Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Dec. 22nd through Dec. 28th

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.

&npsp;

Page One of Comments is HERE!
 

 

28 Comments

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

    Morning low of 32 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 46. Sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. Sunday Meese.

    12 degrees here in Saugerties NY.
    Needed something to smile about

    SNL – Eddie Murphy returns with Mr. Robinson and gentrification

    SNL – Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris

    • Oh, I love that, Dee! It’s too bad Dearly and I don’t stay up late enough to watch SNL. Perhaps I can catch it later. Today will be extremely busy until later.

  3. Good Sun Day morning, Moosekind! It’s 21 F. on a clear but frosty morning here: the grass and woods are gray with it. Was thrilled to catch a glimpse of the waning moon when I took Monty out to the courtyard a little before six. Today we’ll see a high of 48 F., mixed clouds and sun, winds light (for a welcome change).

    I’m nearly ready to cook breakfast. We’ve been invited to lunch at a rather grand place in Leesburg, just down the road. Our charming Irish neighbor, an 83-year-old who knocks back large glasses of white wine while flirting with cute young waiters, has invited us. I still haven’t decided what to wear. It’s not that I can’t get into my nice dresses, it’s the fact that they’re all summery or wedding-y, none of which are appropriate on a winter day.

    Must finish wrapping presents. I think I’ve got all my email Yule newsletters dispatched. Absolutely dreading the week ahead, which looks to be full of nonstop partying. For us introverts, it’s nothing but dread until the event, which always surprises us by being less stressful than we’d anticipated. Oh, well.

    Basket informed me there’s going to be a big Witchfest in Austin in early March. H’mm. Daughter-from-Austin is flying up this weekend, so I must discuss this with her. What if I were to give myself a birthday present by attending?

    Wishing a good, quiet day to all at the Pond.

  4. Up & watching the news. Had a good day yesterday, canvassing for my congressional candidate. Very positive responses, no negatives. Was partnered with a woman who has done a lot of canvassing, she said this was unusually positive. Anyway, today I have church & need to make a pot of tea, but there’s no rush on much of anything, since Friday is the only work day this week. I bought ingredients to make risotto, think that’ll be my special Christmas meal.

  5. G’morning, Meeses. Sort of a drive-by check in as I need to go get my son so I can loan him my car for the day. It’s 36-feels-like-31 and sunny in Fay., AR this day the Light starts coming back (in theory anyway). Got my housework except floors done. Back hurts so I’m dreading it but I don’t have time to do it now anyway. Needs to be done, will be done – just later. I’ve seen my friend’s new house – carried a load of stuff from my place to hers yesterday afternoon. It’s really very nice and it feels quiet and isolated even though it’s less than 2 miles from a major road. Once everything’s settled in it will be good for her. We got 6.7 KWHs yesterday and are at 118 for the month.

    Worried about everybody – doesn’t help them or my sleep but can’t help it. Just read an article in the National Parks journal referencing noise on the human being/body. Apparently traffic noise and other man-made noises (including cell phone ‘pings’) mess with our sleep. Also our hearts…ahem. Well, nothing I can do about it. The Native/Indigenous “Land Back” movement has a whole lot of points for improving everybody’s health from the individual to the planet. Wish I could see a viable mechanism for it to happen. (Even if our wypipo colonizer culture would let it, which it won’t. Willingly.) Anyway, I’ll do twitter and read Dee’s Sunday Sermon when I get back. Healing/Helping Energy to everybody who needs and accepts it, to their shaping. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  6. Monday Meese. 22 degress here in the NY Catskills – going up to 49. Hopefully that will help melt the piles of snow/ice in my yard and driveway.

    Puerto Rico

    • What’s with the woman who responded that you are making all this up to sow political hatred? Is she a tourist living in a San Juan hotel where she has seen “no problems”? Grrr.

  7. Violence against women – Puerto Rico

    Thread unroll

    Fighting, again, for a state of emergency declaration in Puerto Rico to address the alarming record rate of violence against women, a demonstration was held in front of the Governor’s mansion in San Juan, yesterday. This is what the demonstrators chanted: (see following tweets)
    Patriarchy is a judge
    that condemns us at birth
    and our punishment
    is the violence you don’t see.

    Patriarchy is a judge
    that condemns us at birth
    and our punishment
    is the violence you now see.

    It is feminicide,
    impunity for my murderer.
    It’s denial,
    it’s rape.
    And it wasn’t my fault, nor where I was, nor how I dressed.
    And it wasn’t my fault, nor where I was, nor how I dressed.
    And it wasn’t my fault, nor where I was, nor how I dressed.
    And it wasn’t my fault, nor where I was, nor how I dressed.
    And the fault is in the silence
    and a bad education.
    And the fault is the government’s
    and the churches and their hell.
    The oppressive government
    is a rapist male.

    The rapist is you.
    The rapist is you.
    The rapist is you.
    The rapist is you.
    [Then a man says:
    “Emergency: Femicide!”
    and later, a woman says:
    “State of emergency, now!”

  8. Good morning, meeses! Monday …

    It is 37 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 45. Variable cloudiness with fog this evening.

    This is going to be a very odd week with the holiday right in the middle. Some of my clients have the 24th and 25th off, some have a half day on the 24th but most of them go right back to work on the 26th for two days – I expect diminished productivity! I suspect a lot of people will use vacation days to avoid going in on Thursday and Friday. Christmas is not my holiday anyway so I will take advantage of my clients not working and get some network maintenance tasks done in the morning. We will go pick up Chinese in the afternoon – as is our tradition – but it will just be a day off albeit one with stores closed. I have a lot to get done before calendar change day so quiet work days are appreciated.

    The news sites – other than the craptastic 2019 and Decade of the 2010s retrospectives – are obsessing over whether 45* (or 3 as some people are referring to him!) is really impeached or if until the bills of impeachment are sent to the Senate to be used as toilet paper by Mitch McConnell, there is no real impeachment. In the era of coordinated disinformation by captive news organizations that is not unexpected – what would have been more shocking would be clear and accurate reporting about what Trump did (used the power of his office to attack his political rivals in the 2020 election) and why the House of Representatives impeached him. I despise our Fourth Estate.

    The Christianity Today dustup is entertaining – and made the front page of my local paper! I listened to the interview on NPR (during my Friday drive) with the editor-in-chief who wrote the editorial and it included a lot of what we have been talking about – how can people who purport to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ support someone so gross and disgusting? He said that white evangelicals support the anti-abortion and religious freedom aspects of a Trump presidency and felt that outweighed the awfulness of Trump the person but that the balance shifted when he abused the power of the presidency for his own personal gain. The interview is here. Some snippets:

    [Following] the impeachment hearings, it became pretty clear, pretty quickly, unambiguously that the president had misused his office for personal political gain. And that, combined with the generally disreputable moral behavior he has displayed in all sorts of ways through his presidency culminated in a moment; on the one hand, he does these good things, on the other hand, he’s got these problems. […]

    He slanders people. He tells – he mischaracterizes people. He outright lies. He says things that are verbally abusive to others. These are all moral problems. You don’t have to be a religious person to recognize that they’re moral problems. And when a person has serious and longstanding and habitual moral habits like that, it’s not something just to condemn, but also suggests kind of a deep psychological and moral confusion. […]

    We’ve gotten to a point where those things no longer balance the scale. It’s like a wife who has a husband who’s verbally abusive, but he’s still a good provider. He’s still a good father to his children. She might put up with that and say, on the one hand, yeah, he’s got a bad temper. On the other hand, he’s a great dad, and he’s a good provider.

    When that husband begins to physically abuse the wife and actually become physically dangerous, that doesn’t balance the scale anymore. And now that the – the real issue is, should this man be in the house or not? And most of us would say he needs to be out of the house. But he’s a good provider. No. That doesn’t matter. He needs to be out of the house. And that’s how I feel like we’ve gotten to the point in the Trump administration.

    I disagree with him that “verbal abuse” is something women should just suck up, but his analogy helps explain the point he got to in order to make his decision. He sounded intelligent and thoughtful. I am sure he is getting death threats because nothing says “in service to the Lord” like killing people who disrespect their God, Donald J. Trump.

    I am trying to put together a good, workable end of year project list. My biggest problem is that I start a “little” project which begets another “little” project which in turn becomes a 2 hour sinkhole often not even remotely related to the project I started. I have about 1,000 of those kind of little projects on my master to-do list that I have to ignore as I focus what must be done before calendar change day.

    See all y’all later!

    • tRump is getting his christianist lackeys to fluff up his god creds. This was blockquoting a Ben Carson tweet. Embarrassing!

  9. Sunny, warmer weather here — I think today’s high is supposed to be 72. Today I’m going to cook, and either go for a walk or go to the gym. If I can tear myself away from the Sherlock marathon on BBC America. And I forsee a problem tomorrow — a Doctor Who marathon.

  10. It’s 32 in Fay., AR going up to 65 today. Sunny which is good. I was planning to do the laundry today and hang it outside as it’s definitely too warm to have a fire but no way my hands are going to manage clothespins at these temps and I doubt there will be enough time to dry them outside if I wait until it gets above 50. But looking at the forecast either Wednesday (Xmas? what’s that?) or Thursday are supposed to start the day close to 50 and still go up into the 60s so I’ll do it then. We generated 6.6 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 125 with this morning’s driblet.

    My son’s got my car for a few days. The battery on his motorcycle is going out – won’t start the engine when the temps are below 40. Ahem. I hope he can find the time to get a new one this week. Next Monday there’s a blood drive and I’ve already missed 2 this year. My friend is almost done across the street. She’s got to find someone to haul off junk/trash because the new owner won’t let her put it in his construction dumpster. Effer. He hasn’t given one single thought to her, the situation she’s in (partly with his help “talking” her down several thousand dollars below her “bottom” once he saw the situation she was in), not even the simple thing of saving her a hundred dollars or so by letting her put stuff in the construction dumpster. Well, shows you my friend is a better person than I am. I wouldn’t have asked. That way I couldn’t be told ‘no’. But that will be it. There’s still a bunch of stuff here at my house but she’s got all the time she wants to deal with that. The University’s closed as of tomorrow but she’s taking today as well. Including the weekend she’s got 10 more days before she has to be back at work – give her some time to catch her breath as well as get things situated at the new house.

    Other friends’ situations either haven’t changed or gotten worse (or gotten worse because they haven’t changed). Aji had a real jolt last Friday – someone they’d trusted and helped over the last several years (hired, bought stuff from, given food to FFS) got pissed when they ran out of money & threatened them – violently, physically. Including a threat to shoot their horses. White men make me sick. (OK most white men make me sick. My sons and grandsons do fall into that category.) But everybody’s “all right right now” – just not sure how long “right now” is going to last.

    I’m fighting a migraine so need to get some coffee and probably Ibuprofen in me. Holding everybody in my heart. Channeling Healing/Helping Energy to all who need and accept it, to their shaping. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  11. Good morning, 35 and mostly cloudy in Bellingham. Our family Christmas weekend was fun and it’s done, yay! Our grand girls dance performance was lovely, the party food was tasty, the house looked and felt very cozy, and in comparison Christmas should be easy and relaxed!

    I was sentimental/creative with gifts for our grand kids this year and was not sure how they would be received so I was very relieved to see the sparkle in Ryan’s eyes when he opened his. I had an ornament made at Cafe Press for each of them reflecting a personal accomplishment of this year, so his was a graduation photo. As you all know I love family lunches at the bookstore cafe, so with the owner’s permission (he even shared an image from his logo file) I had sweatshirts made with the Colophon Cafe on the front and an image of the sign on the back. RonK took that photo, then Lisa edited it as a black and white image and had the printing done through her Etsy shop so the gift was a family affair.

    Our son suggested I find copies of the 1956 Betty Crocker cookbook I still use as a gift for Emma and Ava. I received the book as a gift when I was about 14 yrs old so my copy is well used, the spine is split and favorite pages are falling out. Finding two books in good condition was harder and more expensive than I thought it would be, but I persisted. I know the girls will enjoy having the books, but I don’t expect to much excitement so I’ve added some cash to shop with after Christmas :)

    Most of the gifts are wrapped and I’ve got food organized for Christmas Eve dinner so today I’ll give my knees a rest, catch up with the laundry and maybe even take a nap. Best wishes to all.

  12. Good afternoon, Meese! I’m late to the Pond today because we were getting ourselves organized to take the Mont-ster in for his grooming. It will be his last grooming at that particular pet salon because whereas we had an appointment for 10:30 and were there right on time, they took walk-ins before us. That meant he wasn’t taken in until past 11, so we’re totally pissed.

    Feeling a bit nauseated, which I expected at this point in the ongoing saga of dealing with a cold. I can’t get my hair done until tomorrow, so will just have to put up with it. I fell off the stepladder this morning while trying to reach the blender, but it was my own fault. I shouldn’t have worn sandals while getting on the steps. Now my elbow and back feel a bit bruised.

    Still have lots to do before dinner. Will chores never cease? Yesterday was spent getting ready to go to the large, luxurious luncheon in Leesburg, and we spent the evening afterwards recovering, like pythons who’ve just digested a goat each and have sunk into torpor.

    Bought some sleeping pills while we were out doing errands this morning, so we’ll see whether they actually work.

    Oh, the weather: very cold this morning, 25 F., but somewhat sunny. Actually, there’s a mix of clouds and sun and the current temp. is 41 F., supposedly going up to 51 F.

    Off for a little rest before I begin doing other things. Hope it’s a good day for all at the Pond!

    • {{{Diana}}} – Healing Energy – & please do take a little better care of yourself than that. Falls aren’t good for you at any age. moar {{{HUGS}}}

    • Glad to see your check in! I saw that horrendous accident in Virginia on the news and, while I knew it wasn’t near NoVA, I knew you were travelling and hoped you were not impacted by it.

      • Thanks,Jan—yes, wasn’t that awful! We were on that very road in the summer, traveling to Williamsburg. We’re three hours’ drive from that unfortunate highway.

        Yes, bfitz, from now on I’ll wear proper shoes on the stepladder. You should see my poor little elbow, covered with blood and bruises. It’s Neosporined now, though.

  13. Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …

    It is 36 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 48. The forecast calls for variable cloudiness. We could get to 50 tomorrow and, no, I am not sad that we won’t have a White Christmas. A Shirt-sleeve Christmas is fine with me.

    I was chuckling over House lawyers telling the court that they were “not done with impeachment” when tRump’s law firm, aka the Justice Department, tried to get the subpoena enforcement lawsuits dismissed as moot. Ha!! Make #IMPOTUS sweat about what is coming down the pike – that the big wet kiss that the Republican Senate will be giving him will not stop the drip drip drip of corruption stories coming from his White House. I read an article by Jamelle Bouie a few days ago that if tRump really thought he was going to benefit from impeachment, he wouldn’t be so unhinged about it. The key takeaway about the election was this:

    Will voters affirm shameless corruption and lawlessness, or will they reject Trump’s open attempt to subvert the Constitution? This isn’t a focus on personality – it’s an important point of information to tie into a larger political case.”

    People are paying attention. The Articles of Impeachment will not result in tRump’s removal in January 2020 but they will help make a strong case to remove him (and his Republican enablers) in January 2021.

    I am going to scan the news quickly and then decide if I am going to try to get anything meaningful done or just putter around. I am leaning “putter” – I am feeling the toll of a stressful fall semester (you would think that I was the college student) and have a decided lack of energy.

    See all y’all later!

  14. Christmas Eve Tuesday Meese. 37 going up to 40 here in the NY Catskills

    Puerto Rico

  15. Good Tiu’s Day morning, Meese, partly cloudy but sunny here. Current temp. is 34 F., ugh, because it’s up to me to take Monty out while the cleaners are doing the bedroom. They’ll be here at 9 or thereabouts.

    Too much to do today, as usual, and my body is already showing signs of stress. Bummer. Tonight is the gathering at Elder Son’s house, but we’ll have to leave Monty at home watching “A Christmas Story” and blissfully licking the kong I’ve prepared. I stuffed it with plain Greek yogurt and chopped up “pretend bacon.” Keeps him entertained for a good long while, as it’s frozen.

    The high today will be 50 F. Like Jan, I’m happy about it. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond, always excepting the dratted Rethugs and Bernie.

  16. Chilly morning — mid 30s (yes, I know for some on you that’ll be the high for today) Today’s agenda: make the risotto, and maybe go for a walk in the afternoon if I can tear myself away from the twin temptations of the Dr. Who and Harry Potter marathons. Christmas Eve church at 5:30. Here, have some music: The Rebel Jesus.

  17. Good morning, Meesefolk; 27 when the pups got me up way, way earlier than was my wont; only headed to 39 before we climb back to the unseasonably warm temperatures we’ve been having. Yesterday I ran a multitude of errands with no jacket, just my corduroy shirt, because it was in the 50s. In December. In MI. It’s a strange feeling, but since we had major snow accumulation in November, it seems a fair trade-off.

    I disappeared into my sewing room to tend to a few minor projects over the weekend, and I’m only now coming up for air before I reenter the labyrinth (mixed metaphor, I know, but if you could see my sewing room, you’d know it is apt). I decided that Kiddo “needed” a few table runners in advance of her New Year’s party; she doesn’t know that she needs them, of course, but since she’s not having a buffet table, but food throughout the house, I think they’ll come in handy. I’m still working on finishing a tree skirt for SILs Snoopy and Woodstock tree, and I have to cut out the fabric for a dinosaur tree skirt for Kiddo (that will actually be for next year, but I have the fabric and pattern out now so I’ll get it done). I also decided to make toppers for their kitchen windows. Their ultimate plan is to move one of the hanging stained glass windows that came with the house to the kitchen, but that’s become part of their long-term rather than short-term goals. So I have just enough fabric left from the curtain panel I made for their kitchen door to make window valances for the interim. I really need to get moving and get back into the sewing room, so that I’ll have everything ready to pack. We head down Thursday for the long weekend, and the sewing is the only thing I have left to do. I really should have thought of all of this sooner!

    Good day to and for all!

  18. It’s upper 30s heading for upper 60s today in Fay., AR. Supposed to be sunny but hasn’t gotten there yet. It’s not dark just not sunny. The cloud cover is thin enough that light is coming through. Yesterday we got 6.9 KWHs and are right at 132 for the month. We’ve got 8 production days left, counting today, so we shall see what we shall see. After I hefted the laundry basket with dry but dirty clothes in it I decided trying to pick it up with wet clean clothes in it was/is probably a bad idea. So I did the laundry last night and hung it in front of the wood stove. Instead of letting the fire start to die when I went to bed, I added an extra wood block to keep it at peak heat for another hour. Seems to have worked fine. My clothes are dry anyway. And mostly put up. 😁👍😁

    I’m worried enough about both Aji and Amelia – for different reasons – that it’s messing with my sleep. sigh. I wouldn’t mind if it meant I could do something about their situations. But the squirrel cage isn’t attached to anything like the old fashioned (not modern “exercise equipment”) treadmills so it’s just spinning and nothing productive comes from it. Prayers have never stopped bullets so the prayers are that the bastid who made the threat was bluffing. And as to Amelia, it’s like having phone/internet contact with somebody trapped in NOLA during Katrina – except folks in NOLA were surrounded by others in the same situation and some managed to help each other enough to survive. Amelia is surrounded by some good people who are unable to help and a bunch of self-righteous bastids who are unwilling to. Including her family. Which always bites but especially around the holidays. I’m not even sure what to pray for Amelia – other than “best outcome”.

    At least the other folks I am concerned about are holding steady and are in situations that have potential for getting better if they can hold steady long enough. I waver back and forth between believing and not believing that prayer/invocations/channeling Energy does any good/has any impact at all. But whether or not it helps, it doesn’t hurt, so I keep trying. Healing/Helping Energy to all who need and accept it, to their shaping. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  19. Good morning, 35 and partly cloudy in Bellingham. The sky outside my window has some color and light, and it’s nice to see. Thanks to all the party prep I’ve got a quiet day to enjoy. The Bellingham family will be here about 4:00 pm for gifts, dinner, and face time calls with the Seattle and Portland families. Sophia is celebrating her 13th birthday today so it’s a big occasion for her.

    Best wishes to all on this Christmas Eve.

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