Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Aug. 30th through Sept. 5th

August 29, 2020 JanF Community 100

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 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 (right before “Leave A Reply”) and use the Pages Tool, shown here with 3 pages of comments available.

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43 Comments

  1. Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …

    It is 64 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 79. Sunny skies are in the forecast. Clear skies last night let us see the moon which was full a little before midnight here. I was not awake at that time!

    NOT SHOCKING: tRump set up a fake photo op in Kenosha so that he could appear with a business owner whose business was burned out. The current owner wanted nothing to do with tRump so they found the former owner of the shop to appear with him. I am going to skim quickly through the local news because it includes a lot of tRump photos and it will give me indigestion!

    NOT SHOCKING 2: Joni Ernst, soon to be former Senator from Iowa, signed onto the Q conspiracy theory that COVID deaths are actually much lower than reported and are falsified to enrich the health care providers who are working to save her constituents lives. It is really all she has – she embraced the party line that COVID is a hoax, supports her low-intelligence governor’s refusal to stop the spread, and her leader Mitch McChinless’ “let them go bankrupt” plan for virus relief. There is a reasonably good chance that Iowans will kick her to the curb; we have a good candidate there who won’t diss the pig farmers like the last Democrat who ran there did and Ernst’s greatest accomplishment is finding a way to breathe as she lives inside tRump’s colon.

    This is probably an unpopular opinion but I am glad that Ed Markey won his primary. Joe Kennedy III decided that a perfectly fine Senator who is quite a bit left of center and a long time civil servant in Massachusetts had a fatal flaw – he was not Joe Kennedy III! I am not thrilled about the left-of-the-left primarying our perfectly serviceable electeds and risking unnecessary losses and dissing their life’s work.

    I woke up with a plan to finish the set up an infrastructure change that I had put in place back in mid-August that got set aside while I fought some fires. I thought I had what I needed and now it appears as though I am missing something and will have to go back to the drawing board. That it involves Internet access complicates matters because I don’t want to be scrambling to get Internet access back if I make a mistake! I may put it off another day rather than jump into it head first.

    See all y’all later!

    • Well, Jan, I may be unpopular with you. Completely agree that the primary between JoeKIII and Ed Markey was a stupid waste of time and I’m glad Markey won. It seems that young Joe suffers from that fatal flaw, hubris. Hope this teaches him a lesson.

    • I’m with you both – Young Joe is a good kid but he doesn’t always think things through and he’d rushing his fences. Markey’s solid and does think things through. And when he’s ready to step down, he’ll help his successor. I think Joe could make a very good senator – in about 10 or 12 years. IF he learns that solid plans have to be in place before you make your move.

  2. Wednesday Meese 64 here in Kingston NY going up to a rainy 79.

    No matter how many people on the left feel about religion – I think this is good news


    Five hundred religious leaders ― Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and others ― have jointly endorsed the Democratic presidential ticket of Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris, according to the multi-faith advocacy group Faith 2020.

    The endorsees include some who have never publicly backed a White House candidate, such as Ron Sider, the founder of Evangelicals for Social Action. The list also includes clergy from diverse theological positions ― from the progressive Christian pastor Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, long a critic of President Donald Trump, to the evangelical preacher Rev. Rob Schenck, a former militant anti-abortion rights activist who has pledged to vote for a Democrat for the first time in 44 years.

    Other prominent backers of Biden and Harris include Imam Talib Shareef of “The Nation’s Mosque” in Washington, D.C., Greg Epstein, a Humanist chaplain, Rev. John McCullough, president of the Christian humanitarian group Church World Service, Bishop Vashti McKenzie of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and Rev. Greg Boyle, a Los Angeles Roman Catholic priest.

    • Someone said that the Republican convention’s focus on the “suburbs” was to give their voters permission to vote for the disgusting pile of human garbage named Donald Trump. This will, I hope, give religious voters permission to vote for a decent person instead.

  3. Puerto Rico

    The letter, titled “Puerto Rico: Pandemic and General Elections, a call for reflection and dialogue,” was issued on Monday, the feast of St. Augustine.
    In the 28-page long missive, González Nieves invites the people of the island territory to reflect on the consequences of the pandemic; above all, among the most vulnerable populations: The poor, the elderly, and the thousands of unemployed Puerto Ricans.
    For the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, the prelate invited the island’s inhabitants to promote a culture of solidarity, as all are “responsible for overcoming the temptation of opportunism, selfishness and isolationism. For this reason, it’s urgent to take personal and collective awareness as a people and nation, and even more so, as Christians: What kind of civilization are we building for Puerto Rico?”

    • Interesting! The replies to that tweet suggest that the hatchets are out for Jamaal Bowman and Nydia Velazquez related to that bill. I am not sure what could possibly be wrong with “self-determination.”

  4. Well, we were supposed to get a front overnight, with rain & cooler temperatures. I didn’t set my alarm for walking because there was a 60% chance of rain. So of course it’s 84 degrees and it ain’t raining. I’m going to try to write an AIDS Walk diary. Anyway, I’m watching Le Tour. Gorgeous sunny day in France.

      • {{{anotherdemocrat}}} – I’ve boosted it on twitter. Do you know if there’s going to be a match any time soon? I’m definitely gonna give but it won’t be as much as I did last year and I’d love to see it count for more. Healing Energy & more {{{HUGS}}}

        • I haven’t heard about a match, but there usually are some. I’ll e-mail & ask them.

          • Thank you. It’s such important work. Well, you know that. That’s why you do it. Healing Energy, moar {{{HUGS}}}

  5. Good Wednesday morning, Moosekind! It’s 74 F. in Ashburn at the moment, going for a high of 89 F. Thunderstorms are forecast for the afternoon, a 50-50 chance. Whatever happens, the sky will be cloudy all day and there is a 95% chance I won’t get to see the full moon.

    Something disquieting happened yesterday. It seems that because my husband is past 90 years of age, Fairfax County has cut his monthly pension by a little more than 25%! It’s already a reduced pension because he wanted it to continue for my sake after the inevitable. Apparently Fairfax County was counting on his popping his clogs by now. Fat chance—everyone at The Home is too damn happy to die. In fact, The Home went bankrupt in its early years because people were happily whooping it up into their mid- to late-90s, when the actuaries were counting on people jossing it in their 80s. We even have a couple of centenarians here.

    Dearly is trying to investigate this now by telephone. If this turns out to be permanent, we will really have to seriously consider moving in with whichever of our kids will put up with us. We were already wondering how much longer our money would last. Moving in with a son would save us an enormous amount, particularly since we would get back 90 percent of what we paid for this flat, once the Sales Office succeeds in selling it again. That would take a good three months.

    Sorry to bore you with my financial troubles, but this is serious. I was planning to keep Dearly alive until he’s 116! I do not know what on earth I’d do without him!

    Oh, well, returning to regular matters, I’m going to carry on with my chores—getting the book together for bfitz to copyedit, writing my postcards, and whatnot.

    Wishing a good, quiet day to all with no bad news.

    • {{{Diana}}} – Seriously Holding the Good Thought the reduction is a mistake that will be quickly fixed. I know you would prefer to be back in a house and have considered living with one of your kids in a “grandparents’ suite” situation – but that should be your choice on your own timeline, not something forced on you. Healing Energy & moar {{{HUGS}}}

    • Yikes! That is incredibly rude to have an “old age penalty” – JHC, that’s why people have pensions, to live comfortably into a ripe old age!! You have been less than happy with how The Home separates you from family. I have been hearing more often about entire families moving in with relatives to expand their circle so that they are not separated from each other during the pandemic (and to combine resources). I hope that the path forward for you is illuminated – it would be a big change.

  6. It’s 70 heading for 82 and misting. Overcast enough I need the lamp on. Yesterday we got just under 4.5 KWHs which is not only not on track, it’s not enough to cover my daily use. Not a good start for the month.

    Aji’s not getting a good start either. At least not financially. Several folks’ cards rejected on her Patreon leaving her down $360 to start the month. Probably expiration dates but it would be nice if folks checked and didn’t do that. (It would also be nice if Patreon sent patrons a notice when their card expires since this is an auto-charging situation.) We will hope that gets straightened out quickly – and that holiday commissions start coming in (and sales for the holidays that hit before the end of December). Prayers and invocations. & for everybody else in their various health and financial situations.

    It’s cool enough I baked a potato for dinner last night and baked “Sisters” bread (corn, bean, pumpkin) this morning. We’ll see what this afternoon brings as to whether I bake the pork roast or use the instapot pressure cooker. We’ll also see if it’s clear enough to go get the first load of wood bricks. According to the extended forecast, I may want a fire towards the end of next week. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  7. Good morning, 65 and partly sunny in Bellingham. I’m at loose ends this morning, feeling like I should be doing “something”…..but not sure what! Our quiet summer is nearly over, so I guess it’s time to focus on a few of the projects in my sewing room. tRump/election angst is affecting my concentration so simple sewing will be the best plan.

    Best wishes to all.

  9. Good morning, meeses! Thursday …

    It is 66 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 75. Sunny skies are in the forecast. Yesterday’s expected high of 79 got a little hotter and I had to turn the air conditioning on in the late afternoon. I hope to avoid that today; the cool September breezes were delightful in the morning.

    Joe and Jill Biden will be traveling to Kenosha today. The stated goal is to promote unity which should set up a contrast to the Orange Orshole surveying damage as local law enforcement put down a red carpet for him as he vowed to protect them from accountability for the shooting of Jacob Blake and their negligence that let armed militia kill and maim their citizens. It will be interesting to see how it is reported.

    Yesterday, Joe Biden spoke about the Trump Pandemic and opening schools. Very timely as colleges – about a week into discovering that young people do not really care about pandemics or feel they are immune to all disease (where would they get that from???) – are starting to talk about shutting down again. The University of Illinois, for example, had a huge spike that prompted the provost to issue an order for “no socialization for two weeks or we will have to send everyone home.” Good luck with that! If you have ever been to the Champaign-Urbana area, you will realize that there is nothing there except the university and the students – you can’t expect students to just sit in their dorm rooms for 2 weeks. Here’s Joe:

    I started a million projects and I need to start finishing them or setting them aside to work on later as the work day begins for my clients.

    See all y’all later!

  10. I’ve got to stop believing the weather forecast. I keep not setting my alarm for walking because there’s been 55% chances of rain the past couple of days and I haven’t walked. The rain held off till mid-morning yesterday & looks like it will rain later today, too. I’m watching Le Tour, getting ready for work. New applications are picking up, I took 15 home with me yesterday & still left a sizeable stack for the others on my team. Anyway, I’ve got plenty of work to do. And another gorgeous day in France to look at.

  11. Thursday Meese. Exhausted – up half the night because we had horrid thunderstorms and I had to deal with 3 dogs freaking out all night.
    Watching this unfold – am very familiar with racism in Rochester NY

    Daniel Prude

    • Jeez! The murdering police keep on doing it! Do they not listen to the news? Wouldn’t you think that by now they’d say to themselves, “Gosh, murdering people for being alive while Black is not a very good idea.”

      But no. I hope I live long enough to see Black people getting equal rights, along with reparations.

    • {{{Dee}}} – I hope you can get a nap to help with the exhaustion of dealing with scared dogs. & oh Goddess! how I wish you could get some rest from the exhaustion of always evil, frequently deadly racism. Healing Energy, moar {{{HUGS}}}

  12. Puerto Rico

  13. Good Thursday morning, Moosekind. Today got off to a very late start owing to a delightful, drugged, 8-hour sleep. I took night-time cold pills because it was so hard to breathe out of my left nostril. Hate that.

    This morning, after I finally get going, will include a walk. Work is going well on the manuscript. I have only to format the “bonus” novella at the end of the book and add the back matter before sending it to bfitz so she’ll have a jolly weekend of copyediting.

    This afternoon there’s a Communications Committee meeting next door, so I’ll have to leave here a few minutes before three. After that will be another evening of work.

    Has anyone here at the Pond ever visited Seville? I’m becoming obsessed with Seville. I’ve been told that when you walk down the streets of that city in the spring, the scent of orange blossoms fills the air. No one ever climbs the trees to pick the oranges, which are extremely bitter. However, to make up for this, the United Kingdom buys the entire crop every year to use in making marmalade.

    Wishing a nice, quiet day to all at the Pond with no fresh horrors today!

  14. It’s 73 heading for 85 and off and on cloudy. Actually on and off cloudy as there’s more cloudy than sunny so far this morning. Yesterday’s not quite 6 KWHs brought the m-t-d to 10 – definitely not on track. But sunny days in the forecast so we’ll see if we can catch up.

    I’ve been out to Tractor Supply and bought my pallet of wood bricks. I don’t know if it’s white privilege, old lady privilege, or just kindness of strangers but bless him, when the manager heard me say I was going to be schlepping those wood bricks home in the Camry instead of the Subaru wagon I had last year, he loaded the whole pallet on his pickup truck, followed me home, and unloaded them on my carport. Whew! Such a relief! I’ve brought 500-lbs worth into the house and am taking a break. There’s another 1500 lbs on the carport to bring in. But no more trips to Tractor Supply to get them. (I do need to visit Lowes today if I can manage & maybe the vet supply store since it’s over by Lowes. But after that, no more outings until next Thursday to Aldi’s.) So that’s gonna be my day. Moving wood bricks into the house with rests at the computer – and one more trip out if I finish dealing with the wood bricks before it’s too late.

    Amelia did a twitter fundraiser instead of a FB one yesterday. A few people responded with donations but not nearly enough. We’ll stash that money back against October and deal with September as originally planned. Aji’s at least got the money for the kennel to keep the pups out of trouble. Once a pup’s learned to dig under the fence – and get out into the road – unplanned measures have to be taken. Aji’s heart and Cricket’s heart have been broken enough. Not gonna lose the pups, too. But it’s always something. Every time she thinks she can get the plumbing repaired something happens. This time it’s the car. The $700 it will take to tow and fix it is where the plumbing money is going. (Her Patreon being down $360 isn’t helping.) My friend is hanging in there. She says it (her mother’s death) doesn’t seem real. Part of that is, well, it never does. But most of it is she’s too busy between her father’s health, her husband’s health, and work at the university to really process it. Everybody else is hanging in there. Or at least hasn’t said otherwise. Holding the Good Thought.

    I’m gonna tour the internets then get back to schlepping wood bricks into the house. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  15. Good morning, 56 and partly sunny in Bellingham. I was distracted with flowers yesterday, so projects in my sewing room are still waiting. Oh well, it’s nice to have a stash of possibilities!

    I’ve got to move my orange crate storage wall in the basement today so our electrician can work there tomorrow. I knew when I put that collection of antiques, baskets and old boxes together it would be hard to move. But we need to have a new plug installed in the kitchen and the basement wall is the access so I need to clear a path.

    Best wishes to all.

  16. Bfitz! Tomorrow is a matching day! Writing a diary now

    Tomorrow (September 4) is a Matching Day:

    Starting at Noon we will match donations!

    The first $10k in donations will receive a dollar for dollar match!

    • Rainy morning, though I could have walked if I hadn’t believed the weather app. I have a diary lined up to post at noon, there’s a $10,000 match for the AIDS Walk today. And that’s my day. Storms, work, AIDS Walk.

  18. Good morning, meeses! Friday …

    It is 54 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 73. Sunny skies are in the forecast. I live for days like this and am grateful that the climate here is such that these “perfect days” are possible.

    Here’s the link for Joe Biden’s community event in Kenosha yesterday. It sounds like the theme was “healing” and I hope that the visit from the soon-to-be president gave people hope.

    As expected, every single article by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel made sure to include a statement that the Democratic presidential nominee visited Wisconsin in 2016. The most creative one yesterday was “the first visit from a Democratic Presidential nominee since 2012.” They are shameless. Hillary Clinton did not lose Wisconsin because she did not come here after she won the nomination (she was here plenty during the primary season). She lost because berners stayed home, voted for Jill Stein or wrote in Bernie Sanders because they were told – and were happy to believe – that Hillary cheated to get the nomination. I hope that Joe Biden wins Wisconsin and that after this election cycle, we don’t have to see that lie any longer. Hillary and Barack Obama planned a joint campaign visit and it was cancelled because of the Pulse shooting in Orlando. It was never able to be rescheduled but there were plenty of surrogates here including Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton. It is not as though the Clinton campaign “went dark” in Wisconsin. Can you tell this still ticks me off?

    I am going to ignore the rest of the news today and try to get a few things in place for the long weekend. I have been trying to set up a new service for myself, a way to get network notifications that no longer work after an email service change. I purchased a feature from my ISP but I can’t find anyone there who can help me set it up – the technician they sent said he had no idea how to do it and left me a new modem and the person on livechat yesterday was giving me settings that clearly were not right. I have already spent about 3 hours on this and I am going to give them one more chance then I am going to cancel the feature and call them bad names.

    See all y’all later!

  19. Good Friday morning, Meese. Got up too early again. When I took Monty out to the courtyard at a quarter to six the air smelt of skunk. I was able to see the bright, beautiful, silvery moon, though! That cheered me up.

    We had two amazing downpours last night but no thunder or lightning with them. Right now in Ashburn it’s 69 F., going up to 86 F. A stray thunderstorm is possible, harrumph. The weekend is forecast to be delightful, low 80s.

    The WaPo has a huge article this morning on how the pandemic has interrupted or destroyed people’s ability to sleep. Because I had a meeting yesterday I didn’t have time for a nap, so I fell asleep quickly. However, a horrible leg cramp woke me at 4:15 and after that, there was no hope of going back to sleep.

    Well, Dearly found out a little about the missing money from his pension yesterday. It seems that because he is now past 90, they’re taking out bigger premiums for his life insurance. Today he’ll try to find out whether they will restore some of the missing money if we lower the amount of the life insurance. However, there’s a Catch-22: one of the reasons we were allowed to move here was the amount of that life insurance. It’s not huge, but it’s decent. Depending on what we find out, we’ll have to decide what to do. If we keep the same amount it’ll mean losing more than $4,000 a year from his pension, which will definitely be a blow.

    Sorry to inflict this stuff on you, my friends, but this is so worrying.

    Was too tired to work on the book last night, but will do it this morning. I really want to get it out to bfitz today.

    Wishing a nice Friday to all at the Pond.

    • So, they’re punishing him for living longer?? Contact the local media. You need help, and they need to be shamed.

    • {{{Diana}}} well, that’s making up a whole lot of glib crap that’s supposed to explain a$$hole greed. How much life insurance he has makes no difference whatsoever to the retirement benefit. He goes when he goes and the life insurance is the most liquid part of his estate barring cash in the bank (or under the mattress of course). It does not impact his retirement living expenses at all because the life insurance doesn’t go to him. Local press and maybe lawyers seem to be indicated here. Holding the Good Thought.

      & I’m here whenever you’re ready. Healing Energy and moar {{{HUGS}}}

  20. Rainy morning, though I could have walked if I hadn’t believed the weather app. I have a diary lined up to post at noon, there’s a $10,000 match for the AIDS Walk today. And that’s my day. Storms, an exciting day at Le Tour, work, AIDS Walk.

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