Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Jan. 3rd through Jan. 9th

January 3, 2016 JanF Community 123

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 (every Sunday morning). 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 now 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 and use the link.

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20 Comments

  1. Slept in, only woke up once, so was pretty successful at resting. Thinking about writing a birthday diary to raise money for the Children’s Shelter & kick off AIDS Ride fundraising. I’ll think about it later, brain not engaged yet. It is playing music — the intro to U2’s Bad that is my alarm sound, so really my brain isn’t engaged yet.

  2. Another misty moisty morning here – yes, Diana it’s driving me nuts :) – still in the mid 40s and if it doesn’t clear off it’s going to stay there. If it does clear off we could get up to the mid 50s. Rain supposed to move in around midnight and possibly snow by sunrise tomorrow. I need to get milk tonight after work. The stores will be crowded with the “1st snow panic” people. heh

    Hope Maine gets rid of its nutjob governor. Also Michigan. Hell, all the states, including my own, with evil, anti-Xtian RWNJ governors. Unfortunately not likely – especially mine which deliberately put the governor’s election in the “by” years when our folks tend to not get out and vote and we never get the “coattails” effect of a good presidential year. sigh.

    Anyway, I’ve got lots of stuff I need to get finished today because they are “upgrading” several of my programs over the weekend so they probably won’t work Monday. Everybody stay safe and warm. {{{HUGS}}}

  3. Good morning, 36 and cloudy in Bellingham. I’m looking forward to going to the pool this morning. Now that the holidays are finally over I can exercise without worrying about having energy left for the rest of the day. November and December were challenging months for me and my creaky knees.

    We’ve had a comical tech challenge this week. RonK enjoys British tv shows so I gave him a Roku device for Christmas and a subscription to Acorn TV. I’ve finally got all the cables connected correctly and the passwords entered where they need to be, and now we just need to remember how it all works! “Easy peasy” instructions can be confusing :)

  4. Good late morning everyone! Grey but warm here this morning – we’ll get back to cool weather on Sunday though.

    The Flint situation is so horrifying – I wish I thought Snyder would suffer some legal consequences for refusing to act even though he KNEW what was happening to that water supply, but I’m pessimistic. Same for LePage in Maine – and Dee, you just voiced my nightmare of what could happen to us in November. I do think the effect of dredging up Bill Clinton’s past is likely negligible – it’s not like it’s news to anyone, and perhaps Trump pushing it now will inoculate Hillary from that stuff by the fall.

    Amidst all this terrible news to start the New Year, I’ve watched/listened to two artistic endeavours that actually give me some hope. First, the movie The Martian, which I cannot recommend highly enough – it’s funny, it’s hopeful, it presents the notion that human beings of good will and high intelligence can actually work together to solve seemingly insoluble problems. And almost as important, to my eye anyway, is the casting – I read the book, and while some characters were identified as women, Asian or Latino and the movie correctly cast them as such, most were not identifed. So Ridley Scott, the director, gave us Chiwetel Ejiofore (playing American so well as all the British actors can do) as the mission head honcho, and a terrific young African American actor I had not seen before as the brilliant aerodynamics analyst who comes up with the daring rescue plan “the math checks out!”. Scott also made a Chinese head of their space program a woman, which was not in the book, and he beefed up the actions of the female commander of the space ship, played by Jessica Chastain, in a heroic way (trying not to spoil it too much lol). It’s a brilliant movie, and it offers a picture of America that’s in stark contrast to what’s going on in the political world.

    The second piece is the brilliant musical selling out on Broadway now, Hamilton. I had heard about it, a bit, but hadn’t heard any of the music till a column I was reading yesterday (on Blizzard Watch, Dee) had a link to one of the songs on YouTube (no video, just the songs). I clicked on it to listen (“Ten Duel Commandments”) and was instantly captivated. I listed to the whole thing via the You Tube links, then I went and bought the CD at Amazon, which gave me the MP3 version as well, so I listened to most of it again. It is hard to describe, for anyone who hasn’t read about it – a hiphop musical about Alexander Hamilton (the intro song is now my personal earworm! lol), in which all the Founding Fathers and Mothers are played by Latino, black and Asian singers, many of them hip hop artists in their own right. It is wonderfully musical – not just hip hop, but also glorious melodies interspersed. I haven’t heard anything like it before, and it made me want to go buy a plane ticket to New York to try to see it, although good luck with that, it’s sold out for months now. Still, listening to it and then reading some stuff about Lin-Manuel Miranda, the writer/composer and what he was trying to say with it, just gave me hope about young people in America. I put a link below to a piece in the New Yorker about him and the musical, as well as a link to a NYTimes article that includes reactions to it from Stephen Sondheim, and Ron Chernow, whose biography of Hamilton was what inspired Miranda to write the musical.

    I apologize if you all have discussed all this before – I imagine Dee is well up on this young composer – but just in case you haven’t, I thought folks might be interested.

    http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/hamiltons

    http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/08/t-magazine/hamilton-lin-manuel-miranda-roots-sondheim.html?_r=0

      • See the clip from the show

        Lin-Manuel Miranda, who plays Hamilton, who received a MacArthur Genius Award in 2015, wrote the music and lyrics for the musical “In the Heights.” Washington Heights is a majority Latino neighborhood in NYC (mostly Dominican)

        • thanks for the clip, Dee. I hope I’ll see it someday, maybe in a touring company down here, or maybe if they do one of those big screen broadcasts of it in movie theaters, like they do with Met operas and other kinds of performances. and of course, if Jan doesn’t win the lottery tonight, I will and the same deal holds! lol

    • I love Hamilton Geordie – I wish I could afford to see the show :)
      (when my husband hits the lotto – lol)

      Thanks for the tip on The Martian – I will make sure to watch it.

  5. Good morning, meese! Saturday …

    It is 34 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of … 34! Snow showers are in the forecast but it looks like they are going to go north of us.

    I don’t have time to look at the news yet but I did notice that President Obama vetoed the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. I still find it incredible that the Republicans passed this bill in order to demonstrate what America can look forward to with a Republican president. Good lord, the walls in their echo chamber are thick! Democrats would be wise to run on the ACA to remind the 10 million Americans, their friends and loved ones, that a Democratic president will preserve and extend the right to affordable health care, not repeal it. And a Democratic Congress will spend their time on the things that matter to Americans, not refight ideological battles. I understand that the House will vote on overriding the veto, adding another hammer blow to the nails in the GOP’s coffin.

    Speaking of delusional Republicans, Michael Gerson wrote a jaw-dropping op-ed in the Washington Post yesterday that I am still shaking my head over. He thinks that Donald Trump will “ruin” the Party of Lincoln and its tradition of compassionate conservatism, this party:

    … the aspiration, the self-conception, of the party was set by Abraham Lincoln: human dignity, honored by human freedom and undergirded by certain moral commitments, including compassion and tolerance. Lincoln described the “promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance”

    Is he on drugs? Or did he miss Richard Nixon and the Southern Strategy and Philadelphia Mississippi and Willie Horton? The Party of Lincoln died when Southern Democrats, angered over Civil Rights, joined the Republican Party and created the Southern Strategy: a plan to tap into the racial animus of Southern voters still butthurt from losing the Civil War and their “property” to create a party of hatred and bigotry. If Trump kills it, good fking riddance. Build something new starting with Republicans like Eisenhower, Margaret Chase Smith, Nelson Rockefeller … build a party that cares about governing and government and will be worthy partners with the other political party.

    Next week, State of the Union. The president has a preview, I think, in this weeks address. I have it up in a tab and will post it on my second pass through the blog.

    See all y’alls later!

  6. I’m up for my ungodly hour workout. Supposed to do 9 miles, dunno that that’s wise given my sedentariness this week. Dunno that i’s wise to not do, given that the race is 2/14. Hmmm. Back later

  7. Happy Saturn’s Day, all! Yet another misty, moisty morning here in NoVa. It’s 41 F. now, on its way up to 51 F. and lots more rain. Well, it is January, and at least it’s not snow. Feel as if all I need to say about our weather is rinse, repeat.

    Plans for this morning include quickly eating breakfast, then getting ready to sell cookies door to door with Miss Pink Cheeks. (Did I mention I loathe selling things?) Before I go out I have to stick a ham bone and lots of beans in the slow cooker for tonight’s dinner.

    A quick look at GOS made me feel sick, so won’t visit any more today. I did get some writing done yesterday, so that’s good. Struggling to read a new book about climate change by Naomi Klein. I have a problem with nonfiction. No matter how entrancing the subject seems at first, I usually abandon the book halfway through: I know how it will end, so I lose interest.

    Jan, will check the president’s post later—thanks for putting it up! I had forgotten that the NRA shot down a gun manufacturer’s plan to install a chip in each gun that could be activated only by the gun’s owner, so a three-year-old child wouldn’t be able to fire it. The NRA clearly rejoices in the deaths of innocents.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and Beyond!

    • The president was speaking on common sense gun reform all week including the CNN Town Hall on Thursday night and an op-ed in the NY Times. He won’t campaign for or vote for any Democrat who won’t support his reform measures. Period. I want to read the transcript of the town hall and also the op-ed; I have stored them in my Read Later but have simply not had time to read this week. I have another few days of accounting hell to get through and then I can be a more active participant in the news. Now I can only read what is Tweeted to me while I am sitting on my couch … lumping after a 15 hour day.

      What is going on at the GOS? Or should I not ask? I would hope that the wreck list is filled with action diaries about the horrible situation in Flint. It is amazing to me that the one thing that you would expect is not a controversial role of government, providing clean and safe drinking water for a state’s residents, was a complete and total FAIL. What’s next? No sewer service?

      • There have been some good diaries about Flint – but the bulk of Wreck is still Bernie focused.
        There is a button you can now use to collapse the list – so i don’t look at it when I log in – I tend to read things that stream to me via my groups, or my favorite writers – and I read the front page.

  9. Good morning, 30 and clear in Bellingham. I was hoping to do some garden clean up today, but I’ve already got ice on my knees so reality may mean a change in plans. Keeping both my mental health and my knees happy is a challenge!

    Hellebore and moss are thriving in my cold wet garden regardless of how tidy it is, so if I can’t actually work outdoors today I will just visit the plants and enjoy the fresh air.

  10. Morning all! Grey and coolish here but going up into the mid 70’s today – that will the last of the warm weather for a week or so, though, tomorrow back closer to normal, with highs in the 60’s and 50’s, and close to the 30’s at night. I know, I know, cry me a river for my “cold” temps right? lol Still, I want some colder weather – one of the things I love about cooler weather is the sensation of being cold and then warming up under blankets when I get into bed. Not much of that here so far this winter.

    I go to GOS now mostly for Dee’s diaries, and Hunter’s updates on the fools out in Oregon, which can be hysterically funny. I just ignore the Rec List for the most part, as if it’s a political “analysis”, you can be sure it’s a “Feel the Bern” diary, which I’ve just had enough of.

    Saturday is Opera Day – looking forward to listening to the Met radio broadcast (WETA over the internet for me, since no local stations carry the broadcasts any more) this afternoon, an opera I’ve not heard before, Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, with the great soprano Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role. She’s doing all 3 of the Donizetti “Tudor queen” operas at the Met this season – this opera plus Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux (so, Anne Boleyn, Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth the 1st). This hasn’t been done by one soprano on a New York stage since Beverly Sills did it maybe 30 years ago. Very exciting for an opera fan, and they’ll all be on the Saturday broadcasts. My dream weekend in NYC would be to go to the Met for an opera and then see Hamilton on Broadway – eat up a chunk of that lottery money I’m going to win tonight! lol well, I can dream anyway.

    Everyone have a great day!

  11. Saturday is Opera Day – looking forward to listening to the Met radio broadcast

    Gosh, Geordie—my late mother always listened to the Saturday Met broadcast. Your mention of it brings back memories of her.

    A couple of times in recent years I’ve been extremely surprised and pleased to walk into Younger Son’s house and find him listening to it! I suppose everyone with more than one child finds that at least one of them is a mystery. I never know what he’s thinking or what surprising things he’ll do. :)

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