Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Dec. 1st through Dec. 7th

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!
 

 

32 Comments

  1. It’s 38-feels-like-31 and overcast in Fay., AR at the moment. It’s supposed to clear off and be mostly sunny. Also to reach 55. If so, maybe a walk today (which I need). It would be nice anyway. Yesterday it was sunny enough we got 7.78 KWHs for the day and 14.1 for the m-t-d. That actually is on track for 200. As always, we shall see what we shall see.

    Not exactly sure how Fineena’s surgery went – she emailed me when she got home but just said that she was home, still under the influence of the anesthetic, and was heading for a nap. Amelia needs an advocate – which I cannot be – since dealing with, even thinking about dealing with, the various agencies whose help she depends on causes panic attacks. I can and do metaphorically hold her hand while she gets through those but I can’t do what’s needed to prevent them in the first place. Sigh. Aji mostly needs sales – of Wings’s work and her own writing (the Patreon is good for small regular amounts for small regular pieces but she’s written a book she’s trying to get published – not self-published but through the big venues who have the reach to send her book where she wants it to go). She’s perfectly capable of handling things herself as long as she has the money to do it with. And on and on – health or money or both, not even counting the community that would obviate the need for advocates…more than 50% of the population of what is supposedly the richest “greatest” country in the world need this. sigh.

    I’ve muffin bread I need to get out of the oven. Gonna be interesting. I hadn’t realized I was on my last bag of GF flour and didn’t have enough – so I threw in the rest of the coconut flour I had stashed in the back of the fridge. So GF peanut butter honey coconut muffin bread. 😁😁😁 We shall see what we shall see. Healing/Helping Energy to everybody who needs and accepts it, to their shaping. Bright the day, Meeses.

  2. Good morning, Meesefolk; 28 this morning and going up to 36. We had a dusting of snow yesterday that had melted by evening; there’s a dusting again now, but I suspect the pattern will repeat itself. I do wish we had some sunshine too, but I guess I should just be grateful that the storm that hit Dee missed us. Anotherdem, I want to thank you for your daily walk update. I had been slacking, using the weather as an excuse. That made sense when we had a bunch of snow on the ground, but that excuse went away a week or more ago and still I didn’t resume my walks with the pups. Your dedication inspired me, so I got in a short walk last night and when I’m debating tonight (because I’m sure I will try to use the weather excuse again), I’m going to remind myself of your trend-setting. Thank you!

    I see Reese is relentlessly banging the Donate drum for Kamala; with more than 10,000 followers, his persistence can make a difference. I read another tweet last night that yes, fundraising is an ongoing concern. I don’t know what the average giving is for Harris supporters, but I suspect it skews on the low side compared to Mayor Pete and his McKinsey/FB friends. Of course, you need to take out all of the billionaires who support her…I was “reliably” informed by a Berner that Kamala has huge support from billionaires. I need to sit down and do some bank balancing today to see what, if anything, I can do; Giving Tuesday is about non-profits but if I can squeeze out a few bucks for Kamala, I will.. This not having an income kind of stinks, but I might set aside my unemployed-caution and dip into the savings for today.

    Good day to and for all!

    • I so glad you like my updates! It is hard to make myself get out when it’s cold (to a Texan). when it really gets cold, I’ll go to the gym.

      • You’ve been helping me walk more, too. I really appreciate it as well. I love walking – but only if it’s on the way to and from something. Walking just to be walking…well, that hasn’t been a part of my life since I left Houston (late 1970) and I have to force myself to do it. Even though I need it a lot more than I did back then. Thank you again. moar {{{HUGS}}}

  3. Good morning, 45 and cloudy in Bellingham. I’m listening to versions of Pachabel’s Canon in D this morning and enjoying the winter view outside my window. The sky, horizon and water are all shades of grey/blue, and the trunks and branches of my old maple trees look sturdy and strong. My knees need another day or rest and indoor nature therapy is helping me stay put!

    Best wishes to all on this December day.

  4. Bad news for America. This is what happens when there are 20 people running, many of them unserious – it is difficult for people to separate the wheat from the chaff.

    • I guess I’ll support Castro, at least until he drops out. Then Booker. If they are both out before March, I’ll just skip that race when I vote in the primary.

      • I am not going to support anyone – the primaries are pretty much dead to me. Castro will be the next to go and I don’t have the emotional connection to him that I have to Kamala. I will do my best to push back against the worst – Mayo Pete, who we now find is a friend of the Salvation Fking Army – and Bernie Sanders. I think Elizabeth Warren will be destroyed in the general election – she does not have the chops to go toe-to-toe with Trump. So my shortlist is down to Amy Klobuchar and Joe Biden. If we put a dotty old man with 1940s values up against another dotty old man it should embarrass every Democrat. I put this mess at the feet of Tom Perez who did not do enough to discourage the nihilistic berners and made it too easy to buy your way onto the debate stage. We need superdelegates, Democratic Party stakeholders, to have more say in this process.

  5. Wednesday Meese.
    27 degrees and snow showers. Sigh. We got 18 inches during the double whammy storm here.

    Still angry. Still trying to process Kamala not being in the race – and more than disgusted by the trolling that continues.

    Then I saw this

    • I know you are/were much more invested in Kamala than I am/was so it’s gotta hurt you a lot more. {{{Dee}}}

      (I won’t vote for EW. She’s bernie in skirts – better at appropriating others’ stuff, be it culture or plans, and pretending she’s not than he is. Not quite as good at scamming. AR is red enough my votes only a protest anyway – Molly Ivins rule sez I can vote my conscious here – I’ll vote down ballot of course.)

  6. Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …

    It is 30 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 37. Sunny this morning then clouding up later in the afternoon. No precipitation in the forecast until Monday.

    I am still processing yesterday’s events. It was like a dagger to see tRump and his band of merry assholes mocking Kamala Harris and I will have to mute those people (for a day or two) who think I want to see that. It is too early to speculate on what role Kamala Harris will have in a new Democratic administration but I don’t doubt she will have one. One might be to stay in the Senate for 30 years and eventually be chair of the Judiciary Committee vetting judges and managing impeachment hearings for Trump-appointed judges who turn out to be every bit as deplorable as they were predicted to be. What I don’t see is her running as someone’s Vice President and the pairings with Warren and Klobuchar are insane – we cannot have a ticket with two women. If Joe Biden needs a black female running mate, he should tap Stacey Abrams. The “Kamala as VP positioning for 2024” talk is bullcrap – if Biden is elected, he won’t step aside in 2024 and if he needs to be primaried as a drooling dotard, you can’t do that from the VP spot. I am not sure Kamala would want to be the supportive “Joe is right about everything” person that a running mate is or that I would want that role for her. I guess we shall see! I am just sad for Kamala because of the energy she put into this race and the disappointment she must feel. I hope she can sleep for a week and can get back to eating food that is not fried or pickled – Iowa “cuisine” is artery destroying. One thing I won’t do is read the Harris campaign attack articles. Life is too short.

    The impeachment report from Adam Schiff’s staff is getting great reviews. I hope to have time to read it today – or at least find an article with good highlights – but I have a bunch of things I need to do first. I also want to watch the first Jerry Nadler hearing if I have time. Yesterday I had an unexpected project that kept me at my computer late into the evening and I am dragging a bit this morning so I am not sure what my day will look like.

    See all y’all later!

  7. Welcome to Woden’s Day, Moosekind, and it’s not a good one, metaphorically speaking. We have 33 F. and dry conditions in Ashburn.

    Well, there go my hopes and dreams! I feel completely shattered. Agree 100 percent with Jan’s post, especially this statement:

    If we put a dotty old man with 1940s values up against another dotty old man it should embarrass every Democrat.

    Yep. Don’t expect me to get all excited about helping to get out the vote for yet another doddery old white guy—or, equally bad, a sneery young overprivileged guy.

    The awful news crawled across my phone when I was having lunch with my friend yesterday. We were seated in a pleasant, glassed-in porch with a view of trees that were sky clad. What kind of tree is it that looks as if it’s wearing white longjohns under a brown bark coat? Anyway, the news shocked me as much as did the first few minutes with my friend.

    I’m not sure why I dressed with more than usual care yesterday, or why I asked our waiter to take a picture of the two of us. I don’t usually do that. I just have a bad feeling. She can’t walk more than a few feet without stopping to rest. She struggles to breathe. She looks as if, literally, the wind could blow her away. She can barely keep her weight up to 100 pounds. The horrible winter of 2018, when she was hit by the double whammy of ‘flu and then pneumonia, really did her in.

    I also took her Christmas presents to her. Although “they” seldom get it right, they’re predicting a snowy winter, in which case yrs truly will not do a 60-mile round trip to visit anyone. There are Skype and FaceTime, but she’s so old she refuses to use them, so that is that.

    Hope everyone will have as good a day as possible, considering. Blessed be.

    • There is no one in the race that will excite Democrats. Besides Biden, there is the guy who helped elect Trump in 2016 by encouraging his followers that if they just let the worst happen, they would be poised for 2020 – he is not even a Democrat. There is the just-barely-a-Democrat history-challenged mayor of a red state city who is so full of himself I am surprised he doesn’t explode. There are a couple of billionaires who have no respect for Democratic Party values because they are only Democrats to run in our primary – they have paid no dues and have no campaign scars and are just using us for ballot access. Bloomberg voted for Romney in 2012, for crying out loud! I will vote for whoever is Not Trump – or Not Pence if Trump keels over before then – but don’t expect my money or my enthusiasm.

  8. Got my mile done — and I think I’m even improving on my time, so yay me. Warm enough today for no gloves but I did pull up my hoodie, wet hair & chilly wind aren’t a good combo.

    Very sad, frustrated, disappointed, etc about Harris dropping out. Angry that Steyer was not — and apparently won’t be — punished for that data theft & that the MSM doesn’t care that that NYT hit piece on her had info from a staffer that had been negotiating to join Bloomberg’s campaign…… Just, ugh. And my diary yesterday didn’t get much notice. Time for some comfort music: U2 Ordinary Love

  9. It’s cold – somewhere in the upper 30s and feels colder – but at least the sun is shining. We got over 7 KWHs yesterday and just over 21 for the m-t-d so we’re still on track for 200. For however long that lasts.

    I have to keep reminding myself that Kamala isn’t dead. No matter how much this feels like when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, it isn’t. It’s the dream that’s been killed, not the person who gave it to us. I never wanted Kamala to run in the first place because I knew she’d be “Hillaryed” and she was. I wanted her in the Senate – like Jan said, 30 years and head of the Justice Committee (among others). I still do. But her campaign had such energy, such joy, such promise – she looks at the whole, sees what needs to be done right now but more, sees what needs to be done to prevent the evils that must be addressed right now. Like Hillary in many ways – including the wonderful way she interacted with kids – but coming from a different point of view. A very needed BIPOC point of view. I’ll support Castro as long as he lasts but otherwise…no. I’m out. (And Damn! the idiot Dems for letting the bircher-owned media drive the election campaigns. We shouldn’t have even started this until next month. Until W we never did until the year of the election itself. Al Gore got slammed for jumping in too early when he declared in January instead of February of 2000. It’s deliberate on the bircher/media part to do exactly what it just did – run our best candidates out of money before the first vote. Kamala obviously had the money to run a good campaign for over 6 months without any primary wins. If she’d started 2 months before the first vote as it should have been…)

    I’m worried about Amelia – there’s something she needs to do, needed to do yesterday, but she keep having panic attacks whenever she just things about it. And I can’t do it for her. sigh. I think my energy drained out of me yesterday. Not that I had a lot anyway. I need to get it back. I can’t help anybody without it. If only to do the invoking/Channeling. I don’t know if it actually goes anywhere or does any good but it still takes energy to do it. Maybe coffee will help.

    Healing/Helping Energy to all who need and accept it, to their shaping. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  10. Good morning, 48 and raining in Bellingham. I’m trying to watch the impeachment hearings, but the R’s are awful my mute button is needed. RonK has the lights shining in the outdoor trees, I’m making progress bringing Christmas to the porches, and the Christmas Spode is nice to see and to use. We’re doing our best to counter the gloom of winter darkness, the political disappointments, and tRump worries we’re all living with but it’s hard this year.

    My best wishes to all as we find our way through another December day.

  11. Good morning, meeses! Thursday …

    It is 25 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 39. Mostly sunny this morning, cloudy this afternoon.

    Nadler is no Schiff. Maybe that is too high a bar but the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee let himself get rolled by the Republicans – he could have forced them to call as their witness an actual constitutional scholar and instead he let them call a Fox News pundit who knows how to frame right-wing talking points into sound bites to rile up the masses. To give Jonathan Tur(d)ley a platform like that to propagate the Republican narrative is a huge unforced error. We can take comfort in the fact that the despicable ranking(!) member Georgia Rep. Doug Collins did not get picked to fill the Senate seat coming open at the end of the year due to Isaakson’s retirement. Gov. Kemp selected a white woman business owner – anti-choice and pro-assault weapon – to fill the spot. She will have to run in 2020 to fill the remainder of the term and the seat will come up again in 2022. Collins can run against her in a bloody primary (grabs popcorn) or wait until 2022 when the 6-year term is on the ballot. Democrats will have two possible Senate pickup opportunities in the Peach State next year – I hope we can find some candidates!

    The pundits are starting the pairings! Biden/Harris would be better than Biden/Mayo Pete but does Kamala really want to use her considerable talent to be doing daily cleanup on Biden gaffes? That said, if the VP pick is going to be touted as the future of the party, she should consider it. There is certainly a lot of time left to find out who the nominee will be. I have a shortlist of acceptable candidates and will observe the goings-on at an arms length. Julián Castro’s donations increased dramatically and he may make the next debate. That would be good for the party.

    I am going to scan the news and then find a couple of small projects to do today. I think I am coming down with a cold and I want to see if I can keep it at bay by taking it easy.

    See all y’all later!

  12. Got my walk in, 14 days straight. Yesterday’s hearings apparently went well — if Gym Jordan & Louie Gohmert are angry, we did something right. Wondering what today will bring.

  13. Good Thor’s Day morning, Moosekind! It’s 42 F. here in Ashburn. The dawn cloud cover has dissipated, so it’s now sunny and horribly windy. The winds will gust from 15 to 25 miles an hour while the thermometer inches up to 45 F.

    Still feeling depressed and disappointed. Another Kamala t-shirt arrived yesterday (ordered it a good three weeks ago), with her name spelled out in sign language. Sigh. I would have enjoyed wearing that around this village. Now I’ll have to pack it away with the cap, the bumper sticker, the other two t-shirts, and the tote bag. Bummer.

    Breaking news on my phone—the House will proceed with articles of impeachment. No surprise there.

    My insomnia continues to plague me. Daughter advises yoga and if that doesn’t work, half a tablet of something called Klonopin. I’ve heard that oldsters who take sleep aids get Alzheimer’s so that’s out, and I decided back in the 1990s that I very much dislike yoga. What bugged me when I took yoga classes was that I was supposed to “practice” at home. Huh? In my house, so crammed with furniture we could barely move? Besides, my attitude is that exercise (walking outside or on the treadmill) is exercise, and once it’s over, I’m not doing any more of it the rest of the day. Contorting myself into weird positions as a hobby seems a major waste of time.

    Anyway, we’ll see whether the weighted blanket works after it arrives and I start using it next week.

    Wishing all at the Pond a nice quiet day, with the only startling news being Trump’s defection to Russia. He and Putie can ride horses bare-chested together. Ugh, what an unappetizing thought!

  14. It’s 52 heading for 62 and cloudy. Not PV-system-off cloudy, but still cloudy. I’ve got so many people with health stuff going on today I’ve got physical purposed beeswax candles going. Helps focus the Energy I’m channeling. Channeling Energy out takes my own energy but I can always find it for folks I love. The other kind of energy, electric, is still on track – got (just barely) 7 KWHs yesterday with 28.76 as the m-t-d – but we won’t be tomorrow if these clouds don’t clear off soon. Still and as always, we shall see what we shall see.

    I got a bizarre visit last night from a man who was probably under the influence of pain pills if his story of recent surgery was true. He said his son had accidentally flown a drone into my front yard tree and he was going to try and get it down so please don’t call the police. OK. I didn’t. He didn’t manage to get it down because it’s still up there. Along with a strap it looks like he was trying to throw to hook it with. I’m assuming he’ll be back some time or other to try again.

    Still “processing” Kamala having to suspend her campaign. That word “suspend” has a whole lot of folks holding onto the hope she’ll unsuspend later. But I doubt it. Bloomberg is spending in a day more than she can raise in a week and most of her sources dried up with her announcement. Poor woman. She’s a sitting Senator and doesn’t have the time Hillary had for long walks and Chardonnay. But she is a sitting Senator and most of what’s in her plan/platform is also legislation she’s either proposed herself (most of it is in fact) or legislation she’s co-sponsoring. She still has a way to fight that Hillary didn’t/doesn’t.

    Trying to keep my own energy up focusing on other folks. Holding everybody in my heart. Healing/Helping Energy to everyone who needs and accepts it, to their shaping. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  15. Good morning, 40 and cloudy in Bellingham. I had my hair colored at the new place yesterday and I’m startled when I look in the mirror……Mary, I miss you! I know the color will fade and I hope it does soon.

    I’m getting a pneumonia shot today and see Dr.B tomorrow re the ongoing pain in my legs. I don’t expect much to change because arthritis is a chronic disease, but it’s best to check in and know I’m not missing something else.

    Best wishes to all.

  16. Good morning, meeses! Friday …

    It is 34 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of … 34! Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    I finally felt emotionally strong enough to read some of the post-Kamala2020 articles and to view her video from Tuesday (it seems like a million years ago!) I agree with one thing – in a more normal election cycle, one where our literal existence was not on the ballot – people would have had the courage to choose the best candidate rather than the one that the pundits have declared the most likely to win. I was ready because I know how important it is to excite people about a candidate and no one will be excited to elect Joe Biden. I worry that we are giving up on the chance to extend and expand on the Obama coalition (and no, Mayo Pete is NOT the Chosen One by anyone except David “Look At ME Look at ME” Axelrod) by saying that only an old white male can lead our party. But I understand the fear – I will not survive another 4 years of a Trump administration, really of any Republican administration, and I fear for my non-Caucasian immigrant daughter. As Propane Jane pointed out, post Citizens United post 2016 candidates don’t have the money or the time to make their case. Barack Obama had time to earn a razor thin win in Iowa and draft off that – he did not have billionaires and Super PACs running against him. That we are denied the best candidate, the person who would be the best president, is demoralizing to say the least.

    Nancy Pelosi is great, period, end of sentence. Well, maybe not end of sentence – she is also a bad ass.

    See all y’all later!

  17. Friday Meese.

    26 here in the Catskills going up to 41 with snow showers throughout the day.

    Puerto Rico/ USVI

  18. 15th day in a row walking, 1.07 miles. Loved Nancy Pelosi’s “don’t mess with me” moment yesterday. We really have to call them out every time they try to lie about us. Song in my head: Christmas Baby Please Come Home — this is a live version…. Bono is bad a remembering lyrics

  19. Good Freya’s Day morning, Meese! It’s partly cloudy here in Ashburn and quite cold (for us), 34 F. and rising to 54 F. today. If the wind doesn’t blow, it will be pleasant.

    It’s unfortunate that I have neglected my exercise all week, but I’ve had more urgent things to do. Going into the Communications Committee meeting yesterday I felt like a schoolgirl who hadn’t done her homework. I haven’t typed up my interview notes yet. One person even wrote to ask me about it! Duh… My New Year’s Resolution is not to procrastinate so much!

    I’ll get my exercise today throwing away dead plants, vacuuming my awful, I mean office, and cleaning the bathrooms: in other words, all the stuff I’ve neglected for ages. I do hate cleaning. The Littles are coming here tomorrow to decorate the tree and spend the night. We’re going to the Candy Cane Tea on Sunday.

    Monty behaved horribly last night while we were at dinner. Before we left I carefully zipped the plastic bag that contained our tree decorations. We went down the hall to the Pub for our meal and were gone 45 minutes. When we returned, we found that Monty had carried the plastic bag to his bed and ripped it open. OMG! The problem was we had left a soccer match on TV rather than his favorite CNN, so he became bored. We’ll know better next time.

    Breakfast is about to be consumed. I still feel so heartsick about Kamala’s dropping out that I could just SCREAM. The corporate-controlled white penis owner-journos brought down Howard Dean with a manufactured “scream” in 2004, then Hillary in 2016 and Kamala now. I’ve said it before: white males hate women, especially brilliant, hardworking women, because they threaten white male hegemony. White males like things very much the way they are, because, of course, everything is so comfortable for them.

    Jan, I hope your fears about your daughter will not become reality. Two of my grandchildren are half-Chinese, a third is Jewish. The thought of anything’s happening to them will turn me into a shrieking harpy instead of the Raging Granny I normally am.

    Will no one rid us of this turbulent t*rd?

    Wishing a quiet day to all at the Pond.

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