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, Moosekind, and happy lambing season! It’s another cold gray day in Ashburn, 37 F. at the moment, with the sound of some kind of precip. dripping through the rainspouts. Can’t decide whether it’s rain or melted snow. Anyway, our high today will be in the 40s, and the sky will stay gray all day.
Not much to say this morning, aren’t you glad? Meeting at 11 with the publication team of my writers’ group and the director of Philanthropy, who we hope will pay to publish it. Of course, I have to be at the theater no later than 6:30 so I’ll start cooking dinner at 4 p.m. Then we can eat dinner at 5—an awful thought, but I have to do it.
Sorry to hear that the blazing star of Broadway, Chita Rivera, died. She had good innings, though, and incredible energy and talent! R.I.P., Ms. Rivera.
Nora’s braces came off yesterday! Her father sent a video of Nora striking the gong, with the nurse and orthodontist (both masked, I noticed) in attendance. She’ll be 15 in a couple of weeks.
Time to start breakfast. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
Good morning. Another chilly one with a gorgeous afternoon coming. I will try the walk/run later. I have a work meeting this morning, I get to watch on zoom. I got the majority of the “problem” applications I was given done yesterday, I think the previous person just didn’t try very hard. Anyway, today: astronomy, stupid zoom meeting, work, run/walk.
It’s 37 heading for 66 and sunny again. One last day of sunshine for the last day of January. Yesterday we generated 10.6 KWHs and the m-t-d at 149.79 will most certainly get over the 150 today and possibly get over the 159.67 we did in 2020! That isn’t great but it’s definitely better.
Other than that there seems to be no good news anywhere. But I’ll keep boosting anyway. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Glad about the sunshine, bfitz dear!
Wednesday Meese. Woke up to snow even tho the weather said it wasn’t.
Puerto Rico
Good morning, meeses! Thursday and Spring is in the Air …
It is 51 degrees in Tucson 🌵 with an expected daytime high of 68. Sunny skies until about 3pm when a front begins moving in on the winds bring clouds and overnight showers – up to an inch of rain in the valley. Yesterday I sat by the pool and baked in the sun with the temperature reaching 75. Soon the baby lizards, who also love baking in the sun, will show up!
I am not going to wreck my day by reading the news. I made it to February without missing any hard deadlines. Now I have to focus on getting my taxes done ASAP with the looming government shutdown of March 1 providing incentive. If I recall, the House Republicans are planning to defund the IRS and I do not want to have my tax returns lost or in limbo (I will never know) like they were the year after the pandemic hit. That sucked.
See all y’all later!
I made it to 7 rounds of 2 whole minutes running, 2 walking. Thought (still think) I was gonna die. But I did it. Anyway, lots going on in the world. But I’ll just keep on with my little walk/run thing.
Thursday Meese. 30 degrees here in Kingston NY, going up to 44.
Puerto Rico
Mariposa’s poems about Black hair are featured in today’s Caribbean Matters (posts at 8:30 AM)
Posted:
Happy Imbolc! It’s 52 heading for 66 and at least partly sunny today. Yesterday we generated a little over 10 KWHs and wrapped January up with 160! That’s better than last year AND 2020 so it’s good. The best we’ve ever done in February was 320.9 which certainly isn’t going to happen this year. The worst was 125 in 2021 because there was snow on the panels for a full week. Since climate collapse set in about 6 years ago we’ve otherwise averaged 200 (as in within 18 KWHs one side or the other of the line) so 200 or more is the goal. We shall see what we shall see.
Aashirs Nani and I sent Fineena a week’s worth of frozen dinner entrees from Walmart (AN has a membership so it didn’t cost her anything but the tip) for which she was very happy and grateful. Not having to do anything but put something in the microwave encourages her to actually eat. We’re hoping the county program that was supposed to have brought her a month’s worth of frozen dinners but no-showed will actually show up this month and what we sent will tide her over. Otherwise nothing new with her. She paid the rent yesterday and thinks she’s OK for electric but needs to check. Her internet doesn’t work & she can’t understand the support tech person (has a hearing issue she can fake around with English 1st language speakers but not with English 2nd language speakers) so she can’t get it fixed. She’s in pain and depressed. (Well, that’s true of a lot of folks I know.)
Anyway I’ve got errands to run today and I’m having a tremors flare that’s slowing my down so I’d best get to my boosting. Holding the Good Thoughts for Everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Good morning, 53 and light rain in Bellingham today. Yesterday was busy, but I now have a new doc and I think he will be ok. I’ll need to learn how to better use the My Chart computer system because that’s they way the clinic works now but I can do that. I don’t like the changes but oh well.
I saw a new eye doc too and as suspected my vision has changed a lot but I don’t have any other eye issues. So new glasses and frames are ordered for general use, my old frames will have new lenses for computer and sewing room use, and over the counters will be used as needed for computer work. I thought I wanted to have trifocals so the multiple glasses juggle would stop but he thinks the field of vision for each correction would be to small so I’ll stay with the multiple glasses solution because I really want to see more clearly, especially in my sewing room.
Today will be a housekeeping and laundry day so time for coffee and then to get busy. As always, my best wishes to all.
Friday Meese. It’s 33 and my weather forecast tells me it is snowing but just looked outside and it isn’t.
Puerto Rico
Your weather widget does not seem in tune with your location! For precipitation, I prefer the “look out the window” tool over what my phone says.
Bloody hell, that’s cruel, to deny a young man his rightful honor as a valedictorian! I hope the racists who did it all came down with cancer of the liver.
I hope Don Pedro lived long and prospered.
Good morning. Did 7 rounds of 2 & 2 again. Still very hard. Warm enough that I just wore a long sleeve shirt. I see in the news that tfg hires men just like himself, no surprise. Anyway, yay it’s Friday. Supposed to rain this afternoon, which is fine, we’re still in a drought.
Good morning, meeses! Friday …
It is 44 degrees in Tucson 🌵 with an expected daytime high of 50. It is raining now and is expected to rain most of the day. The forecast calls for 1.5 inches of rain in the valley and a foot of snow in the mountains. We will see the sun tomorrow but it will still be chilly.
It sounds like tens of millions of dollars in campaign donations have been used by the orange pustule to pay his legal bills. That explains why he still has attorneys after his history of stiffing them but I am confused about how donations for a campaign can be used that way. What is the difference between using campaign funds to pay your attorney in a personal or business matter or using campaign funds to pay for other personal things? Is it because our campaign finance laws are toothless – as witnessed by the ease with which George Santos turned his donations into a personal slush fund? All I can say is “keep donating all your money to tRump, MAGA nation, may you end up impoverished.” The good news about TFG’s legal woes is that there is a recent poll that suggests that when the charges turn into convictions, a lot of independent voters will “hold their noses” and vote for Biden rather than vote for a convicted felon. I guess we will find out.
I have a couple of things to do this morning but nothing urgent (for the first time in two months). Next week I will start in on client project work again.
See all y’all later!
What a lovely feeling! I finally finished the article I owed to the quarterly and am now waiting for it to go through review. It felt like homework, undone, that was hanging over my head. Hate that feeling!
That’s exactly the feeling, like “undone homework”!
Good Friday morning, Moosekind, and perhaps seldom has a retired person contemplated the approaching weekend with such relief! Today is gray, it’s 48 F. outside in Ashburn, and our high will be about 50 F.
Yesterday I wanted to write about how we woke up to frost silvering the wide sweep of grass that slopes down to the 10-feet-high black chain link fence, and turned the pools in the woods to silver ice. The rising sun made the pools glitter and the blue serene above the trees promised a mild, enjoyable day. And so it was. I went for a little walk in the late afternoon and saw forsythia popping out! I was in shock—yesterday was February 1!
Busy, busy day ahead: I have to send back my short story to my friend, who is (was?) planning to publish it in her anthology. She wanted me to change the title from “The Drunken Ladies of the Garden Club” to something like “Sophie Triumphs Over Her Fear,” which is out of the question. To me, the very incongruity of the words “Drunken,” “ladies,” and “garden club” is so forceful that it makes me want to read the story. The real life situation on which that story is based made me want to write it in the first place. Anyway, I will not change the title, so if she decides not to include it, I’ll simply publish it in my next short story collection.
Do you not find it ridiculous that a bunch of silly men dressed in 19th-century costumes prises a furry, hibernating creature out of its cave in February and uses it to predict the rest of winter? He wouldn’t have seen his shadow in this area, that’s for sure. However, “they” are predicting four-letter-word around the 16th, which will be darling granddaughter’s birthday.
He—you know whom I mean—is NEVER going to be convicted of anything! It sickens me the way he receives more media coverage than the actual president! In the “never, never any good news for Biden” policy of the WaPo, they’re now saying that the Arabs in Michigan are planning not to vote for him. We’ll have to turn out big time—Swifties, you know where your duty lies!
Rehearsal tonight, after which I plan to collapse for the weekend. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
Ha! I just finished reading an article about the Power of the Swifties. It is really the power of “successful women who are tired of being treated like dirt by Republicans” and they will rue the day they went after her.
In a suburb near Madison, they have a long running Groundhog Day ceremony with Jimmy the Groundhog. They do not dress oddly but the current mayor is usually there and one year Jimmy bit the mayor’s nose which made national news. Since then, they do not have a live groundhog but just a letter “from” Jimmy and a dressed up mascot. We once visited the farm where Jimmy lived with his handler (he – the handler, not Jimmy – also sold produce and pumpkins) and saw him up close and personal which was very exciting for my daughter.
Thank you for my first and so far only, laugh of the day!
It’s 51 heading for 70 – the cool front’s been shoved off until tomorrow. And 50s is cool, not cold. We may or may not have overnights below freezing at all in the next week or so. Yesterday we generated 9.3 KWHs so we’re on track for over 200. So far.
Yesterday was kind of busy. I met with the apple guy in the Sam’s Club parking lot and got the last 5 lbs of Lady apples. (They were clearing out their “cold storage” in prep for next year and thought of me.) Then did the grocery shopping I meant to do next week because construction forced me to go right by the store to get home. And just a little while after I got home the vet clinic called to say Charlie’s ashes were ready to be picked up. They were in a lovely little wooden box, nicer than most coffins for humans. They’re now buried in the iris garden out the back door beside his best buddy, the cat who let him join our household. So.
I’m hoping for a quiet day today. Best get to my boosting. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Yesterday sounds like a lovely day for you, bfitz! Lady apples—are those the little tiny ones? I’ve been looking for Lady apples and tiny Seckel pears for ages but have not found any. I suppose the freakin’ grocery chain up here considers them to be old-fashioned.
Harrumph! Anyway, I’m glad Charlie has a nice resting place. Ansi-soit-il.
The original Lady apples are very small. These are actually “Pink Ladies” – a cross between the Lady and (I think) Red Delicious so they’re about the size of a Jonathan. The grocery stores around here don’t carry them but there’s a local grower.
Thank you about Charlie.
It’s nice to have a resting place nearby for pet family members. We do the same.
It is. There are 4 cats in that garden. And a glance out the window or door lets me see where they are.
Good morning, 51 and mostly cloudy outside my window today. If I can get my act together I want to buy and plant some primroses today. I really want to prune the winter damaged plants but it’s best to wait until I know spring is safely here. So seeing some color in the empty pots will be nice. Coffee first, then I’ll see what happens. Best wishes to all.
Saturday Meese. 30 degrees here in Kingston, going up to 38.
Was surprised to find more Puerto Rico articles/tweets than usual.
Puerto Rico
“Today marks 10 years since the loss of one of the best Comedians in Puerto Rico, Luis Raul. The only one who had the art of making us laugh and at the same time expose social problems and let many know how wrong we are, but in his own style. With his face of tragedy he told us things that made us laugh and made us reflect, he was the first to make a Choliseo, may the titan of comedy rest in peace”
“An ACLU report prepared based on dozens of interviews with inmates, former inmates and family members reveals a disturbing picture of poor health services and other abuses in Puerto Rican prisons”
Support needed: Native Alaskans
Good morning. Today, I’m going to cook and get in a run/walk. Got to make next week’s tea early because there’s a meeting at church tomorrow about declaring ourselves a Reproductive Justice congregation.
Good morning, meeses! Saturday …
It is 37 degrees in Tucson 🌵 with an expected daytime high of 50. Sunny skies are in the forecast. We had rain off and on all day yesterday, some of it pretty heavy, and even a bit of thunder. There were some sunny breaks and I was able to – just barely! – get my morning walk in during one of them. There are still storm clouds over the mountains but this morning I watched the dawn forming at the end of the mountain range.
I am going to avoid any deep dives into the news – it is so depressing to see the two person Republican majority in the House block everything with the goal of tanking Biden’s re-election. The New York Republicans who got their seats because of the doodieheaded gerrymanders tried by the New York Democratic Party would be smarter to become independents and caucus with Democrats to get things done that they could run positive campaigns on. Instead they choose to go down with the sinking ship.
I let myself sleep in and so I am a little behind where I wanted to be this morning. The good news is that all the of the projects are personal projects and they can be put off until tomorrow if I so choose. This month Microsoft Patch Tuesday (update day) is not until the 13th which means that there are no pre-MPT maintenance steps that need to be run on servers this weekend.
See all y’all later!
Jan, I was appalled to see that some guy in the Arizona lege wants the ability to overturn election results if they don’t like the results.
Unconstitutional!