Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Dec. 25th through Dec. 31st

December 24, 2016 JanF Community 78

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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42 Comments

  1. Woke up at 4:17 without the aid of noisy neighbors, just did. Sigh. Eating oatmeal, drinking tea. Waiting for 2016 to get the hell out of here, though 2017 has it’s own horrors in store, I’m sure. Ok, got to find some happy music in my head.

  2. Good morning, Moosekind! It’s a frosty start to the day under clear blue skies, 39 F. now, going up to 46 F.

    Had a good time visiting my friends at the luxury retirement community (older sister of the one I wanted to move to), but as we sat chatting in their apartment after lunch yesterday I was suddenly overcome by a feeling of depression and claustrophobia. I wanted to go home. Perhaps I’m not ready to move to a retirement community, even if I could afford it. That’s reassuring.

    Must be ready to leave here in time to stand outside the Apple store, shivering in the cold until it opens at 10, so they can fix my phone. My ability to text, on which my whole daily round depends—no longer works. That’s because Apple, blast its over-engineering hide, has superimposed a fingerpainting program on the text app! I do not want to draw squiggly lines or smiley faces and send them to my friends, I’m not four years old! However, I can’t get out of it, the screen is frozen. It’s black with color buttons at the top but there’s no escape route and it’s unresponsive to turning off the phone altogether, etc. (Yes, a very first-world problem, I realize. But as a hands-on granny, I need to be able to text.)

    So I’m off to the store to get them to remove the five unwanted, annoying apps from this latest update. I sweartagoddess, I’ll never allow an update again!

    Hope everyone will have a good day. I’m going to get on with plotting my novella.

  3. 57 at sunrise such as it was and going to stay there until after sunset – overcast again. Got 7.3 KWHs yesterday but will be really lucky if I get half that today. sigh. I devoutly hope, and not kidding here I mean devoutly, that we will have more sunshine in 2017. Too many of us are effected by SAD and we need our wits and our energy about us to deal with the incoming administration and Congress.

    Need to go finish writing my Street Prophets for today. Trying to figure out how to write up Vetwife’s friend Brother Robert. The more I hear about him the more I hope we can help his work. We’ve got his immediate needs covered so he doesn’t really belong in the Community Fundraisers any more, or at least not exactly. But he’s one like Rev. Barber in his very small way. He’s in his 60s, free-lance handyman and unpaid minister to his very small group, but working on voting rights as well as visiting the imprisoned and feeding the hungry (his personal from his own pocket version of meals on wheels). Surely I can find a space/way to get a few bucks a month sent his way via Vetwife. I hope.

    Anyway, need to tend the fire and head GOS-wards. White Light to your shaping in all you do. Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  5. Good morning, 39 and mostly cloudy in Bellingham. I finally settled into reading a new book, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, by Lois McMaster Bujold. It’s book #15 of The Vorkosagin Saga so I’m still in the political/fantasy genere, but it’s lighter reading. This book is written from the point of view of a woman about my age, so that’s fun. I also enjoy the author’s ability to blend interesting character development, high fantasy space drama, medical technology, and historical fiction.

    My 2 x’s a month housekeeper will be here soon so I should be taking the ornaments off the Christmas tree and starting the laundry but I’m slow and sleepy today so I’m not. I’ll get busy when I have to!

    Best wishes to all.

    • That is so sad, bfitz, and so bloody unfair. Why do these things happen to good people? I can think of a lot of nasty people we could do without. She was a shining light.

      • She is a shining light – she’s just not shining here any longer. Except yes she is, through us. And Free Will is why bad things happen to good people. In Linda’s case (and Trish’s case and my mother’s case) the doctors in question freely chose to pay no attention to what they were told by the person who needed their help. When people, especially people in any kind of power – including doctors – freely chose to do the evil thing, bad things happen to good people. But Linda’s work and the Love and Light she brought to us will continue. Evil will never be able to overcome that. {{{Diana}}}

  7. Good morning Meese.
    Have very little to say. Spending some quiet time today thinking about people passing on.

    • Someone said that there are no more people dying this year than any other random year. It sure seems like more! Maybe as we get older we know more people and so the universe of People Dying has more who we know.

      I also wonder if our ability to cope is diminished by the blow of the shocking election loss and the people who it has empowered to destroy everything we hold dear. I am still trying to come to grips with the notion of a political party that literally wants the elderly to die in poverty and without of access to health care, who want to take health care from 30 million people, and literally grab the food out of people’s mouths by ending the food stamp program. I know there will be demonstrations and “this shall not stand”s but really the time to stand up was on election day. If I thought we would learn a lesson, it would be easier to handle but I am old enough to remember when the party of the destroyers would overreach and suffer setbacks that would only make them stronger and meaner the next time they took power.

      • It seems like more this year, yes partly because we are depressed by the election results, but mostly because not only have we lost (to our sight/physical senses) many famous people we’ve lost a lot of our own – like Tricia and Linda. {{{Jan}}}

  8. Good morning, meeses! Thursday …

    It is 30 degrees in Madison and that is also the expected daytime high. The forecast calls for variable cloudiness.

    President Obama has designated two more national monuments, both to protect Native American sacred grounds as well as the natural beauty of the west. More here from Russell Begaye, President of the Navajo Nation on the Bear Ears National Monument:


    Today, President Barack Obama has signed a proclamation to protect this land as a national monument for future generations of Navajo people and for all Americans. Thanks to his action, this land will be finally given the legal reverence and protection it deserves.

    This action reflects the President’s profound record on conservation: He has done more than any other president in history to set aside more land and water for the future. […]

    Bears Ears National Monument is sacred not only to the Dinépeople, but also our Hopi, Ute, and Zuni neighbors. These tribes came together in an unprecedented show of unity to conserve these lands for future generations of all Americans. This intertribal coalition also pushed for a new standard for national monuments and tribal involvement.

    The congresscritters in Utah are up in arms and are threatening to repeal the entire Antiquities Act to “punish” President Obama for daring to exercise his power like every other president has done since the early 1900s.

    The other piece of land is in Nevada, the Gold Butte National Monument

    Gold Butte National Monument protects nearly 300,000 acres of remote and rugged desert landscape, where dramatically chiseled red sandstone, twisting canyons, and tree-clad mountains punctuate desolate stretches of the Mojave Desert. The brightly hued sandstone provides a stunning canvas for the area’s famously beautiful rock art, and the desert provides critical habitat for the threatened Mojave Desert tortoise. Evidence of indigenous communities’ remarkable ability to survive in arid conditions here abounds, from ancient rock shelters and hearth remains to agave roasting pits and projectile points.

    Today, Gold Butte remains culturally and spiritually important to the Southern Paiute people, particularly the Moapa Band of Paiute Indians, who collect water from the mountain springs, gather traditional sources of paint, harvest pinyon pine nuts and other resources, and access ceremonial sites. The area is popular for outdoor recreation, and visitors to the monument can hike to rock art sites, drive the Gold Butte Backcountry Byway to the area’s namesake mining ghost town, hunt desert bighorn sheep, or tour the area’s peaks and canyons on horseback.

    This presidential designation is the result of Senator Harry Reid’s strong leadership along with Representative Dina Titus

    Thank you, President Obama.

    See all y’all later!

    • Every time these greedy so-and-soes start talking about “public lands” belonging to the states and the states should have the right to sell them off for the property tax revenue, I have two answers – which one I use depends on who I’m talking to. As far as “justice” is concerned, if these lands are to be “given back” to anybody it should be the Native American tribes they were stolen from in the first place. As far as “property taxes” are concerned, as long as the lands are federal, the state and local governments get the much more dependable Payment In Lieu of Taxes funding from the feds. (Most of the Rs either don’t know because they’re incompetent or don’t care because it doesn’t fit their meme about PILT.)

  9. 2016 just can’t stop sucking. Though Debbie Reynolds’ son said she wanted to be with Carrie, so… But how devastating for him, and Carrie’s daughter. Just too much sadness this year. Still have George Michael earworms. Though I had a weird dream about going to the symphony (which I’ve never done). What was weird was it wasn’t a symphony hall, but more like a classroom & the musicians were setting up right in front of us — like 2 feet away from me…. very strange.

    • It’s always hard for those who are left to deal with the leaving – but at Debbie Reynolds’ age staying here is partly a matter of wanting to. Sitting beside her unconscious daughter for several days waiting to see if she’d wake up again and then not – well, I can see Debbie deciding she no longer wanted to. But yes, hard on the son and granddaughter to lose them both within a few days.

      Your “symphony” sounds like the rehearsals I used to set up for the Fort Smith Symphony. They did them in was was then the local community college choir classroom and anybody who wanted to watch the rehearsals could easily find the musicians setting up 2 feet away. :) Hope it was a good one. {{{another}}}

      • I just feel for the son, that she wanted to go to Carrie more than to stay here with him. And it makes my heart ache for my mom, I wish I had been a better daughter.

        • Looking back at my childhood and the things we thought of to get up to, I sometimes think the only reason we 5 were careful enough to survive to adulthood was Mother’s periodically repeated statement that if she lost one of us, the family would have to parcel the rest of us out because she would go stark mad and have to be put away. She didn’t love one of us more than any of the others – but the loss of any one would do it. Debbie was old enough that the lose of one sent her over a different edge.

          My bet is your mother thought you were a fine daughter and loved you for who you were and are. I know mine did for all that I frequently fell short of the goals I set myself, in our relationship as in other areas of my life. The “falling short” is in your opinion of yourself, not your mother’s of you. Moar {{{HUGS}}}

  10. Good morning, Moosekind! It’s a lovely overcast day here in NoVa. Rain happened during the night, although of course it stopped the minute I got up to appreciate it properly. Current temp. is 38 F., going up to 48 F.

    Although I pay almost no attention to celebrities, even I can’t help feeling sad about the passing of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. For those who grew up during the awful 1950s, Debbie Reynolds was a role model because of her wholesome image. In high school she reputedly founded the “Non-Neckers’ Club.” After one of the girls broke down and necked with her boyfriend, the name was changed to the “Nearly Non-Neckers’ Club.”

    “Star Wars” came out when I was married with children, but I enjoyed it anyway. Princess Leia was so unlike the usual glammed-up Hollywood heroine that I really liked her role in that and “Empire.”

    Feeling a little encouraged because I answered all seven plotting questions for the new novel (or novella, I’m not sure which) and will now embark on the “Getting Your Novel Started in Ten Days” part. That article has worked for me before. The consensus on Facebook was that I should go ahead and write Saving the World Through Sex: The Story of the International Tarts Society. In it, beautiful Caramel Tart, born of Mexican immigrants, saves the world from nuclear disaster by distracting El Presidente. Scenes from it have already demanded to be written, causing me to fall off my office chair laughing.

    Expecting Darling Niece and great-nephew Mr. B. at 10, so must get ready. Wishing everyone a good day!

  11. 33 at dawn and sunny again – which is good – I think we’re heading for 50s. Hope so as I have some errands I need to run today. Probably not going to make 150 KWHs for the month, much less the 200 I got Dec 2015, but I’m already just over the equivalent (2.5K system v. 4K system) for Dec 2014 so that’s progress of a sort.

    It’s harder to push myself/my own memories and experiences out of the way so I can channel Healing Earth Mother Energy and Strength to those who need it. But I’ll keep working on it. It’s what I can do right now, so I will do it. And people are noticing over on GOS. That’s not why I do it, but the fact they are noticing means I am actually managing to do at least some of what I’m trying to do. So I’ll keep working on it.

    Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  12. Good morning, 38 and cloudy in Bellingham. Between housekeeping chores and shopping for my injured friend yesterday got busy so I’m hoping for a quiet day today. I have a few people I want to send cards and letters to, and yes. I’ve learned not to buy “Christmas cards” because I never send them in time, So “winter greetings” are safer, and it usually takes me most of January.

    We do have to fix a leaking pipe in the laundry room today but thanks to our son it should be an easy fix. We are making good progress on our list of repairs for this old house, but surprises keep happening.

  13. Good morning, meeses! Friday, last business day of 2016 …

    It is 25 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 25. Partly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    I am still sorting through things I need to do before the calendar flips over to 2017. I discovered yesterday that “they” will be adding a leap second so for people anxious for 2016 to be over, you will have to wait a little longer than expected! I personally want 2016 to never end because on January 3, 2017, the Republican Congress will meet and plot the destruction of everything we hold dear. Apparently they got the message on Medicare, which has strong and passionate defenders and little old ladies who vote, and are now setting their sights on Medicaid – a program that benefits the poors and whose only defenders are decent people who want to ease human suffering – something that there is a severe shortage of in the Republican Party. They are not done with Medicare by any means; their new plan is to change the way providers can charge so that those on fixed incomes have to deplete their savings to pay for health care, a change called “balance billing”. As someone on Twitter said, put your congresscritters on speed dial and call them whenever any new bill is proposed.

    See all y’all later!

    • Our rope to hang them with on Medicaid is – that’s what pays for grandma’s nursing home care. You want grandma in your back bedroom? Gut Medicaid. And yeah, we need a NO vote on anything they bring up on any part of the safety net.

    • Great statement by Barbara Nevergold.

      I have been exposed to school board politics for years and, sadly, it is not shocking that a jerk like Paladino can get himself elected.

      I was flabbergasted that one of the board members said that people should forgive Paladino just like the families of those killed in Charleston forgave the white supremacist killer who slaughtered their loved ones. JHC! People just pull stuff right out of their asses to cover up for white people acting badly.

      Paladino’s defense – that he is allowed to be racist with his friends – is laughable. Being a racist is disqualifying regardless of who you share your bigoted ideas with.

      Apparently he is refusing to quit and will have to be removed.

      • It’s legal for him to be racists with his friends. It is disqualifying for any public position, especially a public position dealing with children.

        The school boards are where the RW started “taking back” American after Goldwater was stomped. The school boards are where we have to start if we are ever to get local government back on a progressive/civil rights track.

  15. Nice to sleep in. I swear I’m walking today. A cold front came in, long sleeves needed (hey, till yesterday it was back to sandals & capri weather — we were busting record warm by 5 & 6 degrees). Right now, eating breakfast & watching the news. Got to buy groceries — need to have black eyes peas for New Year’s. I hate them, but have a recipe for kale soup with them that is actually pretty good.

    • I don’t like black-eyed peas either, but ate them dutifully every New Year’s day to honor my late mother. Last year we ate them but didn’t have any luck (see Nov. 8 election results), so this year I think we’ll just skip it.

      • I love kale, and the symbolism of “green, leafy” works for New Year’s. This has kale, canned tomatoes (I use the kind with chiles) carrots, onions & b.e.p.s. Nutritious & pretty good.

    • Different cultures, different traditions. I remember Tricia saying she’d never heard of black-eyed peas for New Years until she moved to NC – in PA the tradition is sauerkraut cooked with pork roast until the pork falls apart. hmmm – I’m crock-potting a pork roast this weekend. Maybe I’ll get some sauerkraut – just for Trish.

  16. Good morning! Lovely and sunny here, with white clouds sailing across the blue. It’s windy, though, with current temps at 35 F., going up to 40 F. Presently we’ll go out to do a little necessary shopping.

    Like you, Jan, all 2017 means to me is that the Awfulness will become Official Awfulness. Wish we could think of a moniker to describe Trumpelstiltskin that has a sneer factor equivalent to that of “Peanut Farmer” and “Slick Willie.” Prez “P***ygrabber” is too long to say, as well as unsuitable for polite society (is there still such a thing?) or the public airwaves.

    Got some correspondence to catch up with, more plotting to do, villains to summon into fictional life, and, oh, yay—putting away Christmas-related stuff! My DIL’s parents, who are Jewish, were kind enough to email on Monday that they enjoyed their first-ever Christmas dinner on Christmas Day at our house. For my part, I enjoyed the first-ever Passover Seder we attended at their house last April.

    Hope everyone will have a nice, peaceful day. Denise, you are excused all housework and exercise today because it’s snowing where you are!

    • Our tree will stay up until the 13th day of Solstice, January 2nd, then we will disassemble it. It is easy this year because after we saw how lovely the tree looked with just the lights, we left it that way! The used tree will be put in the back yard and lashed to one of the deck supports and the ground feeding birds will use it to hide from hawks in. Next spring it will go to the curb.

  17. 25 at dawn, sunny again today. We shall see how close I get to the 150 KWHs for the month – just today and tomorrow left. Sunshine always lifts my heart. Pure energy and light to see by. Channel it to do all the good we can… If that is only say “hi” to somebody being isolated, then that’s the good we can.

    Community is how we will survive this. France under Vichy. Do our best to take care of our own – local and online – and reach out where we can to other communities. I keep saying “only strong together but VERY strong together” – a pile of links is junk or potential. Alone they’re junk. Link them together they’re a chain to connect. Weave them together they’re chain mail to protect.

    Here’s a message from remembrance at GOS – Please send cards of support in Solidarity with the Jewish community in Whitefish, MT — Rabbi Francine Green Roston/congregation B’nai Shalom, in Whitefish, MT, are being targeted by the Neo-Nazi group headed by Richard Spencer. — The mailing address is: Glacier Jewish Community – B’nai Shalom, 591 Hilltop Court, Whitefish, MT 59937. (and from me – Might want to send a card to your local synagogue and mosque while you’re at it. Postcards are good — they let anybody handling the mail know of your support.)

    I’m going to have to figure out how to do some time management or something. I’m currently involved in enough stuff at GOS that it takes me 2 or more hours from log on to get to a stopping/breathing place. I can’t do that once I get back to work. At least not if I want to actually work out my last year there. heh. But they are community-building good things to do. So I will figure out how to get them done and honor my contract that pays my wages as well.

    Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

    • When I had a daily check-in at the GOS – plus P&W Pagan Holidays and a once a week Morning Open Thread and I Vote For Democrats and visiting other diaries – I found it difficult to find time for my paying job! After the 2012 election, when kos let the frustati take over the site again, it was an easy call to leave and get my life back. The quiet of the Moose Pond suits me fine. If I want to see who hates each other, I can check Twitter without getting any of it splattered on me.

      I hope to have more time to write in 2017. The final President’s Weekly Address will be on 1/14. I am not sure if the Democrats will be doing an address (I think the Republicans do one) and if it will be suitable. I don’t want Democrats to just be the Party of Not Trump, I want us to promote our values.

      • I’ve always been more “active” in the community diaries – was so gormless about how the site works, I didn’t follow anybody or even know that people were following me until this election cycle – and even turned down invitations to join groups I would have liked to have been members of because I didn’t know what that meant – but even then it always took some time. Now that I’m involved in one political group, the Peeps, and doing “get the word out” on Community Fundraisers (my Street Prophets diaries are just long/more expanded versions of my get the word out comments in community diaries), it’s taking a lot of time. But I’ll think of something. They’re all important.

        I hope we get a weekly address from a ranking Dem – and yes, promoting our values. Somebody on GOS was saying how hard it is for us to do that because we’re for so many things while Hate is easy to sell on a Tweet or bumper sticker. I told him we just like talk alot. We’re the party of fair play and the Golden Rule (that all major religions have as a core value, whether they promote or not). We need to work on that kind of presentation.

  18. Good morning, 41 and cloudy in Bellingham and snow is predicted for tomorrow. I slept late this morning and then my phone started ringing, so I’m even slower checking in.

    I’ve been enjoying my quiet clean Christmas house……no must do lists and some time to just be has been good for me. We decided to leave the tree in place until next week because we both need a rest.

    I found this twitter link re redistricting interesting…..Wa State could have one more Dem district without partisan influence. I’m so glad President Obama will be working on this. I’m not sure how to share so I’ll link to the twitter page as well as to the dkos article.

    https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf

    http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/12/30/1612731/-Here-s-what-Washington-state-might-have-looked-like-in-2016-without-congressional-gerrymandering

  19. Good morning, meese! Saturday …

    It is 30 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 30. A few clouds in the morning but sunny skies the rest of the day.

    2016! Wow, what a year! There were some good things – it has just ended pretty badly. I don’t usually do New Year’s resolutions (plus, it is just a calendar flip for me – my new year started a couple of months ago) but because 2017 is going to need us all Present, I will resolve to have resolve. In my mind, we simply need to keep maximum pressure until August when Congress goes on their month-long vacation. When they come back with an earful of constituent anger and dismay – and their eyes on the 2018 political calendar, no more damage will get done. PLUS we will have new “management” at the DNC, a 50-state strategy, energized state parties and a plan to challenge incumbents in every state legislative seat, every governor’s mansion, every Congressional District. Two governors races: New Jersey and Virginia. And anyone who says “2020” to me between now and January 2019, when the 116th Congress is sworn in, will be ignored.

    No news reading for me today until I get my projects done. Two more “must do” projects came in yesterday plus I am not quite caught up on accounting work.

    See all y’all later!

  20. Up for crack-of-dawn walking. Sigh. Going to make my black eyed pea dish when I come home.

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