Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: October 2nd

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.

35 Comments

  1. Wednesday Meese. Was awakened in the middle of the night by huge crashing noises – apparently the remnants of Ian arrived up here as a major thunderstorm and we now have heavy rain. Currently it’s 48 and will go up to 61. I have a doc appointment this morning and hubby has one this afternoon – I hate rain driving.

    Puerto Rico

  2. Good morning, meeses. Wednesday …

    It is 61 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 82. Sunny skies are in the forecast. This is like the weather we had when we first arrived about 6 months ago – the bookend “perfect seasons” here in the desert Southwest. I have my window open and I may need to find a sweatshirt!

    Unfit Republican candidates with the Endorsed by Trump label are floundering in places where statewide races (i.e. not gerrymandered) will determine the winner. The Michigan governor is ahead by double digits, Senator Mark Kelly is ahead by double digits, we are ahead in the Pennsylvania governor’s race and hold a lead in the Senate race. It turns out that the Trump Endorsed Senate candidate in Georgia is just as gross and disgusting as he is and just as emotionally and mentally incompetent. I am a bit worried about the Arizona governors race – Kari Lake’s ads make her look reasonable and her “I was a TV anchor for 20 year” persona is highlighted instead of the crazy person she has become in the service of election denialism and hate. If she wins, it is going to suck here politically. Her opponent, Democrat Katie Hobbs, is being portrayed as Open Borders and Defund the Police. I would like to find whoever started the call to Defund the Police and throttle them. There were a million better ways to frame that you want to hold police – both departments and individual law enforcement officers – accountable and they chose the stupidest. You can’t defund the police, for crying out loud. Democrats lost House seats in 2020 because of that and are poised to lose more along with winnable Senate seats and gubernatorial races. Republicans are running on crime and open borders and when people go to the polls they will be asked to choose between protecting women’s rights and "keeping their family safe." Sigh. Republicans know how to frighten people and they have plenty of craven media outlets – and the berners – to help them.

    I need to quickly put a few articles in Pocket and then get my day started. I have a few things to do on client computers and they are 2 hours ahead of me. I will be glad when they Fall Back to being just one hour ahead so that the window of time between when I get up and when they start work is wider.

    See all y’all later!

    • Here in AR we’re about to see if the state is more racist or misogynist as far as the governor’s race is concerned. I never thought I’d see the day when I’d hope misogyny wins but I certainly do this year since that will give us a Black democrat for governor instead of Sarah Huckerster’s Daughter Sanders.

      • That would be a reach for them to elect a woman, wouldn’t it? I think that tRump won largely because hatred for women literally TRUMPed everything else.

  3. Good morning. Got up early & walked, just over a mile. Cool morning, 60 degrees so I have the windows open. I keep hoping to get it cool enough to not need the a/c in the afternoon. There was a thread on twitter last night about the people who won the Nobel Prize for experiments about Bell’s Theorem (paired particles, or as Einsten said “spooky action at a distance”). I rt’d it so I can find it this afternoon when I’m more awake. I’m watching astronomy TV now, but they keep it pretty simple.
    Sending all good thoughts to Diana and Dearly.

  4. Welp, I have a flat tire. I guess I’m not going to go get catfood today. My son thinks he’s got enough crew coming in today – IF they all show up – to leave early and deal with it this afternoon. He may or may not also get the catfood for me.

    I sure hope the optimizer gets here soon. Yesterday we generated 8.8 KWHs. The m-t-d at 36 is still, barely, on track for 260. I do have 200 KWHs in the sock so – fingers crossed and all that – once the system is generating up to par I may manage to not pay SWEPCO more than maintenance again this year.

    Amelia apparently broke a tooth yesterday. One more thing. But she handled it with cussing rather than melting down and that is so much progress. Holding the Good Thoughts/sending Healing Energy to everybody. And candle for Diana.

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

  5. Justice Jackson is carrying on the traditions of Thurgood Marshall, a man whose seat was filled by a Black person who denies his own Blackness and is still butthurt because he chose to characterize people exposing his defects during his confirmation hearing as being personally unkind.

    This:

    Yes, she will not make a dent in the wall of hatred for The Other that is the signature theme of the Alito-Sanders Republican Majority but this reply to Geidner’s tweet is spot on:

    If you can’t write for the majority, make their reasoning look transparently dishonest.

  6. A slow and sleepy morning, 61 outside my window now. Our son is here repairing and fitting the sewing room door so I need to join him and do what I can to assist. The old door needed more work than just replacing the weather stripping, but it’s nearly done. The rotten frame has been restored, the door and screen door now have new bottom sections, the gap in the frame where the foundation settled is filled with new wood, cracks in the old concrete sil are patched, etc. When the door is sanded and painted it will be weather tight again and look like nothing happened to make it be so! I know that’s the desired result but it takes a lot of work to make it happen. Best wishes to all. Diana, you are in my thoughts.

  7. Walked 1.19 mi this morning. Eventually that stupid hill will stop kicking my butt. It isn’t even a particularly steep one, there’s just something about it. I woke up at 3something, then 4, refused to get up even though that wasn’t enough time before my alarm to get back to real sleep. Dropped a caffeine tablet into my already strong tea, hope it helps.

  8. Thursday Meese. Hectic day today – have some more ceremonial work to do
    Just posted

  9. Good Thursday morning, Meese. Thank you all for your sympathy in my time of sorrow, it has meant a lot to me. I didn’t realize how much I would miss Monty after he was gone. From getting up early while it’s still dark to take him to the courtyard, to patting him on the head when he followed us to his bed in our bedroom at night, he was so much part of our day.

    It’s a beautiful morning here in Ashburn, temp. 52 F., sunny, going up to 77 F. It’s a great day to dry all the rugs that need washing. I asked Dearly if we would be considered clinically insane if we were to get a new beagle puppy, a girl this time, so it could pee all over our carpets. He said he would love it. There’s a guy in Virginia Beach whose mother-in-law died, leaving him with 19 beagle puppies. We are thinking…

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.

    • We lasted two weeks of firm “no more dogs” after my last raised-from-puppyhood dog passed before we broke down and got a rescue dog. One does miss the presence of a dog and patting a dog on the head is actually good for you. I find myself talking to my dog and sharing things with her even though she is deaf and sleeps 23 hours a day. The amiable companionship would be missed although not the carrying her down the stairs part. :)

    • {{{Diana}}} Monty’s still hanging around. He will until the raw edges of the Monty-shaped hole in your heart and life smooth over. Another dog will open a new and different space in your heart – and become a loving and loved part of your household. That’s just what they do. Healing Energy and moar {{{HUGS}}}

    • Puppy is a very good idea. Our new terror and his brother (who visits) keep us in stitches laughing (when we aren’t cleaning up messes)

  10. Good morning, meeses! Thursday …

    It is 63 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 79. Mostly sunny skies with a chance of rain around mid-day. We had a storm yesterday that popped up, drenched us then moved on. The weather is very different here.

    The Secret Service runs VP Harris’ car off the road in a freaking tunnel, blows out a tire and then calls it a mechanical failure. If I were the people in the Biden administration, I think I would hire my own security until the Secret Service is investigated and cleaned out of all the MAGAs and the just plain incompetent agents. Scary stuff.

    Well, the Republicans are ramping up Democrats Soft on Crime ads and they apparently are finding fertile ground in the brains of people who are looking for a reason to vote their racist instincts. An ad against Kirsten Engel, the Democrat running to represent me in Congress, claims that she supports siccing 87,000 IRS agents on ordinary Arizonans and the “IRS agent” they show is a huge (very dark-skinned) Black man aggressively putting his hand out to grab your money. SUBtle for sure! Goddess, I cannot wait for this election cycle to end! I will be able to vote next week – I wish the ads would disappear when I drop my ballot in the mailbox but I know that won’t happen. The MUTE button is my friend.

    It has gotten to be Thursday and I have not completed the things I wanted to do this week. Not only that but Monday is a Federal holiday and there will be no mail and banking so I need to plan activities accordingly. We have terrible mail service over weekends and holidays because our mail is shipped to Phoenix to be sorted and then shipped back to Tucson to be delivered – even if the mail is going from a Tucson address to another Tucson address. It seems like things mailed on Fridays are worse – they must get put in a big bin that sits for a few extra days. From what I understand, we will soon be getting our postmark and local sorting back – something they lost in 2013 – after a just completed study showed that a full-service sorting and distribution service is needed here. Take that, DeJoy!

    See all y’all later!

  11. It’s 57 heading for 85 and sunny. Back down to the 70s starting tomorrow. We didn’t quite manage 8 KWHs yesterday – I hope that optimizer gets here soon! The m-t-d is 44 and that’s not quite on track. sigh. The guy across the street is going to try to clean the panels on Sunday. That should help as well, although of course not as much.

    My son got me a tire inflator, the kind that plugs into the “cigarette lighter” port, the kind I can actually use myself. He aired up the tire that as actually flat, more to show me how it works than anything else. Then I aired up the tire that was “just” low. We also got catfood – what I used to feed the guys but “supply issues” a couple of months back. They scarfed it down when I opened the bag. This morning it’s “what’s this crap” again. Cats. We’ll see how much they’ve eaten by the end of the day. As long as they eat 1/4 cup eat they won’t damage themselves. Since they’re indoor cats (except when they escape but that’s usually not more than once or twice a month) they’re getting enough food on 1/3 cup each and actually gain weight on the “recommended” 1/2 cup each.

    Amelia’s dentist called early yesterday with a “come now” cancellation – and she managed to do it without melting down. You don’t know how much progress that is. Of course the cost of what she needs done isn’t good news at all. But she seems to have some plans for managing. And that is also just so very much progress. Holding the Good Thoughts/Healing Energy for everybody, whatever need or species.

    Groggy seems to be my normal. Blast it. I most certainly am today anyway. So things will be slow. But I’ll get there. Off to twitter and Dee’s diary. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  12. Good morning, 58 and partly sunny in my garden today. My night was a series of naps so I’m feeling very slow and sleepy, but I need to get busy regardless. First some tea, then the desk, then what ever happens next :) Best wishes to all.

  13. Friday Meese. 52 going up to 74 here in Kingston. POTUS Biden paid a visit to our area yesterday

    This is really good news for “up here”

    The news from Puerto Rico is not good.

    • What will it take for someone to care about Puerto Rico? I hope that they are working behind the scenes to find a competent replacement for Luma – the island has suffered too much.

  14. Woke up at 4 freaking 30 again. At least I got showered, dressed and downtown way before any traffic. Done with my walk by 6:05. I just checked the results of yesterday’s women’s triathlon championship at Kona yesterday — and an American woman who just did her first Iron distance this year won. Shocking enough to wake me up. Oh, and the Nobel Peace Prize announcement, Putie is gonna be really mad.

  15. Good morning, meeses! Friday …

    It is 67 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 79. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast with possible rain at noon. Yesterday’s Rain At Noon arrived as a pop-up storm around 2:30pm, a very fierce storm north and south of us – we got a short sun shower.

    President Biden’s policies are a definite shout out to the youth of America. It saddens me to see the polls showing that young people are not interested in voting in the midterms. It will suck for them if Republicans take over Congress, halt all progress and work to install a Republican president to repeal all the good things that have been accomplished. You have to vote in EVERY election because Republicans will ratfk everything they are in charge of, blame it on Democrats and then take over the entire government. Time is running out for the planet – we can’t let Republicans gum up the works again to hope that we can "fix it later" – there ain’t gonna be no later.

    If my Twitter feed is any indication (it probably isn’t, I don’t follow terrible people), Senator Mark Kelly did a great job in his debate with Theil-Trump robot Masters. We need him to retain his seat because Democrats need something to hang onto if the election deniers win statewide. The polls are too close. Liz Cheney was here saying that if she lived in Arizona, she would vote for the Democrats because the Republican slate is anti-democracy. I don’t know if there are any Arizona Republicans who will hear that and choose democracy over party but even if she moves the needle a bit, it may be enough to put Katie Hobbs, Adrian Fontes, and Kris Mayes over the top. I have not seen polling on the Secretary of State or Attorney General races but the ads for the Attorney General race seem to all be for our candidate and against the trumper. Maybe they have written off Tucson or maybe having less than 9 percent of Arizona voters pick the worst possible Republican nominee is not working so well and they don’t want to throw good money away. The governor’s race is the most concerning – the anti-Katie Hobbs ads are brutal and they are fluffing up the former Fox News anchor to look reasonable. All I can do is vote and pray.

    Today I need to get some accounting work done ahead of the long weekend. I want to take a day off and visit the Desert Museum. We have not been there since May when it was starting to get too hot to walk long distances. Now that the weather is comfortable again, the desert flora and fauna beckon.

    See all y’all later!

  16. Good Friday morning, Moosekind! It’s 53 F. and sunny in Ashburn, a gorgeous day, although clouds will move in mid-afternoon. Tonight I have a child-tending job while the parents are attending a play. Perhaps the girls and I will write a scary Halloween play together.

    Wish they weren’t too young (Father’s dictum) to watch “Bend It Like Beckham.” It’s one of the most endearing movies I’ve ever seen.

    Had to leap out of bed at3:15 a.m. and stamp my foot on the floor because of leg cramp. It’s my own fault for sleeping with one leg outside the covers. Not sure why, but my legs get very hot, even when I have only one thin sheet and summer-weight coverlet on the bed. Oh, well, do not wish to bore you with minutiae.

    This morning I don’t like the news either. Wishing all at the Pond a good day.

    • I always sleep with a foot out even when it is cold. I call it my "breather foot" – it feels as though I can’t breathe if all of my limbs are under blankets, even light blankets or a simple sheet. I am sure it is more related to temperature control but it feels stifling to not have it out!

  17. It’s 54 heading for 75 – the “heatwave” is over – and sunny. We at least managed to generate 8.6 KWHs yesterday but the m-t-d at 53 is not on track. I wish to heaven that optimizer would get here. Since August we’ve been generating one month down as it were – September totals in August, October totals in September, and now November totals in October.

    Best I know as of last night everybody was hanging on. Not necessarily in a good space but nobody getting any worse anyway. Healing Energy and Good Thoughts for everyone, whatever the issue or species.

    I’m groggy. So what else is new. Off to twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  18. Good morning, 62 and sunny outside my window today. Our son is here painting the doors and then will repair the leak under the wine cellar sink. So grateful we can help each other as needed, and that he is looking and feeling healthy again. I’ve been cleaning up old files and partially completed projects in my sewing room so the space is nearly ready for me to start a new project, yay! I’ve got a lovely autumn leaf print and have found the backing and trim in my stash so now I can finally make the table runners I have wanted to do for a long time. Best wishes to all.

  19. Saturday Meese. 46 going up to 58. Going to a ceremonial drumming today, later this afternoon. Perfect fall day for it.

    Puerto Rico

  20. Good Saturday morning, Meese. What day is this? What planet is this? The current temp. in sunny Ashburn is 50 F., going up to 60 F. later today. I’ll take it!

    The DadCab picked me up at 5 p.m. in front of our building yesterday and returned me a little after 1 a.m. He also ordered dinner in for the girls and me, which was nice. We watched one of my favorite movies, “Bend It Like Beckham,” after dinner. It’s one of the parents’ favorites too. The eldest daughter, the nearly-teen, is by way of being a feminist so she was riveted. The others were slightly less so. I hadn’t realized how much trash-talk there was in the movie—“bitch,” “slag,” “shag”— but I think most of it got right by the preteens.

    Now that the girls are growing up and becoming more independent, they’re not as keen to play games as a group. That was OK. As you know, I had a hard week coping with loss, and they’d apparently had a hard week at school.

    Of course, being the nice people they are, the parents apologized for being late getting home, they said the traffic coming out of the playhouse was terrible, but I didn’t mind. And Dad paid me handsomely for my time.

    In other news, I feel too exhausted to do much of anything. I do have tons of forms to fill out, so perhaps I’ll do that. Also have letters and my journal to update.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.

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