Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Jan. 12th through Jan. 18th

January 11, 2020 JanF Community 79

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?

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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!
 

 

42 Comments

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

    Morning low of 10 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 19. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. Sunday Meese. A warm 64 here in the NY Catskills – and it will stay at that temp all day.

    Puerto Rico Earthquakes

  4. Watching the news, drinking tea. Got to edit my K-hive diary for tomorrow. That’s most of today’s afternoon agenda, maybe another workout. I went to the gym yesterday, didn’t make it through the 10 repeats of walk/run; so I might try again. Listening to Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way.

  5. Good Sunday morning, Moosekind! At six-thirty a.m. I finally saw the beautiful “Wolf Moon.” Clouds gathered after that, but have now given way to a lovely, sunny day. The sky is a pale, clear blue behind the woods across the way and the pools of water in the woods are still shining as the sunlight gradually advances.

    The current temp. is 60 F., if you please, with a forecast high of 62 F. I walked outside yesterday and will do so again today. We’re skipping winter this year.

    Sent my sister-in-law in Australia an electronic card for her birthday on Friday and received this in reply: ….”petrol prices have escalated. Food, everything here is going up with the fires, due to supplies not getting through. Roads are still not open and the fires still going, and the worst summer heat still to come.”

    My Witch Cuz who lives in Box Hill, a suburb outside Melbourne, wrote: “The smoke haze here is terrible and so we can’t go outside.” She believes the raging bushfires are a tipping point.

    She loves her adopted country, where she feels free to live as a Witch without fear or censure. When she visits her native state of Texas she feels horrified and has to keep her mouth firmly shut around her Trumpanzee family. Will life in Australia be tenable? I don’t know. It was 140 F. the other day outside Sydney.

    This morning Monty barfed up yesterday evening’s little dessert of grass, so our bedroom carpet has green spots on it. Dearly will try to take care of it as best he can, but he’ll still have to call General Services to come and clean the carpets. We call on them regularly, yet the apartment still smells unfresh. Not of dog pee so much (we got rid of that extra carpet we brought from home) but just a kind of stale, manky smell. I’ve got those Airwick scent thingies plugged into the outlets, and have placed odor-absorbing charcoal pillows in every room and our walk-in closet. They need to be exposed to sunlight for an hour a month to work but we don’t get much sunlight on our side of the building in the winter, so their effectiveness will be limited until late spring.

    Compared to the problems of others, mine are negligible. I simply enjoy complaining. As a reward for putting up with it, why don’t y’all come over for dinner tonight? Roast chicken with gravy, mashed potatoes, and green peas, and for afters, jam roll with custard. I’m making the jam roll myself, later this morning.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!

  6. Happy Sun’s day in truth. The sun is shining in Fay., AR and that is wonderful. Still a few clouds and it’s hazy but we’ve already generated 25% of yesterday’s whole day (.6 KWHs, brought the m-t-d to 52) and that’s just a mood lifter. It’s 26 heading for 46 so that part’s good, too. The ice is almost gone already just from the sun on it and will be gone by noon. Also the snow on the solar panels. And (except for the floors of course) I’m done with my Sunday chores so I can rest and read for a bit.

    Things are a little better for some of my folks and stable for the rest. For Amelia that’s not really good as it’s not getting her a home and out of this motel routine – but at least she is in a motel and not living out of her car. Which would kill her in fairly short order considering all her various disabilities. I dunno – Hold the Good Thought for somebody’s relative having a guest cottage they haven’t been using and so decide to rent to her. Or something better. There’s always a something better than humans can think up. Most of us anyway don’t have the kinds of brains much less the training to deal with all the ramifications so there are always “unintended consequences” from our plans. That’s true at every level. Which only means we need to work as best we can for whatever good plans we can come up with while being open to the “something better” should it show up on our doorsteps.

    So. Off to read stuff. Well, maybe more coffee first since I don’t have a cat on my lap at the moment. heh. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  7. Good morning, 39 and raining in Bellingham. Cold temps and perhaps some snow are in the forecast so I’ll walk around the garden and enjoy the hellebore today. They are hardy winter flowering plants and are in full bloom right now. They will recover when/if the predicted arctic wind arrives but they won’t look as nice.

    I’ve scanned the morning news and decided distraction is needed so I hope I can focus on a sewing room project today. RonK is in winter cooking mode so he’s making a pot roast for tonight’s dinner I may make an apple torte.

    Best wishes to all on this blustery Sunday morning.

  8. Monday Meese
    30 degrees going up to 44 here in the Catskills – a more normal temp for this time of year.

    President Obama urges people to support Puerto Rico

    WaPo Editorial Board

    • Nice WaPo editorial. It won’t shame a single shameless person in the Trump “Administration” but maybe it will wake up a few people who should know better. Voters should not accept the cruelty of Republican governance – we need to #VoteThemAllOut.

      • {{{Diana}}} Bobby’s safe on the north side of Puerto Rico. He can feel the quakes which is scary of course. And they were without power and water for a couple of days after the big one but so far have been doing OK otherwise. He’s in a program for homeless men – mostly drug addicts but his medical issues allowed him in – so while not optimal it means he’s got good, safe shelter and food. (He says the food is ‘meh’ – mostly canned goods from govt surplus programs – but it’s relatively nutritious and there’s enough of it.) He’s unofficially got his dog with him and is feeding the local cats with whatever he can find. He’s on the waiting list for subsidized housing – I can’t remember the name of the town but it’s thankfully not San Juan. That’s pretty much what I know other than the cell and internet service is very hit and miss where he is.

  9. Good morning, meeses! Monday …

    It is 27 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 32. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast. We are just wrapping up wave three of a storm that made travel over the weekend a nightmare. Friday night, Saturday afternoon and then last night – Saturday travel was impossible. There will be more snow this week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. I managed to find a window of time for the short trip I needed to make (Sunday late morning after roads were made safe through Sunday late afternoon) so I can now stay off the roads for a while.

    Ha, Nancy Pelosi!! “Impeachment is forever” – yes, it is. I have a transcript of her ABC interview up in a tab to read and admire later this morning. I noticed that the berners are getting desperate and are now torching Elizabeth Warren. If she can’t beat back the Sanders mob, it will doom her candidacy – you have to show you are willing to take out the knives to beat crazy old guys this year, there is no “nice” in presidential politics in 2020.

    Tomorrow, the criminal occupying the Oval Office will be in Milwaukee. It’s going to be ugly – he is delivering his hate rally at the UWM Panther Arena, the sports venue downtown that the UW-Milwaukee men’s basketball team plays in (the women play in a smaller arena on campus). The arena is not owned by the university and they don’t book events (they bought the naming rights) but the students are livid because their school’s name and their school signage will be prominent during the rally and the stench from him and his MAGAts will never come out. The chancellor had to sent a letter to students to calm them down – they were ready to storm his office! School is still on break but many of the students are commuters and there will likely be protests, prayers that everyone stays safe. I am not sure why he is going to Milwaukee; it is a blue city that despises him at about a 95% rate and his presence there is more likely to inspire GOTV for our side .

    I completed my end of year accounting cutoff yesterday and can now get 2020 accounting templates set up. Whew! Now I have to organize my neglected project to-do list and come up with a good plan for this week.

    See all y’all later!

    • The chancellor had to sent a letter to students to calm them down – they were ready to storm his office!

      Ah! That sounds like the “old” Wisconsin I loved.

  11. It’s freezing here in Fay, AR – feels colder – but the sun is shining and it’s heading up to mid 50s for the day. I hope the wind dies down. I have got to get some exercise. That is so very much harder to do now that I’m retired. When I was working I absolutely had to walk at least 10 minutes a day getting to and from the parking lot – frequently picked up another 5 to 15 minutes around campus as well. And in good weather I’d do the 40-minute walk home. Now if I don’t make myself walk…I don’t. Good to have the sunshine. That always makes me feel better, makes me want to move. We got 6.4 KWHs yesterday – more than the previous 3 combined – and the m-t-d is 59.3 (should reach 60 before lunch).

    I am well aware of the odds so I don’t waste my money on lottery tickets – but I’d sure love to have that kind of money fall into my lap. Not that it would stay in my lap for long. But there are at least a dozen folks who’d get the benefit of housing and/or medical issues cleared up in the process. Maybe more, depending. That’s not a lot of people in the grand scheme of things – but every single one of them is a “helping person” who would spread the good once they were no longer floundering for a life line themselves. That’s still small in the grand scheme. But it grows. Focusing on the small allows me some hope. Focusing on the grand scheme…not so much. But I’ll keep doing what I can, however little that is. And so we go. Channeling Healing/Helping Energy and doing what else my mind and hands find to do. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

    • Bfitz, can’t someone buy Aji’s and Wings’ medical debt? I just heard of a well-known sports figure doing that. Can’t remember his name as I don’t really like “boy” sports like footbore and basketbore, but he did it just the other day. He bought a million dollars’ worth of it.

      • Not without them having to pay income taxes on the “gift”. The way medical debt can be bought without a tax liability for the person owing it is for the person or entity with the money to buy a percentage of the medical debt at a specific hospital or clinic with no connection to specific people. Unless all the debt is bought up, it’s up to the facility as to how they apply it – and to whom. To specifically help them, legally, unless they were willing and able to deal with the taxes the way to do it would take years but would still take a load off them. Basically make them a loan at little or no interest to consolidate everything plus future/planned expenses and then annually give them the maximum allowed gift (used to be $10K but I haven’t checked lately) to put toward the balance – and they make regular agreed-upon payments the rest of the time.

        In a sense helping Amelia would be an easier deal. Buy a small condo and rent it to her for the section 8 allotment (which would cover taxes on the real estate at the least). Can’t give her any money directly or she loses her section 8 voucher.

        • Great Mother, you are knowledgeable, bfitz!

          (Pause to admire bfitz’ knowledge of this subject.)

          Well…sigh…winning the lottery is almost impossible, but I wish you, or they, could.

          • {{{Diana}}} – it’s a topic we went into when I was doing community fundraising at DK. There are a bunch of folks in the various communities there with significant to devastating medical issues. And bills. As to winning the lottery…I’d have to buy a ticket first. heh. moar {{{HUGS}}}

  12. Good Moon Day morning, Meese—I suppose. Gray and gloomy outside, just like me. Gray hair and feeling gloomy because of Everything. The current temp. is 44 F., going up to 58 F. It may rain. Then again, it may not.

    Ugh, in less than an hour I have to meet one of the women I interviewed to go over the changes to her writeup in person. Why she couldn’t have done the same as the others and corrected the doc. I emailed, I don’t know. It’s going to punch a hole in my morning, which was quite busy enough. I hate being this busy. I’d like to go for a walk or simply sit and STARE.

    But enough of my nonexistent problems. I may have to skip the Raging Grannies vigil tomorrow as the chief honcho is having pain this morning and can’t drive.

    Jan, glad you’re squared away and your travel is over. I need to set up a “tax box” for the incoming 1099s. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!

  13. Good morning, 20, cloudy, and a few inches of icy snow in Bellingham. The sound of tires spinning and ice crunching as cars try to drive up the street in front of our house tells me we’ll stay put today. It doesn’t take much snow/ice to make the hilly roads dangerous.

    After talking with my grand son I started reading The Witcher books yesterday. It’s fun to read books he’s reading, makes our conversations more interesting. Between starting a new book and talking with my daughters about family history and new trends in teaching I had an interesting day. And as a bonus, my list for today is ready and waiting. Just have to change the date :)

    Best wishes to all on this cold winter Monday.

  14. Good afternoon, Meesefolk! Another grey chilly day; I’m beginning to feel like a weather update may only make sense if it’s NOT grey and cold. So if you start seeing “ditto” or “the usual” in my opening comment, you’ll know what that means.

    I’ve been busy interviewing for the past several work days, which is good news…but. The “but” is because I’ve been doing a LOT of interviewing, but not getting to “yes.” I’m grateful that I’m not getting to “no” either; everyone I’ve interviewed with in the past 30+ days has told me I’m still under consideration. I’m beginning to feel more and more like a dinosaur, but the present-day hiring practices baffle me. Kiddo and SIL told me early on that 8+ weeks from beginning to end is not unusual, which shocks me. (I told you…dinosaur.) It also irritates me; I live in one of those states that, under R control during the Great Recession, reduced the weeks of unemployment from 26 to 20. So unless one is the perfect candidate, that 20 weeks gives you very little wiggle room. At any rate, I have at least one more interview this week; I’m just waiting to hear what date and time.

    Yesterday, I met Kiddo and SIL halfway in OH and went to see Knives Out with them. We had intended to see it over the holidays, but it was moved to a tiny theatre and was sold out by the time it occurred to us to check. It’s a delightful movie, and since Kiddo and I are huge whodunit fans, we thoroughly enjoyed some of the more subtle layers. I recommend it to anyone and everyone; it can be just fluff if that’s your thing, but there are those layers if you want to dig a bit more. And all the hype about Chris Evans and The Sweater? Not an exaggeration at all.

    Good day to and for all!

  15. Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …

    It is 30 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 36. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    It looks like Nancy Pelosi’s strategy of slow walking the articles of impeachment – while pressing for more than a sham trial – is paying off. Public sentiment is that the trial should take place and that witnesses should be called. We aren’t quite at the “witnesses will be called” phase but the plan of having a vote to dismiss without any trial appears to be dead now. The pressure that vulnerable Senators are feeling is turning up the heat on Mitch McChinless. You need 66 votes to remove so that vote is pretty safe but a vote to subvert the Constitution may not be. They are already going to have to answer for their rubberstamping of the Republican White House and voting to repeal people’s health care, refusing to honor their oath may be a bridge too far for voters. Speaking of health care, we need to remind everyone that health care won in 2018 and will win in 2020 if we can stay focused. Every voter has a human body and many have other human bodies that they care about – we can cut through everything and get them to vote to #ProtectOurCare.

    There is a debate tonight which I will not watch. I want to fast forward to the nominating convention so we can get on with it. We have a lot of work to do – I saw an AP article yesterday that reported that many ex-felons in Wisconsin think they can’t vote! That is not true – we need to make sure that every eligible voter knows their rights, registers to vote and understands how important it is to vote for the Democrat in every race.

    See all y’all later!

    • I saw an AP article yesterday that reported that many ex-felons in Wisconsin think they can’t vote!

      Jan, you might suggest on Twitter that Bloomie spend some of his billions on educating those potential voters.

      There’s a huge article in the WaPo about him this morning, which makes him sound very nice and quite the benevolent billionaire. (Wish I knew how to insert a link without leaving my comment, which would vanish by the time I returned.)

      Anyway, did y’all know he only joined the Democratic party last October?

      Beneficent or not, I still despise billionaires who want to buy the presidency.

      • He is not a Democrat. I am beyond peeved at Tom Perez for allowing all these non-Democrats to use our party’s infrastructure for their vanity campaigns. In other countries, you build your credentials by working for your party in the trenches – running for down-ticket electoral offices to demonstrate your dedication to your party’s values. He is a blatant opportunist – just like Steyer and Sanders and Vang.

    • With the WI Board of Elections being fined (and the Dem members) for NOT purging voter files, yes, you really, really, really are going to need those ex-felons.

      • WI got some good news on Tuesday. After the Supreme Court refused to grant review (the right-wing organization tried to jump over the “librul” appeals court), the appeals court put the ruling and the fines on hold. The conservative haters who bought a seat for proud hater Brian Hagedorn on the Supreme Court were LIVID that he joined with the liberal members to deny review. I am not holding my breath that a man as steeped in religious-right privilege and hatred for LGBT and the poors would continue to show judicial restraint but for now it is a good outcome. It can’t possibly be considered legal to fine only the Democratic members of a commission in any event! Talk about a chilling effect on public service.

        I think it is very likely that many of the 200,000+ purged voters have indeed moved and this is a good opportunity for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) to crank up a voter registration drive. Send postcards reminding everyone to “check your registration”. It would be political malpractice to rely on the courts to preserve those rolls and to, even worse, think that they are somehow banked voters. Assume that they have been purged (or worse, purged one month before the election) and start over.

      • I actually have someone on Twitter lecturing me about calling BS an “old white man” because he’s Jewish. Apparently I should give him some kind of extra credit or something. I told her about Sierra Blanca, she blew that off. It’s really weird, I don’t know what kind of point she’s trying to make.

  17. Good Tiu’s Day morning, Moosekind! Another gray day—in fact, it’s raining steadily—with a current temp. of 41 F. It’s going up to 50 F. later.

    Have been up since 6:30, drinking prodigious quantities of hot tea (yes, yes, milk but no sugar, thanks). Monty stayed out the bare minimum of time earlier as he does not like rain at all.

    It’s so nice to have a day to myself, without the need to go anywhere. Got to finish up that article for good this morning and carry on cleaning out my desk. The present I selected for my Irish great-nephew (son of Beloved Nephew and Darling Niece) arrived yesterday. It’s bagpipes with a green Irish tartan bag. Perhaps he can play it around people he doesn’t like.

    Well, porridge awaits! Feeling slightly encouraged that St. Bernard of No Accomplishments is finally being vetted in the media, and that even the conservative WaPo is starting to say the words “liar” and “lies with regard to Thing.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!

  18. Last day of vacation. That alarm is gonna hurt tomorrow. On the other hand, it’s warm enough that I’ll be able to get my workout in before work. Today: thaw out lunch, go to the gym….. and that’s it.

  19. Well, the clouds came back. sigh. Yesterday was lovely and sunny. I got a walk in and we generated just a hair under 8 KWHs (m-t-d is 67) but so much for that. The forecast says no sun until Saturday. Maybe. So we get overcast, 60s, and no rain for a couple of days followed by overcast, 40s, and rain for a couple of days. sigh. I really need my sunshine.

    The freeze we had over the weekend doesn’t seemed to have even slowed down the honeysuckle. I’m not gonna say honeysuckle’s in the same category as cedar…but it’ll do. Makes yard work problematic – and because none of the folks who promised me, either for money or the goodness of their hearts, they’d deal with oak leaves on the ground or pruning limbs close to the house actually did it, I have yard work to do. Not sure what I’m gonna do about the limbs but at least I can get to the leaves. Sorta. My hands, knees, and back will just about handle filling the two “yard waste” trash cans I’ve currently got access to. Then we wait until Tuesday’s pick up and do it again. I do need to get it done as soon as I can though. The trash cans are my friend’s and sooner or later she’s going to want them at the new place. (Ditto the vacuum cleaner which I hope to manage today as well.) The political mess no longer interests me. But I will do my duty as I can. And always have.

    Holding the Good Thought/Channeling Healing/Helping Energy all over the place. Hope it does some good. Need to go get coffee while I have a cat-free lap. Also Ibuprofen – the honeysuckle pollen/fungi induced headache may not be a full migraine but also will do. Will read stuff in a bit. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  20. Good morning, 16 and snowing in Bellingham. Our house is warm and we don’t need to go anywhere so we’ll be snowbound for another day. It’s easier to manage the cold temps with no north wind blowing. I forgot to let the upstairs bathroom faucet drip last night so I was very relieved to find it wasn’t frozen this morning.

    Time to find some coffee and get my day underway. I finally hemmed Ron’s new pants yesterday so now I can do something else in my sewing room with out him looking wistful :) Just have a few bills to pay and then I’ll start a new project.

    Best wishes to all on this quiet snowy morning.

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