliner until 7 a.m. Feel OK now.

    Must rush through dressing and ablutions to I can be at the dentist at 10:45. I finished the antibiotic, thank Goddess. Hate the side effects but am grateful for the protection.

    Wishing a peaceful, productive day to all at the Pond.

  19. It’s 65 going to 75, overcast, and slightly oppressive – it’s that humid. Yesterday we generated over 6 KWHs and brought the m-t-d to 50 – not gaining ground but not losing either. Today unfortunately we’ll be losing ground.

    Yesterday evening my hands went from twingy to full flare. So now I’m taking anywhere from 3 to 10 extra mouse clicks to do what I’m trying to get done. Not counting the extra clicks to undo what I didn’t want done but the mouse decided to do anyway (opening stuff I don’t want open as I’m pounding away trying to open or send or post stuff I do want). So I’m cursing the mouse and the cursor and the computer and my hands. sigh.

    Fasting. The headache isn’t bad yet but the grungy tummy is. sigh. Oh well. After the blood draw I’ll eat something – and I’m planning on take-out for dinner. I just haven’t decided between Mexican or BBQ. At least I can treat myself to take out. So many folks don’t have those options & options are riches. Same ol’ same ol’ with everybody as far as I can tell. The details may vary but the situations are not getting any better. (& that’s true on all levels – personal friends to nation to world.)

    Off to twitter. Twitter chores to do no matter how many wasted clicks and how much cussing it takes to get them done. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

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