Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: March 31st through April 6th

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?

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.

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

45 Comments

  1. Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …

    It is 32 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 54. Sunny this morning and clouding up this afternoon. Yesterday we had a bizarre front move through that gave us light rain, sleet, snow, heavy rain, and then the sun came out. It was like the last hairball of winter being coughed out. I hope we have seen the last of that – I am done with snow.

    I am very discouraged as it appears that the mouthbreather the Republicans put up for the Wisconsin Supreme Court is winning in a close race (recounts almost never change vote totals in Wisconsin because we have pretty good election counting methods). People don’t understand how important the courts are until their rights are stripped away and then they are left wondering what happened. What happened is that YOU FREAKING DIDN’T VOTE!! I knew there would be trouble when I saw the Democratic bastions with light turnout early in the evening. I am not sure how you inspire people to care about every election but this one will hurt. If the vote totals hold, our court will be 5 to 2 Republican and not just any Republican – anti-LGBT anti-women anti-public schools Republican. Now we will not have a chance to take back the Supreme Court until 2023 unless someone retires – and none of the Walker justices are over 55 . :(

    See all y’all later!

    • That’s rotten, Jan! How can people be so stupid? “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” Yes.

      Here in Virginia we had an election decided by coin toss, and it came up in favor of the Rethug candidate, which is why the Virginia House is Rethug-controlled by one vote.

      • We have created this fiction that the courts are “non-partisan” so the races don’t include rallies and visits from Barack Obama so no one is pumped up. People thought that the blue wave that swept over Wisconsin last fall would lap up on this race but that wave was fueled by the youth vote and there was nothing yesterday to excite them. They maybe saw a commercial (but unlikely since they don’t watch broadcast TV) with two people in robes saying boring things about the law and didn’t realize that the skinny guy with the glasses was shat from the bowels of Scott Walker and wants to destroy LGBT rights, defund their schools, and wreck the environment. Democrats need to learn how to play hardball or we will continue to have our asses handed to us by Republicans who have no scruples. You know they did not pretend this was non-partisan and ginned up their base with “the Democrats are coming to take your guns and allow ‘men’ in women’s restrooms and attacking your children for their ‘playful’ Nazi salutes.”

    • I checked for the news first thing this morning and am feeling sick about this. I had hoped WI would be making its way back from the brink, but turnout is the only way to do that. TPM quoted a someone/some group that said outside groups focusing on social/cultural issues instead of pocketbook issues was part of the problem. It seems too early to “know” that, but it does sound feasible if it also energized Team Neanderthal. I’m so very sorry for you and WI, Jan.

      • After last fall, I thought maybe there was a turning point. But as I refreshed the Wisconsin voting web site and looked at the county by county results, the hinterlands hate us so much they were 80-20 and 90-10 for Hagedorn. We needed the cities to come out in force to swamp that but even in Dane County – which had a hot mayoral race – Hagedorn got close to 30%. I am sure it was undervotes just like the 2016 undervotes (from berners) gave us Rebecca Bradley, another anti-LGBT anti-woman anti-public schools anti-environment justice. I am pretty much stuck in Wisconsin while I cash in the value of in-state tuition earned from paying taxes here for 45 years but I really need to find a place to live that does not have so many terrible – and ignorant – people.

  2. Good Woden’s Day morning, Moosekind! (Heaving huge sigh.) Once more I received the nasty log-in message. Yesterday everything was fine. I suspect the problem was that miserable old Safari wanted to update itself, so I finally said yes. ‘Course, that knocked out all my logins. In the good old days I never logged out of the Moose Pond. I leave my computer on all the time and why not? With my propensity for getting up in the middle of the night, I gotta do something.

    It’s a lovely fair morning here in NoVa, with a temperature of 31 F. at the moment. I forget what the high today will be—in the 60s, I think. I did look it up but the login difficulties drove it out of my mind.

    I have SUCH news this morning, Meese! Yesterday Political Granddaughter (a.k.a. “Anonymous Millennial,” my beta reader) texted me to say she will be moving to Washington, DC, in the next few weeks because (trumpet fanfare) she’s been offered the position of Financial Consultant with Emily’s List! Can you believe that? This young woman will be 25 on Sunday. In her freshman year at Purdue she was president of the Purdue College Democrats at the tender age of 18. Her mother texted me that Anonymous also interviewed with the Boys and Girls Club (National) and with Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood.

    Needless to say I am a super-proud Granny this morning! I haven’t seen Anonymous since 2013 when we went to the public gallery at the State Capitol in Austin to hear Wendy Davis speak.

    Spent yesterday afternoon formatting the book. There wasn’t any guidance for how to format some of the sections, so I had to email the publisher. I would so like to get this project underway before we go on vacation.

    Wishing a nice peaceful day, with no border closings or health care revocations, to all at the Pond and beyond.

    • Wow, congrats to your granddaughter! Such a cool job! And I’m glad you were able to log in.

      • Thanks, another. I can’t log in. Every time I comment I have to fill out a little form and of course I can’t fierce anyone else’s comments or posts. Bummer.

    • W00T!!!! for Anonymous Millennial/Political Grandaugher! She dun gud! – And wonderful she’ll be closer so you two can do more events together. {{{HUGS}}}

  3. Woke up at 4 freaking 30 again. Actually before that, but I told my body it could wait till 4:30. Got downtown & walked. 27 minutes, 1.12 miles. So — bad election news in Wisconsin, good in Pennsylvania & Chicago; and I saw something the other day about 2 other special elections. And Trump is again showing signs of dementia. Great.

    I played Wild Horses in my head as I was walking.

    What are you holding back?
    I know you’ve wild horses, enough inside of you

    • Aw, man — I forgot the most important thing I wanted to put in my check-in this morning. There’s a huge ($15,000) match on Friday starting at noon. I need to put up the diary of a lifetime. I’m not gonna get the whole amount, but I want to get as much as I can. So I need your diary ideas. Everything from the header on. Something to draw in eyes, and to get people to share it. I appreciate any ideas y’all have.

      • {{{ad}}} – Wonderful! Only thing I can think of is to lead off with “HUGE MATCH!!!! Help me get a chunk of it!”. Totally good luck. I was figuring there’d be a match coming up and have stashed a bit of cash back for it.

  4. It’s 50 heading for mid 60s and hazy in Fay., AR right now. We got 20.7 KWHs yesterday – a beautiful sunny if blustery day – and the m-t-d is 32.8 – not a bad start even if not a great one for the month of April. We need to average 16/day to get where I want us to be.

    I haven’t even looked at my TL yet, just boosted a few things and checked my notifications. I probably don’t want to. I’ll get around to it later. As long as the majority of our team believe in the magic mystical power of the Executive office (i.e. have bought the same despotic crap the Rs have been trying to recreate since the Constitution was ratified) we will keep fighting the uphill battle – with outmoded and blunted weapons. Somehow we have to break up the media monopoly – anyone under the age of 40 has been subjected to nothing but RW propaganda in one form or another all their lives. We who are old enough to remember actual journalism have a basis of comparison. They do not.

    Everything is still in “wait” mode – from Aji’s health stuff to my friends’ lodging issues to whether I’ll have this job for the rest of this month even to how well my cats are dealing with each other as well as being totally inside kitties. Goddess! It would be nice if something resolved itself. Oh well. That is indeed Life. Nothing resolves, it just cycles. But getting on for the next step in the cycle would be a good thing. I think. (Actually it’s a good thing I’m not in charge – too many ramifications to every choice.) I need some coffee and to get back to work. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  5. Good morning, meeses! Thursday …

    It is 41 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 43. Wet snow this morning turning to rain then showers all day. We will see the mid-60s this weekend – hurry up!!

    The Supreme Court race here is still too close to officially call but recounts in Wisconsin rarely change vote totals so our court will be rabidly right-wing for at least another 4 years. I discovered yesterday morning that the Republicans had nationalized the race with Trump and Kavanaugh ads to gin up the deplorables in Green Bay and points north. Of course, I would not have seen these ads – they would have been wasted in Dane County but it seems like someone should have shared that information to get us riled up. A closer look at the vote totals showed that turnout in our cities nearly matched that from the 2018 spring election where we flipped a seat from red to blue but we were swamped by the hate pouring out of the northern part of the state, on steroids after their loss of the governorship and their fear of The Other. It shows that love does not trump hate – hate is stronger because it is fueled by fear. I guess that Democrats in Wisconsin will have to decide if unilaterally disarming in judicial races, letting Republicans nationalize the elections but trying to pretend that judges are non-partisan, is a luxury we can no longer afford. Another institution wrecked by Republican scorched earth politics.

    Stuff is about to get real as House Democrats have demanded Trump’s tax returns and the people from Mueller’s team, unhappy about the Barr whitewash, are sharing that there is a lot of bad news for the Orange Orshole and hinting that they will not let their work just disappear as the mainstream media had hoped it would. The media needs Trump 2020 for clicks and eyeballs and will do everything to protect his presidency.

    And Mayo Pete? Shut up, just shut up.

    See all y’all later!

  6. It appears as though no on can log in any longer. I am going to get on a tech support chat with our hosting firm and see what is happening. Sorry, meeses! :(

    • I’m actually relieved to see this comment, because I tried the links you posted above & they didn’t work.

      • I am going to remove that comment because I think it is causing some of the problems.

  7. Warm morning, headed to a hot afternoon. Worries me when we have near-90 degree days this early. Guess we should get used to it. Did not wake up early, so no early morning walk. I’m leaving work early for my a/c service check, so if they’re done early enough, I’ll get in a work out this afternoon. Waiting for the transcript from Lawrence O’Donnell’s show to post, Lloyd Doggett was on, but I couldn’t stay up that late. Gonna listen to Empress, to get some energy.

  8. Good Thor’s Day morning, Moosekind! It’s 44 F. here in Ashburn according to the weather gadget (which mysteriously reappeared after taking a week’s vacation), going up to 66 F. today. “They” say it’s going to be cloudy all day, back here at home on the range.

    Jan, I tried all three links and each time received the ugly message. I think I sent you a replica of it at some point yesterday. If you didn’t receive it, please let me know and I’ll send it again. I wonder what on earth could be the matter?

    A bunch of things are beginning to annoy me about this Apple laptop: the fact that my wireless keyboard “freezes” regularly, despite having its diapers changed quite often (by which I mean new AA batteries installed); the fact that Apple will tell me to change my password and after I do, will then sneeringly inform me that it’s not valid; and this never-ending trouble with the Moose Pond. I’m seriously thinking of buying a Windows laptop in a year or two (this machine is only 5 years old), even though—sigh—I know it won’t be as fast and there will be security holes in Windows 10 that a Mack truck could drive through. The word processing software in Apple is nothing compared to that of MS Office. Oh, well, enough griping.

    Finally sent my manuscript off yesterday, thank Goddess! Now I need to quickly write a short story for Anonymous Millennial’s birthday on Sunday. I didn’t write one last year because we were overwhelmed by the move here. There’s a short story that’s been bugging me too, that could go into my next short story collection. Some guy on the Internet said people love novellas, so writing and publishing four novellas a year can lead to a nice income. Ha ha, ha ha, ha ha! Guess I’ll have to think up a plot for another one.

    Hope very much that one of the “newspapers of record” will get the unredacted version of the Mueller report. Apparently the people who actually worked on it are terminally p.o.’d that Barr is saying it whitewashed Thing: they contend it contains “troubling” news for the Orange Occupant.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond, and let’s sacrifice an entire bowl of granola to the Goddess of Spring! We need Spring now.

    • I’ve been asking: “Where’s our Daniel Ellsberg?” Surely there’s a person of conscience who can release the information.

      • I think people are waiting to see if it is released via normal channels. There is a lot of evidence in the report that would be dangerous to fall into the wrong (Russian) hands – Congress is entitled to it as a co-equal branch of government but the report released to the public should have redactions. It will be up to Trump’s Boys on the Supreme Court to ultimately decide if their president’s re-election is more important than Article I of the Constitution. We live in “interesting” times.

        • Last night, Rachel said that members of the team had already written summaries. So, properly vetted & redacted documents already exist. Our modern Ellsberg could release those.

  9. draft of 1st paragraph:

    Starting at noon Friday, there’s a huge matching opportunity for the AIDS Ride. Every donation, up to $250 will be matched, until the generous donors have given out $15,000. I get teary even thinking about such generosity. So, please, if you can — donate anything. Even $5, because that’ll be $10. But if you have $250 that needs to go to a good cause, this afternoon it’ll become $500. And it goes directly to help people. AIDS Services of Austin doesn’t have fancy offices, or plush… anything. Money you give to this cause goes to literally put food & medicine in the hands of people who need it. Here is my Hill Country Ride page.

    and some suggestions from my Twitter friends, that I’m looking to incorporate (well maybe not all of the suggestions…)
    Double the dough

    Half the effort

    We’ll ride You donate

    And we’ll get to 15K

    Double your pleasure, double your funSit on your sofa while we get it done…Donations matched when you sponsor our AIDS ride fundraiser! We sweat so you don’t have to. OPEN YOUR WALLETS, YA CHEAP BASTARDS! or something

    Open your wallet, open your soul.

    • I like the “we ride, you donate” one – and “open your wallet, open your soul” isn’t bad either. But I think the ones that focus on the match doubling the donation are best to incorporate into your post. My other thought is post it when the match comes live. The number of people who will read the “Match” and nothing else before donating…Make sure the match is live before you tell them about it. {{{HUGS}}}

      • yes, since DK has that “delay post” thing, I’ll have it post at noon

  10. Tech Support Advisory:
    – We seem to have crossed a threshold where people who were NOT having problems are now unable to get in (for example, Dee).
    – The message is definitely tied to something at the hosting company (Dee posted the URL that I needed to verify that).
    – I am going to connect to our hosting company’s livechat later this morning (probably around 9am my time) and share the link with them.
    – At some point today, probably after lunch, regardless of what the hosting tech support says, I am going to do two things:
    . First, I am going to clear our site’s cache so that there is nothing left on the web page that is linking back to the problems that have been reported since 3/23 and which may be cleaned up but hidden.
    . Second, I am going to bite the bullet and install the JetPack update. The update crashed the site last spring and I backed it out but the hope is that it has “evolved” enough by now to work well with the rest of the site.

    I will post updates on my progress here.

    • Update 1:
      – The hosting tech says that it is a brute force attack and we can’t turn off the notification because we are on a shared server with other web sites. Something is attacking someone – he did not have any explanation as to why some people get it and others don’t.
      – There is a plugin that he pointed me to that may help but I will need to test it before I install it. If it has the potential to lock me out of the site, I need to know that in advance.
      – I am going to run the Delete Cache command at 9:30am CDT. If you are trying to post at that time, you may get a hiccup. If you try to post after that time, it may take a little longer to display screens because it has to rebuild the cache.

    • Update 2:
      – Cache cleared – there was also a setting I could change to not mess with cache for logged in users that I modified.
      – Good luck, peeps!

  11. Here is Dee’s Puerto Rico tweet. I hope she can log in tomorrow!

  12. Good morning, 49 and cloudy at Semiahmoo Resort, near Bellingham. Our grand kids are still sleeping so I
    I’m enjoying a quiet moment with music, coffee, and a brief news update. We’ve had fun being together and as I hoped it’s been a treat for them and restful for me. We leave for home after lunch but it’s only a 30 min drive so that’s a manageable travel day!

    Jan, fwiw I haven’t had any site issues, crossing fingers it stays that way. Thanks so much for keeping the Moose going. Best wishes to all.

  13. Lots of interruptions this morning but I’m here. It’s 51 heading for mid 60s today. We had a lot of rain before dawn and are projected to have rain this afternoon but right now it’s sunny-ish. Yesterday we got a tad over 20 KWHs and the m-t-d is 53.5 so I’d say just about on track for this month’s goal except we aren’t likely to get even 10 today with the cloudy weather during the highest production part of the day. sigh. Early days yet. We have time to catch up.

    No resolution of anything for anybody anywhere. Well, except I just booked my motel for the Scott Joplin Festival basket and I are attending at the end of May. (I need to get a hold of my eldest grandson about house & cat sitting.) I guess you could say that’s a step in the right direction on something. Otherwise everything is in wait mode. Which is frustrating as hell. I’m visiting my TL a couple of times a day, boosting what I see, then getting the heck back off it. I wouldn’t be on twitter at all if I still had access to online friends/family any other way. Our society is sick and makes me sick. I don’t need to be rubbing my own nose in just how sick it is and how sick it makes me. And Goddess knows that the sick-at-my-tummy our society makes me is nothing compared to the pain/abuse/death it causes BIPOC & other minority/vulnerable populations. All I can hang onto is that caring is a good thing, that caring people can and do make a difference for the better. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  14. Good morning/afternoon, Meesefolk; 30 when I got up with a very, very cloudy high of 45. The weekend forecast has changed from sunny and warm to clouds/rain and warm. Naturally. So instead of oodles of yardwork, I may just throw open the windows and use to the expected rain as an excuse to nap instead…win/win!

    I see Platitude Pete will be making an announcement on the 14th, so undoubtedly that means that he’s going to be officially in. I’m so completely disappointed in him, I don’t even know how to process it. He’s taken the things that I liked about him as mayor of SB, whitened and maled them up completely, and presented them to the world to much acclaim. It’s devastating to see so many people scramble to the White Male so quickly and so uncritically; I can only hope that the campaign process awakens people to the fact that he’s really not saying anything. There’s lots of fluff, but no substance, which is even more bizarre because that’s not his mayoral persona at all.

    And I just heard that Rep. Tim Ryan (OH-13) has announced he’s running for president. Right. Mr. I’d-Make-A-Better-Speaker-Than-Nancy is going to run. Goddess save us from the egos of mediocre white men!

    Good day to and for all!

    • Do you think the white guys yearning for a presidential run are sensing that the Biden lane might be opening up? There is nothing that Tim Ryan brings to the field that is not already covered by Joe “I feel your economic anxiety and don’t believe it is rooted in racism” Biden.

      I am going to tune out the 2020 presidential election news for a while. It is stomping on my last nerve to read the “Joe Biden grabbing my shoulders was welcomed and appreciated” stories. It is not a vote, more people saying “I was fine with it” does NOT somehow balance out the people who came forward saying that it bothered them, the millions of people creeped out by the photos, and the women who are triggered by those defending the actions as “the product of a different time.” How is that different from those excusing Beerfrat Kavanaugh’s actions? Respect what women are feeling – the ones grabbed against their will and the ones watching and cringing. Period.

  15. I got in! Yay! I can log in, I can fierce, and my name is up there at the upper right.

    Thank you for everything, Jan! I’d be desolate if I couldn’t check in every day and see what people are up to.

    Got the dinner plates warming in the oven, got to walk across the parking lot and pick up dinner. See you all tomorrow morning!

    • Yay! I hope it lasts – when there is no real reason for something to occur, it does not give me much confidence in the “fix”.

      princesspat and I have not had the problems at all. The only thing she and I have in common are also things that others have as well: Windows 10. I use Firefox for my Internet news browsing and am behind a pretty good firewall. I have a business-class anti-virus and I block ads (where most of the nasty bits from the Internet come from.) It is possible that the attacks are coming from malware or bot cookies left from various sites that people visit. Fingers crossed that this solves it. The next step is to make the tricky change to the login to hide it from the bad guys – the concern is that I will be hiding it too well and we get locked out also!

  16. Friday Meese.

    29 going up to 41 with April showers, here in Saugerties NY.

    Protest

    Church burnings in Louisiana

    Puerto Rico

  17. Good morning, meeses! Friday …

    It is 37 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 57. Rain this morning giving way to mostly cloudy skies. Saturday and Sunday highs projected to be 66 degrees! w00t!

    It looks like the news has slowed down to a trickle after the firehose of stories about the Mueller team being unhappy with Barr’s handling of their report and the Trump tax returns. The various House committees have their subpoenas out – or ready – and everyone is lawyering up. History suggests that the full report will eventually be given to Congress but history also includes the time before Mitch McConnell ratfked the courts so I am not as confident as I might have been. It was beyond discouraging to see the Sixth Circuit, now dominated by Trump picks, go right at abortion rights – thanks, Susan Collins, I hope you enjoy your legacy as the woman who could have saved Roe v Wade but put party over women’s health.

    The Violence Against Women Act reauthorization passed with bipartisan support in the House. The NRA is making this a recorded vote, meaning that any one who votes for it will lose NRA brownie points and, I suppose, campaign cash. For them to turn this into a litmus test is deplorable. Guns do not belong in the hands of people who abuse spouses or girlfriends and no amount of “this isn’t about hating women!” from the right-wing will remove this blemish. I have no idea how this bill fares in the Senate and whether the misogynist in the White House will sign it even if it passes: “violence against women, what’s wrong with that?” I hate what the non-voters did to America.

    I am still trying to get to projects that have a hard deadline of :::consults notes::: today!!! I got caught up in three unexpected projects yesterday and they threw my schedule off. Time to try again.

    See all y’all later!

  18. Sitting here reading about the Bernard Sanders decision to have a FOX News town Hall.

    My response – WTF.

    • It makes perfect sense for both parties: Bernie Sanders gets to bash the Democratic Party with no pushback and Fox gets to air his grievances – to the delight of their viewers – and help fuel the animosity between the Democratic Party base and the whatever-the-fk-the-Sanders-supporters-are.

  19. Another warm morning, but today isn’t supposed to be record-setting like yesterday’s 93 degrees. Mere 80s. But sure, climate change is a myth. Diary is scheduled to post at noon central time at the orange place; I’ll post it here around the same time. Please share it around all you can. I’m thinking of adding Empress to it.

    Sound and pulse and volume
    Hands just reaching out for hands
    This is almost overload
    I said almost overload
    Friends and foes and princes
    Are all just human in the end
    This is so damn simple, yeah
    It’s so damn simple

  20. Good morning, Meese! It’s been a long time since I saw the “Howdy, Diana in NoVa” greeting in the upper right of my screen! Just bookmarked the site, even though I received a message that it “isn’t secure.” What a mess these attacks are. Do the attackers not have jobs? Even though I’m retired I always seem to be too busy to attack other people’s sites.

    The weather gadget is back on the job without my having to lift a finger—why is this? Anyway, it just told me that it’s 44 F. now, going up to 53 F., with rain. I can’t see it falling but I can hear it going down the downspout when I step out on the porch.

    Today will be a “staying at home and cleaning up this wreck of a place” day. It looks awful! I can get put away a lot of stuff, though, now that the income taxes have been filed and the manuscript submitted.

    Next week will be entirely devoted to planning our upcoming spring break. Like Jan, I’m not going to spend much time today agonizing about the report. Too busy!

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and beyond.

    • LOL! “Even though I’m retired I always seem to be too busy to attack other people’s sites.”

Comments are closed.