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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Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …
Morning low of 45 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 52. The forecast calls for April Showers off and on all day.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Cool-ish morning here 50, going up to 90 again this afternoon; but it is supposed to be a cool & rainy week. Which is a good thing, because there was a wildfire in Bastrop (town just east of Austin) yesterday. If you don’t remember, there was a huge, disastrous fire there a few years ago, so that was a bit nerve-wracking. Plan for today: watch the news, church on youtube, make overnight oats for the week, and maybe a walk.
Hope you get the walk. Seriously hope you get the rain. Healing Energy & {{{HUGS}}}
Sunday Meese. 57 going up to 65 here in Kingston NY with rain.
Am still following the volcanic disaster in St. Vincent
found a link where to donate
WCK is on the case
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico cannot. catch. a. break.
Sunday Music
It’s 55 heading for 80 and sunny. Sort of a “remember, summer’s coming” day since it’s gonna be followed by a week of low 60s and high 50 with lots of clouds but little rain. Yesterday we generated 5.7 KWHs and brought the m-t-d to 141. Today it’s possible although not probable we’ll get to 160 before the clouds move in tomorrow.
Yesterday was a rollercoaster for earicicle/Amelia – nothing that was planned for yesterday happened (her car is still impounded which is the current emergency – to get it out before it takes her entire stim check) but she’s got some local help (a homeless nursing student also living at the motel) who took her grocery shopping & for the meds she can get without a doctor visit – & she was totally blessed b/c while she was shopping the pharmacist, who knew she was in the store, ended up with a dose of Pfizer extra so actually went out into the grocery section to find her. She’s now got her 1st jab and is scheduled for the 2nd. Keep Holding the Good Thoughts in your Traditions, folks.
Cloud keeps trying to eat and then not because it hurts. Goofy cat won’t eat anything but his kibble. No matter what I’ve offered him, nope. I think he got a TBSP of food down over the course of yesterday. He normally eats 8 plus whoever else’s he can steal. We’ll see what happens today. If he’s not eating at least some more by the end of the day, I’ll call the vet in the morning. More pain meds if nothing else. He’s out of them.
I need to get back to my chores. It’s lovely to have #BlackMusicSunday to do them by. More coffee first. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Hi, bfitz, good news about Amelia! Sorry about poor Cloud. Hope the vet can fix whatever is ailing him.
Also hope you’ll get some lovely, lovely sunshine!
{{{Diana}}} Healing Energy for your eye (& your husband’s face). Yes, so far so good for Amelia. Not out of the woods yet. More like we found what we hope is a stable bridge across a ravine in the middle of them. But so far so good. Cloud had 5 teeth removed last Tuesday. He hasn’t mastered the art of eating around the holes, as it were, so when a hard kibble hits the healing gum. . . & yes, lovely sunshine today. moar {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 32 and sunny in Bellingham. We enjoyed our visit with Ron’s brother and our niece yesterday, and with just the four of us it was a quiet and relaxing time together. I baked chocolate chip cookies, made tea and coffee, and even though the sun was shining it was chilly so the fire felt cozy.
Son #2 got his Covid shot yesterday, our daughter and sil have recovered from their #2 shots, and if all goes as planned I’ll have the J&J shot on the 16th. We’ll stay careful and keep family times together outdoors but that’s ok. So grateful my family is getting safer from this miserable disease.
I think I’m going to work in the garden today, but no commitment until I have some coffee and feel more awake. Best wishes to all.
Good news about the shot for your Younger Son, princesspat!
Our Elder Son received the J&J yesterday, must text him to see how he feels today.
I am looking forward to hearing about symptoms, Diana. We hear a lot about the Pfizer and Moderna, especially the second shots, but not much about the J&J.
Good morning, Moosekind—although it’s just on noon, actually. I have returned from my walk, during which I discovered the sun feels a lot hotter than one would think to look at the temperature on the weather gadget. Right now it’s simply gorgeous in Ashburn, with the red dogwoods coming out in a froth of pink and the white dogwoods with layers of white blossom so they look like embroidered lace wedding veils.
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The current temperature is 74 F., working its way up to 77 F. White clouds are massing in the blue sky, which leads me to think that we may, after all, have a thunderstorm later.
Walking through the garage to go outside I saw a car that had a bumper sticker that read, simply, “Bumper sticker.” To the right on the same car was another sign that read: “Another bumper sticker.” I give those an A-, the top award being reserved for “My convictions are not for public display.”
I cooked such a nice breakfast for Dearly, (including fried potatoes, which he loves), that he won’t want lunch until 1 p.m. For dinner I’m going to prepare Shepherd’s Pie, green peas, and fresh apple cake with whipped cream. This menu is not suited to the kind of weather we’re having but it’s very much better than the salmon waffles they’re offering for Sunday brunch down the hall! Whoinell would ever want salmon waffles?
Dearly and I, battered oldsters that we are, continue to bandage each other’s faces. He gets his bandage in the morning; mine goes on at night. I have to sleep with an eye shield taped to my face for a week. I also put sleep glasses on, I’m so paranoid about the worst happening. That said, my operated eye is still adjusting itself, which it will be doing for a week or so, so I’ll be seeing quite clearly later on. Just think, I have to go through all this again for the left eye. I hope there’s a decent interval in between.
The U.S. women, many of whom seemed to be newbies, played very lackadaisically against focused, disciplined Swedeny yesterday in a “friendly” match. After 60 minutes the coach let the experienced women out who raced, grinning, on to the field. My hera, purple-haired Megan Rapinoe, saved the day for the USA with a goal from a penalty kick, so the score was 1-1.
Then—I can’t believe I’m watching this much TV, hasn’t happened in years—we watched “The Pianist,” which was superb. I mean it was a superb movie, not that the subject matter was especially cheery. Dear Goddess!
Sorry for rattling on and on. Perhaps I’m doing it to distract myself from the political news in Virginia, which I do not welcome. Looks as if entitled white guy Terry McAuliffe is lining up support from the Democratic establishment. I’m supporting Jennifer McLellan, but she does not have widespread name recognition in Virginia.
Wishing an enjoyable April day to all at the Pond!
“Salmon waffles”? No, just no. Salmon should be seasoned and grilled or baked – it is not to be a flavor for waffles or any other thing, in my opinion.
You may be doomed to having boring white men as governors of Virginia as a compromise to those who are triggered by having women in charge of things. You did have a Black governor once but he was a Republican which made it “okay.” I still think it is nuts that your governors are limited to a single term. I am not a fan of Governors for Life but one term makes the governor a lame duck the second he is sworn in; make him work to please people for at least one term! I am in favor of term limits and wish Wisconsin had them. Tommy Thompson was governor here for about 20 years and would probably still be governor if he had not been tapped for HHS in George W. Bush’s administration. Twenty-eight states have them, yours is the only one with one term. Some have lifetime term limits (two and done forever) and some have simple consecutive term limits so a governor can come back after being out of office for a period of time. Some have “8 of 12” which means you can take a 4 year break but then you can serve only one term – if you take an 8 year break, you can serve two more. Now that seems confusing! So Governor A serves two terms, from 2001 to 2009, then can take a 4 year break and serve again in 2013 but then can only serve one term because he or she would have already been governor for 8 of the past 12 years.
Jan, I don’t know why our governors are limited to one term, but I do know that Mills Godwin ran for governor as a Democrat, stayed out for some years, then ran again as a Republican and served four years under that banner.
Our one black governor, Doug Wilder, was a pro-choice Democrat, which is why he was elected. We women of Northern Virginia would prefer not to have stupid men telling us what to do with our bodies. Ken Kook-a-Nelly discovered this to his cost when he lost his race for governor. Our criminal gov., McDonnell, earned nationwide derision on comedy shows with his “transvaginal probe” that women were to be forced to undergo before having an abortion was signed into law. That law was promptly undone after the nationwide scorn (which put paid to Bob’s presidential aspirations even if the later corruption charge hadn’t), and changed to an noninvasive sonogram instead.
With our Democratic lege, a lot of those punitive laws have been zapped, although sometimes I still feel I ought to run down to the corner clinic for an abor-shun when there’s nothin’ good on TV on a Saturday night. Never mind that I’m not pregnant—Rethug legislators manage to get elected without brains, so it’s all equal.
Monday Meese
Saw zero ceverage of this over at orange
The only thing I saw anywhere was someone complaining that it was wrecking their vacation. :(
Jan, I don’t know why our governors are limited to one term, but I do know that Mills Godwin ran for governor as a Democrat, stayed out for some years, then ran again as a Republican and served four years under that banner.
Our one black governor, Doug Wilder, was a pro-choice Democrat, which is why he was elected. We women of Northern Virginia would prefer not to have stupid men telling us what to do with our bodies. Ken Kook-a-Nelly discovered this to his cost when he lost his race for governor. Our criminal gov., McDonnell, earned nationwide derision on comedy shows with his “transvaginal probe” that women were to be forced to undergo before having an abortion was signed into law. That law was promptly undone after the nationwide scorn (which put paid to Bob’s presidential aspirations even if the later corruption charge hadn’t), and changed to an noninvasive sonogram instead.
With our Democratic lege, a lot of those punitive laws have been zapped, although sometimes I still feel I ought to run down to the corner clinic for an abor-shun when there’s nothin’ good on TV on a Saturday night. Never mind that I’m not pregnant—Rethug legislators manage to get elected without brains, so it’s all equal.
For some reason I thought Wilder was a Republican. I am probably getting him confused with the Black Republican governor of Massachusetts whose name I can’t remember. He was from a different era, though, when Republicans weren’t insane and supported Civil Rights and Voting Rights.
Good morning, meeses! Monday …
It is 48 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 55. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast – it appears as though the rain is done for a few days. We needed the rain but it was depressing to not see the sun for three days.
So tRump’s giving the Israeli government permission to do whatever they want is going to ruin the re-start of the Iranian nuclear deal. :::sigh::: It was probably not going to get re-started anyway – JHC, I wouldn’t trust the US government after the tRump era either! – but a rogue Israel isn’t going to soothe tensions in the Middle East.
Infrastructure Week is here with Congress coming back in session. It will be interesting to see what comes of the American Jobs Plan and if Nancy Pelosi can keep her two vote majority in line to pass something (there is a nutcase in Maine who is determined to screw the pooch) and if King Joe Manchin will ruin any deal in the Senate. One thing is certain, Democrats who want to go big, realizing that this is what will define us in the 2022 midterms, should do everything they can to coerce Manchin into supporting them. If he blocks it, he hurts West Virginia – the only question is if they care more about the twice-impeached disgraced personally disgusting leader of their political party or themselves. We shall see.
I have a full Monday platter of Things To Do and best get back to it.
See all y’all later!
Puerto Rico
Good Monday morning, Moosekind! It’s partly cloudy in Ashburn this morning although when we woke up it was sunny. We need to do our walks before it clouds over. We did have a brief, short rain yesterday evening about dinner time, but that was that.
Right now it’s 56 F., going up to 64 F., with showers predicted for the afternoon. I took a news-light day aside from reading the Sunday paper. Someone remarked that WaPo reporters don’t get paid unless they do at least one “Dems in disarray” story and one “Biden can’t do anything right” story per month. No wonder people don’t want to subscribe to newspapers. I still read the Post but don’t necessarily believe everything I read. There was some excellent coverage of local news this morning, so it was worth the reading time.
Things are gradually starting to become normal here at the home. There will be outdoor concerts (bring your own chair), and the Walking Club is starting up again. I might rejoin that once this cataract business is finished. Sleeping with an eye shield taped to the face does not improve one’s looks, either at bedtime or the next morning when the tape is removed. There are still marks.
Not planning to do much today except move around a lot. Elder Son’s J&J jab has left him with a little tenderness in the arm but nothing major, he says. He hasn’t had to resort to Tylenol. He reads Men’s Health magazine with the intensity some people employ to read their Bible, rejecting the non-organic, all sugar, OTC painkillers, and so forth. One year, when we all went to Ocean City for a vacation, everyone in the family got annoyed with him because he was the only one who didn’t get sick. He was taking a boatload of Men’s Health-approved supplements, including blue-green algae. The rest of us caught serious colds and felt miserable.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and may we have some good news from someone, somewhere..
Warm morning — t-shirt & sandals for my dash into the office; but it’s supposed to be cool & rainy for the rest of the week. Today: lots of work, I came home with lots of new applications.
Well, not quite back to chilly weather yet. It’s 55 heading for 75 (not the 65 last night’s widget showed) and sunny at least for now. Clouds and rain are supposed to move in this afternoon. Hoping for late afternoon on that. Yesterday we generated 18.4 KWHs and the m-t-d was close enough to 160 that it’s already there this morning. If the clouds don’t move in until late, we could get to and even pass 175 today. Which would be nice.
I don’t know the status on Amelia’s car – whether or not she & the “neighbor” helping her managed to deal with renewals and payments online last night as they’d planned – but she’s got a phone again (W00T!!! and blessings on all involved) and her first jab. So things are a little brighter. Everybody else is pretty much hanging on. I’m not sure how good everybody’s grips are, but still hanging on.
Change some – not all – of the names and we could just copy & paste the political stuff from the Obama or Clinton years. Dems try to get infrastructure through for jobs, for the environment, and because our country’s been crumbling to pieces since Reagan. Rs block – they have all kinds of hypocritical concerns but what they mostly mean is no R wants “mah tax dollars” to pay for anything a (insert racial slur there) would use. And that includes broadband that would help the mostly-white rural communities. They will die on the levee of keeping BIPOC in the ditch. Even though that means nobody gets to the top of the hill. And there are just enough Dems who agree with them that little gets done, nothing major, and the country crumbles faster.
Cloud the Goofy still can’t eat much and still won’t eat anything but his kibble that he can’t eat. My son brought by a jar of baby food beef – the rest of the cats have to be shut out of the room or they’d slurp it down in a NY minute – but nope. A few slurps then he walks away. I think he got half a teaspoon down last night and maybe that much again this morning. (Last night the other cats finished what I’d put out. This morning I grabbed it back and put it in the fridge for later.) So. I have a call to the vet and we’ll see what they say. Meanwhile there are some house and twitter things to do while I wait. More coffee and I’ll get to them. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 41 and sunny in Bellingham. Mornings start cold with low 30’s temps but warm to the 40’s with sunshine. The soil will soon be warm enough to plant a few flowers.
I was busy in the garden yesterday, resolving a pathway dilemma with Ron and clearing/cleaning my old potting bench. His idea of a path through the newly restored veggie garden looked like a muddy moat to me and changing it back to above ground took some (rather loud) negotiating :) My potting bench is from the old location of my favorite flower shop so it’s been out in the rain for years and the shelf is rotten. It’s now free of broken pots, old soil and overgrown ivy so it can be repaired and used again. I did more than I meant to so it’s a great relief to have my knees just be normally sore this morning.
Time for coffee and a solitaire game before I read the news. As always, my best wishes to all.
Tuesday Meese. 40 degrees going up to 65 here in Kingston NY.
Got busy yesterday. After writing about events with the volcano in St Vincent, I wrote a rant
Will also have a diary this morning on Puerto Rico hearing tomorrow
You’ve been busy! I can’t even watch the news any longer. Nothing – NOTHING – was learned from the George Floyd murder and the demonstrations. Cops are still stopping Black men for minor infractions and turning them into life and death situations. Law enforcement won’t even concede that no one stopped for license plate violations should end up dead or be pepper sprayed, thrown to the ground and cuffed. All while a smirking Chauvin sits in a courtroom, confident that his badge is a get-out-of-jail free card.
I don’t know what to say, Dee! Racism is the poison that infects the water of our national character. There should be a massive effort, like one of Roosevelt’s New Deal projects, to examine racism in every aspect of our society and to enforce its eradication.
I don’t know what the answer is. Just as the stupidest man knows he’s “higher” than the highest woman, so the lowest white person feels superior to a person of color. Blast their patriarchal religion for this.
I didn’t go to DK yesterday. I’ll go read & boost these shortly.
Posted
Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …
It is 41 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 48. Mostly cloudy with occasional breaks. If they are like yesterday’s breaks, if you want sun you have to move quickly when you see them – they were very short. My doggie and I found one that was long enough for a walk but none long enough to sit on the back deck and bake.
The fourth COVID-19 surge is depressing. So far Wisconsin is holding fairly steady but every other state around us is surging so it won’t be long before we get sucked up in it. The state-wide mask mandate, stricken on March 31st, had been helping businesses by giving them (literal) cover for what they actually wanted to do to protect their employees and customers – now when they post masking signs, they are ignored or attacked. A few counties, including mine, still have masking ordinances and some cities like the City of Milwaukee do as well. The #RepublicanDeathCult is having a banner year between anti-maskers anti-vaxxers and anti-gunsafety. Goddess help us.
I am going to take a quick pass through the news and then I will get back to work.
See all y’all later!
Another warm morning, I can probably put away the last few long sleeved shirts I still have out. Small chances of rain every day this week, if I hear it raining, I’ll jump up and move some of my plants out to get some free water. Otherwise, just work. I’m tired, didn’t get a good night’s sleep so I’m going to log off early and walk.
Good Tuesday morning, Meese! It’s quite gray and gloomy-looking outside, with a current temp of 50 F., climbing up to 67 F. I turned the little heater on, it felt so cool when I got up. Had a rather fitful night of sleep.
A used copy of a book I love, Barbara Walker’s The Skeptical Feminist, arrived yesterday. I’m going to dip into it from time to time to inflame myself. I can’t think why I let my original copy of it get away. I’ve been reading a lot of fiction, my go-to anodyne when I feel a fit of depression coming on. I realized yesterday in a moment of truth that (1) my best days are behind me, and (2) I’ll likely never travel again.
I’m also getting a bit tired of writing for the quarterly. After I finish this latest series of articles (if I ever do), I want to devote some time to my own projects. I have several I’d like to accomplish before departing for “that bourn from which no traveler returns.”
So sick with outrage because of the wanton murders of people for Being Alive While Black that I don’t know how to deal with my feelings. It goes on and on and on! And now that society is regaining some “normalcy,” the mass murders are popping up every few days. This country is doomed.
Wishing a good, news-free day to all at the Pond.