Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: May 27th through June 2nd

May 26, 2018 JanF Community 107

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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– Page One of Comments is HERE!
 
 
– Page Two of Comments is HERE!
 

 

46 Comments

  1. Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …

    Morning low of 66 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 91. Sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. Good Sunday Meese
    90 yesterday in NY – today its going up to only 69. Bizarre weather shifts.

    Puerto Rico

    Talking about life under leaking tarps in PR this morning at DKos – and the mold and asthma :(

  3. I have been following the immigration debate and specifically the family separation issue and this article from WaPo made me laugh out loud:

    DHS to issue 15,000 more guest worker visas amid clamor over labor shortage https://wapo.st/2sdfxAB

    “The H-2B visas are for foreigners who take seasonal jobs in seafood, tourism, landscaping, construction and others industries — but not farmworkers. Critics of the guest worker program say such jobs should pay more to attract more teenagers and American workers who have dropped out of the labor force.”

    “‘There’s not one manufacturing plant in Wisconsin, not one dairy farm, not one resort that can hire enough people,’ Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, told [DHS Secretary Nielsen].”

    The people who say that you can attract teenagers to become crabbers or work in landscaping or 12 hour days on a dairy farm are living on a different planet. And certainly the notion that conservatives think that companies should pay more runs counter to every thing they stand for! In Wisconsin the minimum wage is the federal minimum of $7.25 and the Republicans passed a ban on any municipality increasing the minimum above that because they say that “$7.25 is fine for a teenager and more than that kills jobs.” As you can imagine, jobs paying $7.25 an hour are going begging because even teenagers know that $7.25 an hour is a bullshit wage. THAT is why jobs are going begging, Ron Freaking Johnson, business owners refusing to pay a living wage while they bring in record profits.

    • Saw an article reporting on attempts to recruit Puerto Ricans to come here to work at resorts – seems they can’t fill many seasonal job.

      • That seems like a good idea. A lot of the island people work in the hospitality industry and would need little training. I would worry about them being exploited but maybe they could get higher wages if there is a shortage.

  4. Can’t call it a heat wave when it’ll last till fall. Though I see next weekend the highs will be in the low 90s, so yay. Did very little yesterday. Might watch Black Panther today. Meanwhile, just waiting for Joy Reid’s show to come on, then church.

    • We’re going to have 4 straight days in the 90s but the average temperature here is 72 so it is definitely a “wave”. I was commenting to a friend that looking outside is confusing – the trees are fully leafed out but the flowering bushes are flowering and there are still tulips and daffodils. It is like a strange modern art canvas with a bunch of things pasted on that should not be together.

  5. Good morning, Moosekind! It’s a beautiful morning here in Ashburn, with a current temp. of 77 F., going up to 85 F. Yesterday began beautifully but clouded up menacingly in the afternoon. It never did rain, though. Bizarre!

    I’ve got Thang fatigue. I can’t read any more news about him. I want to wake up and have it be OVER. I know this is a pipe dream, and I don’t even do pot, but…whatever.

    If anyone had told us before we moved here that we wouldn’t be able to watch TV, we’d have blinked and stayed where we were. Here it is, a RACE morning, and we can’t watch because the bloody TV won’t come on. Let me broadcast this to all and sundry: Comcast sucks galaxies through a straw.

    All this is a very first-world problem, of course. I actually feel ashamed of writing it when there is so much sorrow in our own country (PR) and our own community (Maureen Mower).

    Going to concentrate on cleaning up the place, then come back later when things are orderly to read what I missed out on. Wishing a peaceful Sunday to all.

    • Diana, we have Comcast internet, tv, and phone service and I’ve finally learned how to go on line to restart the cable boxes. The online chat service has helped me with other issues as well. If you can do so it’s better than waiting for an actual person service call.

  6. Good morning, 57 and cloudy in Bellingham today, but seeing the world through clean windows is nice regardless! Our young helper will be here soon to finish the ones he can safely get to and I’ll schedule with a window washing firm to do the second floor.

    I think my knees will allow some time in the garden today. I have three small pots to plant and my creative urge wants to do so, but creaky knees seem to rule.

    Best Sunday wishes to all.

  7. 74, 90% humidity, heading for 90 and sunny so far. We got 20 KWHs yesterday, first time in over a week, and the m-t-d is 423 so still on track for 500 for the month or even a little over. Just checking in while I wait for the washer to finish. Our flora is just finished shifting to summer. We no longer have the spring things going at the same time. Or pretty much not – my garden sage and lavender both still have some blossoms but they’re fading fast. Only marigolds going strong in my garden. (Honeysuckle is going gangbusters on the fence line and Dutch white clover in the yard itself do add some color and scent.)

    Macrocosm and microcosm things suck in America right now. There shouldn’t be missing kids – ANY missing kids, not “just” these poor babies being ripped from their parents’ arms by ICE, ANY kids ripped from their families’ arms whether ICE or HHS or anybody else. Kids in America shouldn’t be afraid to go to school or be having “active shooter on campus” drills interrupting their studies. Interruptions all the more stressing because mass shooters are more prevalent and more deadly than school fires or tornadoes that they also have drills for. And Maureen Mower shouldn’t be dead. The only virtue of protesting these totally evil things is to find allies in stopping them. The Evil Ones cannot be shamed and in fact take what should be shaming as an indication they’re winning. We must act as best we can in our personal circumstances to stop them. They will not stop of their own accord.

    Washer just stopped. Need to get the clothes out. I’ll check back later. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  9. Good morning, meeses! Monday …

    It is 66 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of – gulp – 93. Heat index 103. Sunny skies are in the forecast. Two more days of 90s then we should get some cooling rain.

    I hope that people take a moment to stop and think about the graveyards filled with those who died for their country’s old men in wars of choice and wars to benefit the rich or continue the subjugation of oppressed people. And then look at old men Donald Trump and Lindsey Graham and John McCain and old-thinking Marco Rubio plotting to start wars in Iran and Korea. Those who died – and their families – deserve a better memorial to their sacrifice than the prospect of more wars of ego and idiocy.

    See all y’all later!

  10. Good morning Meese
    61 here in NY going up to 80

    Getting ready to republish my tribute to black civil war soldiers “The Memorial Day history forgot: The Martyrs of the Race Course” – just have to do some minor edits.

  11. Technical note: I think I finally got the Moose social media sorted out!

    I had added a new plug-in that managed social media accounts and set up one for Facebook and one for Twitter. The Facebook one worked great – it did a nice job rendering and included the proper images and text (see side panel for our Facebook page feed and Like our page!). However, we had two tweets, one that was rendered nicely and one that looked like crap and which made bad choices about which images to use. I discovered that the Twitter account had an app that was reading the Facebook page and tweeting from that! – which explained the duplicates and left me with simply figuring out which tweet was the one that rendered nicely. I think I have it now as the Welcomings post only tweeted once and it is the one tagged “ns” which was the one that rendered the best from Twitter. This week, when the VNV posts, will be the final test.

  12. File this under “well, duh!”: Research suggests that when intolerant white people fear democracy may benefit marginalized people, they abandon their commitment to democracy.

    The main threat to our democracy may not be the hardening of political ideology, but rather the hardening of one particular political ideology. Political scientists Steven V. Miller of Clemson and Nicholas T. Davis of Texas A&M have released a working paper titled “White Outgroup Intolerance and Declining Support for American Democracy.” Their study finds a correlation between white American’s intolerance, and support for authoritarian rule. In other words, when intolerant white people fear democracy may benefit marginalized people, they abandon their commitment to democracy.

    That fact is what has propelled Republicans to power – and keeps them in power – ever since they abandoned the Party of Lincoln and became the Party of the Reconstituted Confederacy.

    There is no need to find these disaffected white people and convince them of the error of their ways, as berners seem determined to do – their fear is buried deep within their reptilian brains and cannot be dislodged. Our way back to democracy is to convince those oppressed by Republican policies – and the next generation of white youth who grew up in a multi-cultural American and don’t fear The Other – to get to the polls.

    • Agree – the only thing that gives me hope these days are the young folks who are mobilized around the gun issue – who are registering and taking on politicians

      • We are not always going to win the white youth over to Democratic Party principles – privilege runs deep and they will be jonesing for their “deserved” tax cuts in a few years – but right now there is only one party interested in taking on the NRA. We will willingly accept their help in 2018 and 2020 and then work to convince them that only one party is interested in decency and democracy (and generally opposed to wars of choice). Barack Obama won on the anti-war vote and thanks to Trump and Bolton and the Graham/McCain/Rubio/Cotton war dog coalition, that is likely to become an issue once again.

        • If we can get them this year and in 2020, we’ll keep most of them. It seems to work that way – they go on the way they begin. (Unless there’s a major party ideology shift, like the racists moving to the Rs in 1968 forward.)

    • Definitely a “well duh” – and definitely the answer is get those Dem & Dem-leaning “did not vote” folks to the polls and pick up the next generation. Which the Parkland kids are doing a pretty good job promoting right now.

  14. Good morning, Moosekind! It’s raining heavily here in Ashburn at 7:40 a.m. The current temperature is 61 F., going up to 71 F. later. Yesterday the clouds that hung around menacingly but doing nothing broke like a million eggs over poor old Ellicott City, Maryland. They had disastrous flooding again, just as happened in 2016. Of course, with no TV, I didn’t find out about this until late last night when I climbed into an online nest containing a bunch of swearing squirrels.

    I am so sick of constant problems with Comcast that I’m wondering whether we should switch to Hulu or Sling TV. I don’t mind so much not having TV for myself—like our adored bfitz, I could live quite happily without it—but my soon-to-be-88-year-old husband, who has a bad back and a bad leg, does love to watch his races and his soccer matches.

    Yes, it’s a first-world problem, I know, and unlike poor old PR, we do have food, a roof, and hot water. Still, we’re paying A LOT of money to be here. I’m thinking about writing a blog about the weirdness of adjusting to life in a home for the aged, but fear it would sound like the whining of an overprivileged white dame. We are vastly better off than many, I know that.

    Perhaps I’ll just write it for myself. This morning at 5:30, when I took that dreadful little dog out to the courtyard, we found that not only was it raining lightly but the courtyard sprinkler system was full on! Monty refused to budge, so I took him back into the building and walked him out the front door, where he did various kinds of business on the grass outside. Moving here with a dog was not the best of ideas, but Monty is like the child in the O. Henry story, “The Ransom of Red Chief.” Whoever took him would want to give him right back!

    Plans for this morning include getting a haircut, buying a new bed for Monty (the one I just bought, although cute, is too small), and partaking largely of the Memorial Day buffet, available between 11 and 2.

    If I knew how to post pix here, I’d show the Memorial Day display I’ve set up on the shelf outside our apartment. It contains a photograph of my late father in his Army uniform, and a framed letter signed by President Carter, commending my father for his service in World War II. My father was in the Hurtgen Forest in Germany and helped liberate the Langenstein concentration camp. He saw Marlene Dietrich once: when she was touring for the the USO, she saw my father standing by and said, “Got a light, soldier?” He lit her cigarette for her.

    Wishing all a peaceful Memorial Day, full of remembrance for those who served.

    • My mother was paying a small fortune for AT&T cable+Internet+phone and since she is on a reduced income now, we looked into other options so that she could continue to watch her local sports teams and favorite shows. By dropping the cable part of her package – and setting up a Roku TV connection – she saved a ton of money. The goal was simplicity: she was not going to be trained to new technology that involved launching browsers and finding YouTube channels; my brothers set it up so that it works fine with her current TV and remote control. If you have technologically savvy children/grandchildren you can probably find someone to help you.

      • That’s a good idea! My younger son, weirdly, seems to know his way around a computer. Elder Son knows his way around the TV world. He has Sling TV now, to save money.

        • The advantage of having someone who knows the product is huge. My brother had Roku when he lived overseas and he was very familiar with it. I don’t know anything about Sling TV except that it has creepy ads. :)

    • I was watching the videos of the devastation in Ellicott City with sadness as they reported that just two years ago they had another devastating flood that they had to rebuild from. Early reports are that this one is worse. :(

  15. 99s, then next week, 100s — the usual wettest month of the year ends with a rain deficit, and the 2nd wettest starts with no rain in sight. But climate change is a hoax. Sure.

    I bought groceries yesterday, and the store had a kit for migas, and with some extra veggies, that’s going to be my breakfast this week. Inexpensive and yummy.

    This is from the cemetery where my dad is buried:

  16. Good morning meese from Chicago. I’m waiting to board a flight to Kansas City (MO) and then drive to NW AR.

    • {{{basket}}} – & I’ve just finished making you bed. LOL. Heading out for a walk while it’s still cool enough. I’m afraid the A/C is going to have to come on tonight. sigh. Oh well – I was going to do it anyway if you wanted me to. See you in a bit. moar {{{HUGS}}}

  17. 75 and 100% humidity. sigh. Heading for 90 but if the humidity doesn’t come down as the temps go up, the heat index will be closer to 100. Sigh. Probably gonna have to turn the A/C on. Oh well, I was going to see if basket wanted it once he got here anyway. I’m betting it’s gonna be a “yes” – LOL. Got 19.3 KWHs yesterday, the m-t-d is 441. Still on track to get 500 by Thursday evening. When I won’t be home anyway. One of the reasons I hate turning on the A/C is that my average electricity usage goes from 5 or 6 a day to averaging 18 per day. Still, I have over 300 KWHs in the sock so I’m OK. (The other being A/C messes with my hands & feet.) But I can’t sleep if it’s so hot & humid I’m damping the sheets with sweat, so on it goes.

    I need to go take a walk before it gets any warmer – then go back to clearing off some of the junk on every single flat surface in my home in preparation for company. :) Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  18. Good morning, 56 and sunny in Bellingham. It’s so quiet this morning even my thoughts seem loud! Looks like a very nice day outside my window so I’ll be in the garden soon. I listened to my knees yesterday and just puttered around and relaxed instead of working. It was a good day.

    Best Monday wishes to all.

    • LOL at “loud thoughts”! I seem to have those quite frequently and they are often accompanied by cursing! For example, I just saw a tweet from #CadetBoneSpurs that insulted veterans by calling for a “Happy” Memorial day and touting his lies about the economy and unemployment.

      Pushback (edit – Trump tweet image removed as triggering – click the link to read it):

      I have just finished my final pass of “things that are better done when clients aren’t working” and am now ready to sit and read my newspapers. Have a great day!

  19. Good morning, meeses! Tuesday that feels like Monday …

    It is 72 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 86. A front moving through will bring us thunderstorms this afternoon and cool us down into the 70s for the next few days.

    Fortunately the long weekend led to a longer than usual respite from breaking news. Yesterday I mostly retweeted Memorial Day messages and read some things on the elections. The “mystery” surrounding the Freedumb Caca guy in VA-05 was cleared up as he will be resigning and his seat – an R+6 – will become an open seat. His district is Trump country but after the Virginia wave last year I am not sure that the PVIs mean much – and an R+5 can often be overcome by enthusiasm. Cook calls it Lean R right now. That district is the one that Tom Perriello won in 2008 in the wave year so there must be more than just a few Democrats there! Our candidate is a woman who has been in the news business – the Republican Party will have to pick a candidate because the primaries are over. Another race to keep our eyes on.

    I woke up too early this morning and the light from the full moon was pouring into the room so I decided to grab some moon energy and begin my day. The end of the month kind of snuck up on me and I am not even close to meeting promised deadlines for May. I need for end-of-school-year activities to be over with so that my schedule for summer can be set. Until then, my chunks of time are bits of time, insufficient for the size of projects I need to work on.

    See all y’all later!

      • I followed her as soon as I found her name yesterday! I was too lazy to look it up this morning – thanks for embedding her tweet.

      • Actually, I just thought I had followed her! I had found her website and now I remember not being able to easily locate her Twitter account:

        Leslie is using her skills from a distinguished career in journalism to dig into the problems of the 5th District of Virginia and find solutions. She has driven thousands of miles in her car, listening to the voices of people in 21 rural counties along with Danville and Charlottesville. Each county has its own critical issues and each shares deep concerns with the district as a whole. Leslie will use her profound knowledge of Washington and Capitol Hill from years as a critical observer to make sure Congress serves the people of Virginia.

  20. Tuesday Meese
    62 going up to 87 here in NY
    ….
    Not that this is news to me….

    Puerto Rico

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