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”, Motley Meese! The week begins …
Morning low of 73 degrees in the Desert Southwest with an expected daytime high of 99. Mostly sunny skies with a chance for rain in the afternoon.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Good Sunday morning Meese – this made me grin
Puerto Rico
“Our people will never be defeated, because generation after generation will give birth to heroes and heroines.” ~ Pedro Albizu Campos
Caribbean Matters: Puerto Ricans raise outcry over disgraced education secretary’s new mainland gig
Posted
Good morning. Yesterday was busier than I expected. Still didn’t sleep well last night, sigh. But now I’m enjoying the smell of steeping tea, watching the news. After church, there’s a book party for our former pastor who wrote a book about racism in the Methodist church. Then I’ll come home and make next week’s breakfast & dinner. I’ll dance while I’m cooking, so that’s exercise, right?
{{{another}}} Dancing most certainly IS exercise. You do half hour of that and you are definitely good for the day. moar {{{HUGS}}}
It’s 74 heat index 80 heading for 102 heat index 112. And sunny. Yesterday we generated 15.5 KHWs and the m-t-d at 282.6 is back on track for 460.
Karen is almost moved. The POD was full so there’s still stuff in the house because they couldn’t find a rental truck yesterday. Saturday before school starts and all that. Mostly it’s food and other last-minute stuff anyway. But the POD was moved and it’s almost unloaded. Money’s going to be an issue again though. (When is it ever not when someone’s got health issues and is on Social Security?) While the POD and dumpster were within our estimated range the labor most certainly was not. Is not. They’re finishing up today. We’d estimated $1500 and it’s more than double that. Sigh. We’ll figure out something. And seriously pray that job comes through.
I’ve finished my Sunday chores (of course or I wouldn’t be here 😁), hands and back protesting as usual, and am about to head over to xitter, Spoutible, and bsky to start my boosting day. And DK for Dee’s diary. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Good Sunday morning, Moosekind! It’s 75 F. in Ashburn, blue-skied and sunny. The wind doesn’t seem as bad today. We’ll have a few hot days this coming week, but the season is definitely on a downward slope. That’s good news. Up in Rochester, NY, there are already black-eyed susans growing. We usually get them at the end of August here.
Yesterday’s Drama Club meeting was fun, although the leader seemed a bit doddery. I sent him my second play and he sent it to the wrong Connie! There are two Connies in the Drama Club, and I wanted the one on my team to play the lead. Anyway, we did improvs and it was a lot of fun. Luckily the meeting only lasted an hour.
When it was over I emailed a copy of the play to all the members of my team. Connie S. wrote back enthusiastically. She likes it tremendously! That’s good.
Also worked on my short story. I have one more scene to write, then I need to spend a couple of days checking on certain details and doing a “senses pass.” How the cave smelled, what the floor felt like to walk on, which artifacts were available, and so forth. It has to be submitted by 31 August.
We’ve got the recorded Spain vs. England World Cup match on the TV. Unfortunately, Dearly looked at his phone before breakfast so we knew who won. Bummer. It’s always a mistake to look at one’s phone too early!
Younger Son and Karl returned on the late flight from Heathrow yesterday evening. A fire broke out upstairs, and those people couldn’t leave, but Trevor and Karl were allowed out as soon as they left Customs & Immigration. They did see a fire truck and several police vehicles. I hope poor little Karl is spending the day sleeping. Starting fourth grade at a brand-new school tomorrow will be hard enough, but with jet lag it’ll be a lot worse.
Last night I went to the Saturday night movie for the first time in years, to see “Charlie Wilson’s War.” It made me hate the Russian army even more than I already do. There is no need, first of all, to invade another country, and even if that happens, torturing and murdering children, women, and old people is revolting! Tom Hanks was wonderful in the role, Julia Roberts played a woman who was 100 percent WEIRD, and if the real Charley was anything like the movie, he was a sexist to the nth degree. He did want to save the Afghans, though.
That’s enough from me! Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
Good afternoon, 73, calm, quiet but very smoky air here today. The wildfires burning in BC are still intense so air quality reflects that. It’s alarming to see how much area is on fire, but while we are close to the border with Canada the fires are still several hundred miles away. I’ve had a quiet morning but the usual list is waiting for me so time to start being more productive. Best wishes to all.
Monday Meese. 63 here in Kingston NY, going up to 85. Keeping an eye on storms in the Caribbean
Puerto Rico
I’m still furious about Julia Keleher – and so are a lot of Puerto Ricans
“It’s like taking Hannibal Lecter to give a workshop on vegan food.”
“Former Secretary of Education Julia Keleher organizes panel on the island’s educational system
The former official, who pleaded guilty in June 2021 to charges of conspiracy and fraud after resigning from the agency in 2019, proposes to appear, along with former Senate President Eduardo Bhatia, at the next edition of the SXSW EDU conference”
So, I’ve complained before about the heat but this is really ridiculous. 85 degrees (29.44C) at 5:30am. I cut it short, just a little over 20 minutes. Just, ugh. In the office now, grateful for a/c. Hawaii and California and President Carter…….can we please have some good news? Oh — the Romance for Maui auction has raised over $110,000. If you need a gift for someone who reads Romance or Fantasy, there’s still good stuff there until 3pm edt today. Also stuff for writers; and just stuff like earrings, hand-knit scarves, etc.
Good Monday morning, Moosekind! Mostly cloudy and 77 F. in Ashburn as of this writing. We’re under a bad air alert until noon tomorrow because of the wildfires. No rain until Friday. (What else is new?)
School starts today in Fairfax County and probably Arlington County as well. I hope poor little Karl makes it through his first day of fourth grade without falling asleep.
Today I have to work on arrangements for the Memorial Dinner on Sept. 10 (for my late sister), work on the short story (which is due in 10 days), and make notes on a biography. It’s far too long and I just don’t have the time or the interest in the subject’s many lovers of both sexes and her habit of slithering around naked on stage to read the book straight through. She had a good heart, though.
Have rehearsal tonight, so must work on memorizing my part. I’ve had two very positive reactions to my second play, “DNA Dilemma.” The two people who’ve read it are working on the head of the Drama Club to perform it some time in the fall. I wouldn’t mind even if it’s only performed at a Drama Club meeting rather than on the theatre stage.’
It’s already 9:20, so I must get going! Wishing a good day to all at the Pond, and I hope those in the path of Hilary and the wildfire smoke can avoid the effects as much as possible.
Good morning, meeses! Monday …
It is 70 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 91. Clouds and rain off and on all day. Tropical Storm Hilary has put the monsoonal rains in overdrive – we were going to get rain but now we are going to get RAIN. It was raining lightly when I made my morning visit to my deck and I could smell the sweet scent of rain in the desert.
A quick scan of the news included horserace politics and TFG’s indictmentpalooza. I have a busy day so I won’t dawdle.
See all y’all later!
It’s 76 but the heat index is above 80. No I didn’t open the house today. Probably won’t tomorrow either. Sigh. We’re heading for 102 again, heat index 112 again. Yesterday we didn’t quite make it to 15 KWHs but the m-t-d at 297.5 is still on track for 460.
Karen’s moved. She ended up paying 3x for labor what we’d estimated. And her labor was only worth the money because the move actually happened. The movers threw out anything that they considered dirty, didn’t think she needed, or thought could be easily replaced. (Hey Stupid! Replacing costs money! What part of retired & disabled on Social Security don’t you get?) They did pack stuff they thought she needed but didn’t label anything. So now she’s safely in the new place but doesn’t know what she still has and won’t until she’s had enough rest to start unpacking. September rent that was built into our original estimate got eaten by labor. But her Social Security comes in Wednesday so we shall see how short she is after that.
Schools that haven’t already started pretty much start today. My son’s Grab and Go pizza store set up and opened in the dorm (the largest of a 5-building cluster of the original UA dorms) last week and for the next 2 or 3 will be working 70-hour weeks. If he’s lucky and it’s not more. But things will settle down and his new people will learn their jobs (we hope) by October at the latest. Yesterday he brought me (among other things) an 8-lb boneless pork loin that he cut into chops for me. We at least got to visit while he was doing it before he had to get back to the store. I grilled them all after he left. Most are in the freezer. A month’s worth of protein. Hopefully by mid-September I will be able to go back to baking them weekly. LOL.
I’m moving very slowly today. Don’t know why. Maybe reluctance to get started or something. Boosting at 3 platforms is more of a stressor & time suck than I’d realized it would be. Oh well. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Good morning, 63 and sunny but the air is still very smoky because the wild fires in BC are still burning. May the winter rains come early this year.
We are working on repairing the wood storm windows on the house. Most of them are hinged so opening them is easy but some are fixed in place so those are getting hinges. The storm windows take the brunt of the winter weather so where caulking and or glazing has failed we need to repair and seal the wood with paint before winter. Our son is doing most of the work but we will hire a window cleaning firm to do the highest window, as it’s just to dangerous for us to manage with the ladders we have. I’ll need to prune a shrub so they can access the window but that’s ok. Old houses, old gardens and old people all require maintenance! Best wishes to all.
Tuesday Meese. 63 here in Kingston going up to 77.
Puerto Rico
Good Tuesday morning, Meese! It’s cloudy and windy this morning in Ashburn. Let’s hope the wind blows away the nasty air from the wildfires. It’s 73 F. right now, going up to 84 F. No rain expected until Thursday.
Whereas two of my team members in the Drama Club said they were impressed with my second play, “DNA Dilemma,” the head of the club has not indicated what he thinks of it. He did email me asking would I appear with him in an interview on September 29 on the in-house TV network. I said yes, of course. The interview will focus on plays written by residents. I like writing plays. I wish I could get an idea for a play that would last for a whole act and that would require more women characters than male characters.
Today I have to get my hair done, help Dearly retrieve his birthday present (a digital Amazon gift card from Beloved Nephew and Darling Niece), work some more on my story, and attend the UU dinner at 5.
Yesterday I stopped by the Audio-Visual Department and met the CUTEST guy–20-something would be my guess—who very kindly showed me what an HDMI cable looks like, where it would go in the Lenovo, and pointed out that there is a massive TV in the Games Room where we’re holding the Memorial Dinner for my late sister. He also said they’d be doing a show on books written by Ashby Ponds authors, so I handed over Saving the World Through Sex and Magical Encounters. It’s amazing to encounter young people who can actually read.
M’Daughter is phasing out her dog walking business (it’s too hot to walk dogs after 9 a.m. in the Austin area), and going to work in an air-conditioned hospital. She’ll push the meal cart around to the patients. One thing I’ve always admired about my daughter is that she would rather work than sit at home staring at the TV. And it’s a necessary job, they can’t get many people who want to do it.
That’s enough from me for today. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond, and I do hope my relatives in Corpus Christi will be spared the wrath of the hurricane!
Good morning. I slept in, will exercise indoors this afternoon. Watching astronomy & getting ready for wfh. Hoping today is a quiet one out in the world.
It’s 81 outside and 79 inside – I’m not getting on the treadmill until the A/C cycles on. Which it should do any minute now. We generated 14.5 KWHs yesterday – considering how sunny it’s been that’s got to be angle of the sun and a still-growing oak tree reducing our daily generation. I hope. Anyway, the m-t-d at 312 is still on track for 460 but just barely. Yesterday the SWEPCO bill came in and I’m still generating more than I’m using. That’s the important part.
Karen spent most of yesterday sleeping. The only boxes she opened were a few in the kitchen just to get them out of the way. No, of course they didn’t have kitchen stuff in them. The mover guy – without his family fortunately – is supposed to come over today. He’s still got her bookshelves on his truck but was working yesterday. She’s giving him some outdoor/wicker furniture she doesn’t want and calling it a trade for whatever he does today. The single bed she’s sleeping on is very hard on her back but it beats sleeping on the floor. That’s a “later” issue. A friend’s also supposed to come over today and help unpack. Only for a few hours. No way it’s going to get done today. But it will eventually get done.
It’s another groggy day. Maybe that’s my new normal. I hope not. I don’t like it. Oh well. As long as I’m functional, I’m good. Ignoring everything but a quick glance at the RANT News headlines. And whatever I pick up from the folks I follow on xitter, Spoutible, and bsky. (So far I’m only following 8 people on bsky – 4 are actually following me. LOL.) Off to do my boosting chores. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
What’s bsky? Is that BlueSky? I did not know that they had opened it up to ordinary people yet. Did they get rid of the porn?
Yes, it’s BlueSky and no, they haven’t opened up to ordinary people yet. When I made it known I wanted to get over there one of the folks on my needs list (one of my many disabled artists) and is over there sent me an invite. I haven’t a clue as to whether they got rid of the porn. I’m only following 8 people so far and the folks I’m following aren’t putting porn in my TL. LOL. I know there have to be more people I know over there but I haven’t a clue how to find them.
Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …
It is 77 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 93. Mainly sunny skies are in the forecast with the usual monsoon “might rain” percentage at 3pm. This morning when I got up it was 74 degrees but the humidity was 69% – my knees do not like that.
Nothing in the news I care to find out more about. It is nice to see someone will bother challenging Rick Scott for his Senate seat next year. I am afraid that Florida is a lost cause – there is no overreach too far, no fascism too worrying for Florida voters. How they elected Obama in 2008 will always be a mystery to me.
I got a late start and got caught up in a rats nest of of intermingled email accounts and logins for social media. Google announced that gmail accounts that are not used will be removed and there were a couple that were used by the Motley Moose for Social Media that needed to be accessed and moved. I started the first step of deactivating the Motley Moose Facebook account – I will close it on September 10, the purported Moose birthday. I close the Facebook Page which we can’t link to from the web site any longer and started the process to close the Twitter account which we also can no longer post to. I have to wait 24 hours before I can close the account because of all the changes I made so I will finish it tomorrow. The end of an era!
See all y’all later!
Wow. I’ve I’ve got to try to save one of my old accounts at Gmail also. I thought we had until the end of the year.
I believe you have until the end of the year but I did not want to wait until the last minute. We lost a Moose related gmail account because it got changed in some way that locked me out. Thank goodness I had a backdoor that let me assign an accessible email address to the account and I could abandon the locked email account. If you need to go through extraordinary steps to retrieve an account, better to know now rather than with only a few days to spare. I hope Google “shreds” the emails it deletes – I am pretty sure some of the accounts contain accounts and passwords to other services.
Wow, the end of an era indeed. I’ve I’ve got to try to save one of my old accounts at Gmail also. I thought we had until the end of the year.
Good morning, 61 and the air is slightly less smoky today. I’ve been waiting until evening before watering the garden because the breeze from the bay brings moist and cleaner air. Not much new from me, seems like I’m trudging through an endless chore list lately….wash, rinse repeat! Best wishes to all.