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 to view previous pages, shown here with 3 pages of comments available and Page 2 circled.
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Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 79 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 91. Cloudy skies with the rains expected after noon. That appears to be the pattern – the chance of rain begins about noon and around 3 or 4 we can expect to see it if it is going to happen. I wonder if it is because it heats up which causes the storms to take on moisture. We have had rain in the early morning but usually it is from a system that developed late at night. It is all just a guess as I try to understand the weather here.
Well, Kansas voters repudiated the Republican’s SCOTUS and chose to respect women’s reproductive rights and to properly define abortion as a private decision made by a woman in a medical setting. It is very invigorating to see a grassroots GOTV victory for human rights but I am not sure what the next step is there. There is nothing to stop the Kansas legislature from passing another constitutional amendment and putting that before the voters. In a red state where Democrats are concentrated in the college towns and the Kansas City suburbs and exurbs, their power is diluted by the surgical gerrymanders and the Republicans will always have a super-majority in their state legislature. I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade but the answer is NOT state by state, we need to elect Democratic Senators and carve out a constitutional right exception to the filibuster and pass a nationwide codification of abortion rights. Kansans need to go to the polls in November and elect the Democrat running in the U.S. Senate race (Mark Holland, who is pro-choice) and flood the polls for the Democrats in the House races. They gerrymandered Sharice Davids into a mostly rural district to take her seat away from her but maybe a historic turnout could get her re-elected. Fingers crossed!
In Arizona, my choice for the House seat won her primary, the Secretary of State nomination is still too close to call (but either guy is fine), and Katie Hobbs got the nomination for governor as expected. Her opponent is still not chosen yet and it looks like the crazy Q woman has gone ahead. Both Republican candidates are racist trumpers but one promises to spend her energy revoking the Arizona 2020 election results – the other wants to spend taxpayer money to “seal the border” instead of dealing with issues like water management and schools. The trumpie Oath Keeper won the nomination for Secretary of State so the stakes in that race in November couldn’t be higher. Finally, the Peter Thiel trumper won the race to run against Mark Kelly. It was no surprise but the good news is that he did not win in a landslide and some of the 30% who voted for more traditional Republican candidates can probably be persuaded to vote to re-elect Mark Kelly in November. I am sure it will be an ugly campaign in any event.
I slept in longer than I should have because I stayed up later than usual watching some of the returns. I need to look at what I ignored on my to-do list yesterday and see if any of it looks interesting. I have a dental procedure later this morning so I may take another day off from actual usefulness.
See all y’all later!
It’s already 82 – the heat index never dropped below 80 so I wasn’t able to open up at all. Cats are not happy and neither am I. But we did generate over 18 KWHs yesterday. Unfortunately something’s wrong with my PV monitoring system and it’s currently not showing August at all. If it doesn’t correct itself soon I’ll have to put in a report on it. sigh.
I got better sleep so this grogginess must be the weather. Not helpful. My in-home checkup yesterday was good. No lab work of any kind but “vitals” are good – she even checked the reflexes, pulse, and sensitivity in my feet. But medical practitioners have absorbed so much “pop” (AKA diet-industry driven) science. At 115 lbs I’m at the very low end of the normal range for my height. “Ideal” would be 120 to 125. The doctor was delighted that I’m at minimum 5 lbs below my ideal. Yes, I know that’s not a “normal” issue in America. But it’s still an issue. Meanwhile, I need to eat more ice cream or something.
Amelia’s stressed which increases the stress for everybody dealing with the move. Jill is waiting to hear for sure but a friend of hers with long-covid may have committed suicide last night. With financial complications to the emotional slam – this is the friend who loaned her the money to buy the RV. She’s been paying it back monthly of course, but she doesn’t know how the family will feel about it and there’s no way she can pay it back all at once if they demanded it. Prayers up. For everybody.
I’ve started about 6 different things, a new one each time I’ve been interrupted with the previous one, so I’d best go finish them. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 62m partly sunny, and a cool breeze is blowing in my window today. I had prepared to finish the pruning with Marcus yesterday, but now he’s coming today. And I rushed to get ready for Sue to be here to clean today, but now she’s coming on Friday. And, what I had planned to do with our son later this week had to be done yesterday. Oh well, being flexible is a skill to keep learning! I’ve got ice on my knees in preparation for what ever comes next.
The election results in Wa State show we remain blue and while I wish there were no tRumpy R votes at all, they remain in the minority. All of my preferred candidates won with good margins so the Nov elections should be ok too.
Our son is home now and the infusion people have him trained and ready to do the iv meds himself with weekly visits from them. He’ll be taking iv antibiotics for the next 6 weeks, have 2 times a week lab tests for his blood thinner meds, see the infection disease and/or lung doc every other week, and have more frequent C scans to monitor everything. It’s a lot, and I remain worried, but I’m trying to stay positive with him. No need to overshare our worried minds :)
As always, my best wishes to all.
{{{princesspat}}} More Healing Energy & Good Thoughts for your son. & you. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Glad to hear your son is home and hoping for the best, princesspat!
80 degrees already, ugh. And there’s 3 wildfires near Austin, firefighters worked overnight. Depressing. At least I get to leave work early, eye doc appointment.
Good morning, meeses! Thursday …
It is 72 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 91. It is raining right now and from the looks of it will rain for another hour or so. Fill those reservoirs!
The Arizona Republican Party’s slate of candidates is a rogue’s gallery. The only question is if the Republicans here will be like Rusty Bowers – disgusted but unwilling to vote for a Democrat – or if they will be like Cindy McCain – disgusted and planning to vote for the Democrats who will preserve democracy in the State of Arizona. I guess we shall see! My Congressional District pits environmental lawyer and University of Arizona professor Kirsten Engels against a self-loathing 1st generation Mexican American whose ads show him striding manfully along the border wall determined to keep “those people” out of Arizona. The 6th district is about 40% Hispanic and I guess the question is whether Latino voters see the hypocrisy in the wholehearted embrace of the lies of a border overrun with millions of “illegals”, two of whom were his parents about 40 years ago. I hope they reject the trumpist.
I have to stop making lists and start clearing lists. I am working to make a document filing “perfect” and I just need to get it done and mailed. If it is not right, I will be notified and I will amend it. I also have to decide the timing of a followup dental procedure (an implant) and see if it can be put off until later in the year so that the expensive part (the restoration) is done in 2023 when I have a new calendar year of benefits. I wish it were all free. :(
See all y’all later!
The site is having that odd lockout thing again, where it says the login screen has to be blocked because of an attack. I got it last night when I tried to login to Fierce Diana’s post and I gathered some notes on the current issue. I am not sure how to fix it this time (we did all the things recommended the last time) but I did clear cache which seems to help. Maybe I will need to do that daily. I suspect that it is the same thing that no longer lets me enter phrases in quotes – some tightening of security that we do not need or want. We do no sales here, we collect no personal data: we just post words and tweets. I may have to look for a new hosting home sooner rather than later.
Thursday Meese. We are in a heat wave here in Kingston – temps may be 100 today and the mayor has issued a water emergency (reservoir is low)
Puerto Rico – Breaking:
Former Governor Wanda Vázquez and Former Secretary of Justice of Puerto Rico under Ricardo Rossello is arrested by #FBI at her residence
Posted:
Good Thursday morning, Meese! It’s 82 F. at 9:17 a.m., going up to 97 F. This will have to be a quickie (should I really use that word?), because I still have to write down my interview questions, then set off to meet my person of interest in the main clubhouse.
Have been so exhausted by the events of the past few days that I slept from 11 to 7 this morning (I did have help). One of the things Daughter kept remarking on was how GREEN everything looks up here and how much cooler it is than Austin. It did get rather hot yesterday, and will again tomorrow, but it’s not 100 F. She said her husband has given her “permission” to look around at blue states for their retirement. “Are y’all Muslim?” I asked, rather startled that my VERY independent daughter would ask anyone’s permission to do anything, ever.
She asked me if I thought she and SIL could be happy living here. I told her yes. There’s an activity for every interest, even an extreme introvert like SIL. There’s an iPad group, and I think another computer group, and an astronomy group.
AOL is playing games with my dmr address. It’s so irritating ! I can receive but not send. AOL wants me to verify the address. Well, duh, I did it 8 months ago. Why must I do it again? I’m so sick of these people. I don’t have time for this crap, anyway.
Darling son-in-law has done at least half the work that needed to be done. He’s got Windows 11 on the Think-Pad, but there are still irritating messages from Windows 10 that he, a Mac person, didn’t know how to get rid of. I don’t know how to do that either. I have an interview this morning, a meeting this afternoon, a dentist appointment at 10 tomorrow, then another interview on Monday. I’ll have to figure out all of this over time.
Wishing everyone at the Pond a good day! (Still delirious about the news from Kansas!)
It started raining just as I was getting up – the A/C was on at the time – and the rain dropped the temps to the low 70s so I have opened up after all. Probably will close up in another hour. Since it is raining and dark, the PV system is still in night mode. But at least the monitoring system seems to be working. It shows Tuesday’s (18 KWHs) and Wednesday’s (17.8 KWHs) generation and the m-t-d 48.25 which isn’t on track for 500 but is for 450.
I got diddly sleep last night. Had a sinusitis flare and made the mistake of taking Sudafed – when I was younger (much younger) it didn’t keep me awake but more times than not it does now. So I can breathe but not sleep. sigh. I did get some light sleep in somewhere between 4 and 6 am.
I got a call at 7 from my older son. One of my grandson’s has tested positive for COVID and the rest of the family has COVID-like symptoms. He was hoping I still had some tests. (I don’t. I used them all up when basket was here & just after.) It’ll cost $100 for him to buy them so he’s not going to. I tried to call Walgreens to see if I, as a Medicare Advantage recipient, could get the free tests still. But of course after 3 calls, having been routed into voicemails the 1st 2, I was informed I have to ask the pharmacist when he gets in at 9. So in about 20 minutes I will brave the Walgreens’ stupid computer answering system and try again.
Anxiety and tension as Amelia’s move gets closer. Everybody will be able to relax once it’s done. So everybody’s doing their part and otherwise hanging on until Monday when it will be done and folks can rest. Jill’s friend is still with us. What she took could have done the job – except she washed those pills down with a 5th of bourbon and barfed them all back up. Poor woman has long-covid and her family’s response is “she should try harder” – one of those dysfunctional families where mom is supposed to support everybody, they aren’t supposed to support her. Prayers up.
If there’s anything else I can’t think of it. So I guess off to twitter & Dee’s diary. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Dear Goddess, bfitz, that’s awful about Jill’s friend and your elder son’s family. Can’t he get free tests from the government? Of course, they take a long time to arrive, which won’t do him any good right now, but at least they could have them for next time there’s a scare.
{{{Diana}}} Walgreens is still doing free drive-through testing so that’s what they’ve done today. He’s not sure about ordering them since this is the 1st time they needed to test and those things have a limited shelf life. But he’s thinking about it. Healing Energy & moar {{{HUGS}}}
Posted a quickie
It’s about time some of these folks were brought to justice.
OMG!
Friday Meese. We are still going to be hot here in Kingston – though not the 100 we had yesterday – only 90. I hope the rain that is predicted will cool things a bit.
Puerto Rico
HUMANITARIAN CRISIS: The lack of medical personnel affects orthopedic services in Puerto Rico
After more than 20 years of community struggle, the dredging of the Martín Peña Channel will begin at the end of this year thanks to millions in investment and a lot of technical advice, but above all, due to citizen participation.
There are teacher shortages all over because no one wants a thankless underpaid job that now might get you sued if you want to teach history that suggests slavery is a bad thing or dare to comfort a child who is dealing with LGBTQ issues. We burned out our teachers during the pandemic, treated them like crap and now want to throw them in jail if they don’t properly teach the official christian white nationalist history of AmeriKKKa. We are going to raise a nation of ignoramuses.
Good hot morning. 78 degrees and probably at least that in humidity. Still 3 fires near Austin. At least good news from the eye doc — no change in vision, and no sign of macular degeneration. I saw the Space Station last night — such an awesome thing. Good to be reminded of great things humanity can do.
(I really wish WordPress would quit logging me out while I’m typing my comment. At least I was able to copy it before I had to go to the login screen and get back in.)
It was 71 or so when I opened the house up at 4 am but while the temp was still 74 the heat index had already hit 80 by the time I closed up again at 7:45. Yesterday the rain cooled things off enough for me to open up for several hours. But was also dark enough we only generated 11 KWHs. So the m-t-d at 59 is not quite on track for 450. Hopefully we’ll make that up today.
I went to Braum’s this morning and got milk, cheese, slaw & chips (in lieu of the cookies I’m not going to bake for a while). So at least my son won’t need to do a shopping run for me on Sunday. Whether COVID or allergies, he needs to rest up until the symptoms are gone. I’ve discovered – after many phone calls – that I can get “free” tests still. But I have to have a Rx from my PCP. Who over a year ago basically handed off his clinic to his NPs and is focusing solely on handing out medical marijuana cards and testing a “supplements-not-vaxxes to prevent COVID” program. So while his staff would be happy to Rx tests for me, my insurance won’t cover it if they do and the likelihood of getting his attention long enough to sign off on one is slim. Yes, I need a new PCP. Meanwhile my family has utilized the still-free drive-through COVID tests Walgreens does and expects to get their results back today.
Good Thoughts or prayers up or whatever for Amelia – she’s putting all her energy on handling the stress so she doesn’t freak out or melt down on the folks who’re helping her move. (Part of which is being ashamed for anyone to see her room – housekeeping hasn’t been there for 2 months. Which has got to be on orders of the new toxic manager because the staff had been taking very good care of Amelia for over 2 years until this guy came in.)
I got better sleep, thank whichever goddess in charge of it, but I’m still groggy. Oh well. I’m still getting done everything I need to get done. That will have to do. Off to twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, meeses! Friday …
It is 72 in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 95. Sunny skies with today’s rain expected around 4pm. There was no rain yesterday after the overnight rain ended at about 7am. It felt odd to not have to dodge raindrops in the late afternoon!
The trumper, Kari Lake, won the Republican gubernatorial race in Arizona. She has stated her number one goal is to decertify Arizona’s 2020 presidential election – nothing about our water management issues, school funding challenges or any other issues that Arizonans care about. I hope that the Republicans here don’t reward her crazy talk and vote for her. We will need their help to elect Katie Hobbs, there are simply not enough Democrats here yet.
The reconciliation bill will proceed. It is ghastly that Sinema was able to reward her donors in such a glaringly obvious way but from what I gather, the tradeoff was more taxes on other things which should cover the lost $14 billion revenue. There is so much good in the bill that we can afford to overlook the grifting of the one-term Senator from Arizona. We will have some really good things to run on in November and projections are now that we will pick up net two Senate seats. If we can hold the House, we won’t need to buy her vote to pass the people’s agenda next year.
Alex Jones’ attorneys – hahahahahahahahaha! They must be from Rudy Guilliani’s law firm.
It has gotten to be Friday again! How does that happen? I need to get back to work.
See all y’all later!
Good morning, 58 and sunny outside my window today. I wasn’t able to post a comment yesterday, so I hope overnight magic has fixed whatever was wrong. I had a very quiet day yesterday, restless but to tired to do anything. So I finally took my grumpy self to the bookstore cafe and read for awhile. I didn’t want to talk to anyone but the walls were closing in at home so it was a good place to be. Sue will be here today so working with her will keep me busy.
Best wishes to all.
How delightful that bookstore cafe sounds, princesspat! There’s one on Swan Street in Melbourne. Our relatives used to take us there. It was blissful. I was amazed when my niece ordered a “Baby ‘ccino” for her little girl, then 2 years old. It came, white froth in a tiny cup, and the child drank it. “It’s one way to get milk into her,” Niece said, sounding rather defensive.
Good morning, meeses! Saturday …
It is 75 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 95. Mainly sunny skies with chance of rain after noon. The morning sky over the mountains was star filled – I am hoping that the skies are kind to us for the upcoming meteor showers. If there are no clouds, we should have a good view with none of the light pollution we had where we lived in Madison.
I saw an article that suggested what I had a feeling happened – because of the low-turnout primary and the splits in the Republican vote, the slate of trumpy deplorables in Arizona won with the support of only 10% of the registered voters in the state. I hope the rest of them look at the ballot in horror and cast a vote for the Democrats for governor, secretary of state, attorney general, US Senate, House of Representatives and the state legislature. Some of the Republican candidates for the state legislature are under investigation in the fake electors scheme. May they find their just rewards.
Fk Indiana and all the other states that hate women so much that they want them to become fetus incubators and die if their pregnancies goes awry. And fk them for passing this heinous life-at-conception bill when it is too late to punish any of the state legislators at the polls in November. I wish we could get candidates to run in every race instead of ceding the election to Republicans – if we had a slate of alternative candidates for state legislator seats, maybe we could exact our revenge. Instead, they get a free pass to control (and destroy) the lives of women of child bearing age.
It sounds like the berners want to trash the reconciliation bill, the last chance to fund planet saving projects and re-fund health care. Isn’t it enough that they handed SCOTUS to the Republicans and ended Roe protections? Fk them, too!
See all y’all later!
Good morning. Hot, of course. Watching the news and eating breakfast. Today: groceries and cooking.
Goooood moaning, Meese, and I use the word “moaning” advisedly. It’s a gloomy, chilly Saturday (74 F. now, supposedly 90 F.) later, and I’m so cold I’m sitting here wearing a jacket. Told Dearly I am going NOWHERE today or tomorrow. I want some time at home.
I finally found a way to lose weight. My tooth hurts I can hardly bear to eat anything. I told the dentist this yesterday morning, when she kindly agreed to see me. This tooth is a crown that she put in a couple of weeks ago and apparently it wasn’t adjusted correctly. So she adjusted it again, but it still hurts. But enough ot that.
Yesterday the Democrats’ Party was huge. That big room was FILLED! It was good to see people I hadn’t seen in ages. I miss them. We used to have these monthly luncheons during which we could listen to speakers, but Covid killed that. I think the organizer person did a very good job. I volunteered to set up, but when I went there, everything was done. Duh.
This weekend I have many essays coming in and lots of paperwork to do. I want to take care of it. Also want to write up the interview I had on Thursday. Then, there are 10 million people to notify about my email address changing abruptly. Some email is still coming through, but it’s organizational email, not personal. Son-in-law said Yahoo is “1950s,” but I told him that although I’ve had a gmail address for years, it is too funky for me to feel comfortable with it.
Daughter said when she and SIL arrived back in The Hills the grass in their yard was yellow and everything is dying. However, the two little doggies and Olive the cat were very happy to see them. Daughter has been gone only since Wednesday and I miss her already. I wish she lived up here so we could do things like going to have pedicures and spend time browsing herb shops.
That’s enough from me this morning. Anyway, the keyboard’s acting up! Two big, strong, muscular males are coming next Saturday to put up a narrow desk that will run alongside my current desk, and the new computer will sit on that. Then I will set about making it my main computer. This Mac has a lot of stuff that I want to keep but I predict a year’s worth of agonizingly slow progress setting up files the way I want them. By the time I finish, I may well have popped my clogs!
With that cheery thought, I will leave you. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
I really am groggy this morning. I thought I’d checked in and obviously I did not. It was 78 when I got up and the heat index never dropped below 80 the whole night/early morning so I didn’t get to open up. The cats aren’t happy about that. We generated right at 18 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d at 77 is back on track for 450 for the month. We shall see what today brings.
We shall see on a bunch of fronts. Good Thoughts & more prayers for Amelia and everyone involved in the move. She’s a half step off a meltdown and there’s no way she could have done this herself. Once the move is done and she’s rested a bit, getting to the doctor and getting back on her meds will make all the difference in the world. But she’s got to get there first.
Ronald’s showy attempt at suicide got Jill’s stalker to come back out of hiding. She’s using scammer technology – email addresses and such that are used once and then disappear w/i half hour of the email sent (which is why Jill does screenshots of everything) and crap like that. Very stressful for Jill. But at least not dangerous. Unlike Ronald running loose and nobody knowing exactly where he is.
Anyway, I’ve done my twitter setup stuff and now it’s just monitoring and boosting for the rest of the day. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
I suspect that Dee is having login issues. I am trying to find out what is going on and will need to get on live chat with the hosting firm. :(
Here is her morning PR tweet.