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 to view previous pages, shown here with 3 pages of comments available and Page 2 circled.
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Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …
Morning low of 61 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 73. Mostly skies are in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Happy Birthday, Sis Dee!
Hope you have a great day!!
Thank you Sis Jan!
Will be throwing a dance party today for Black Music Sunday :)
Here it tis
Best Birthday Wishes Dee!
Sunday Meese. 54 going up to a rainy 76 here in Kingston NY. I’m a big track and field fan, (especially the women’s races) so have been enjoying
watching Jasmine Camacho-Quinn who is running for Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Wishing you the happiest of birthdays, dear Sister Dee!
Good morning. Did a lot of cooking yesterday — Moroccan carrot salad, and pasta with vegetables & a white sauce. Today: tea for next week & “overnight” oats. Watching the news, and omg I hope someone primaries Sinema.
I don’t see any way that Sinema does not get primaried – another example of how those clearly unsuited for a serious job are not all on the right. Her seat, we can call it the Flake seat, is up in 2024. The Democratic Party in Arizona is on the ascendant and there very well may be a Democrat elected governor after the Republicans there, following Doug Doucey’s lead, are bent on killing their school children by banning mask mandates in schools. Some school districts are refusing to comply with the state order setting up a court showdown (decided by Doucey’s handpicked Supreme Court) and setting up a clear contrast between the #RepublicanDeathCult and Democrats. A strong Democratic Party with a record of winning statewide elections will encourage people to get into the primary against the doodieheaded Sinema in 2024.
Good Sunday morning, Moosekind. ‘Tis a gray and ugly day in Ashburn. Our morning low was 61 F., and we’re going up to 81 F. today. Currently it’s 73 F. In fact, we’re looking at a coming week of temps in the 80s. Could this be the downward slope into September? It would be nice to think so.
Had the night from hell last night, which ended with my retreating to the recliner for the last three hours of it. I ate too much for dinner and didn’t take a Pepcid AC, which I should have. The joys of being old!
The lack of sleep is unfortunate, considering we’re supposed to go to Elder Son’s house for tea so we can give little Ethan his birthday presents.
I went back to the gym yesterday but was very cautious in how much I worked out. I’m going back again in a few minutes. Afterwards I’ll water the garden. I wish it would rain, but it’s never going to.
Today is my daughter’s birthday as well as that of our dear sister Denise. Lammas has always been one of my favorite Sabbats. My German friend usually bakes a man-shaped loaf of bread and burns it in a Lammas balefire to celebrate, but this year she and her family are holidaying in Brittany. She wrote that it’s like fall there, very cold and windy. I haven’t time to bake a loaf today, but might get around to it later.
Nothing profound to say this morning. Just hope everyone will enjoy a nice, quiet Sunday.
Happy Lammas, Meeses. (& Happy Birthday, Dee – 🎶✨🎊🎉🎂🍨🎁💕🎶)
It’s 73 heading for 85 and evenin the heat index isn’t supposed to reach 90 today. (Although I’m not sure I believe that.) We wrapped up July with a respectable 518 KWHs. August is starting off slow but I won’t have to have the A/C on today – or most of this week if the forecast is correct. The overnight/early morning lows are going to be in the 60s and that will certainly cool the house down without it. August “meet or beat” goal is 562.5 – we shall see what we shall see.
Nobody’s situation is better and some are worse. sigh. But Aji can at least start treatment. It will be a couple of weeks before it will make a difference. IF it makes a difference. But she can start. & my friend and I had a nice visit – and ice cream – in a shady spot of the Braum’s parking lot. Outside, not in the car, and masked except for the actual eating part. So there is good news in the world. Just seems to be small and hard to find sometimes.
I had a lousy night, then “slept in”, so I’m “behind my time” – but my hands are double-dog daring me to do my Sunday chores all at once and I don’t think I’m going to take the dare. I’ve done a few, will spend some time online, then do some more. Off to the Lammas post, then Dee’s music diary. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 64 and cloudy in Bellingham with a chance of showers. Humidity was high yesterday we didn’t have to water the garden. The soil stayed moist and so did we!
I haven’t been driving much, so I need to pay attention. I took a wrong turn yesterday and after a “scenic drive” found my way home :) Covid seclusion has made my navigation skills rusty!
I’ve got a few replacement plants to plant in the patio pots today and a flowers to arrange for the tables. I want to be outdoors as much as we can be while everyone is here and when it looks inviting and comfortable that happens without me shooing people out the door. And if they want to stay indoors and be noisy in the kitchen I can be outdoors where it’s quiet and cozy.
Best wishes to all.
Good morning, meeses! Monday …
It is 55 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 75. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast. It sounds like a lovely day – I hope the air quality stays good so we can open all the windows.
I have an insanely busy week of household projects ahead of me and I need to stay on top of that to-do list. It looks like a quiet week of news – here is the summary:
– Infrastructure week – new roads being built for fossil fuel burning vehicles! Progress?
– Kevin McCarthy charged with fomenting violence against Speaker Pelosi with his “I’ll hit her with my Speaker’s gavel” comment
– Privileged White Democratic Senators (Manchin, Sinema, Feinstein, Warner, the two guys from Delaware) block voting rights because of “comity”
– Ron DeSantis kills another 10,000 people in human sacrifice to The Former Guy.
I hope to watch some Olympics today,
will try to watch the USA Soccer Women which I have tapednever mind, they lost – they looked terrible against the Netherlands so that is not a shock to me. I enjoyed the sprints last night – I love the hair color choices of the women from Jamaica and Bermuda! I cannot imagine what it takes to run hurdles so smoothly – incredible athleticism.See all y’all later!
Monday Meese. 57 going up to 79 here in Kingston – which is weirdly springlike for August.
Have been overjoyed for Puerto Rico to finally get a spirit uplift.
Tears as she watches the Puerto Rican flag elevated as “La Borinqueña”, the Puerto Rican national anthem is played. She wore a “Flor de Maga”, the national flower of PR on her hair. A lot of Puerto Ricans got up very early this morning to see this.
There is cheering for her from Chicago Bears fans as well – her brother Robert Quinn plays linebacker for the team.
Such good news for PR! Go, Jasmine!
WooHoo! I persuaded a browser to let me in here!
August, the hottest month of the year. We are starting with rain, so that’s excellent. This is the month my agency’s director is retiring, boo. If we are extraordinarily lucky, they will appoint our wonderful assistant director to replace him. Because of Delta, they’ve had to make Mark’s retirement party virtual. Just saw the tweet of… the whole Covid era: “What doesn’t kill you mutates and tries again. Get the damn shot.”
It’s 69 heading for 84 with a forecast heat index 87, and partly cloudy. Another day I won’t have to use the A/C! We generated right at 12 KWHs yesterday. Not on track of course but not as bad as I feared with the cloud cover we had yesterday.
Did a grocery store run this morning. It’ll be cool enough to bake tomorrow morning and I certainly need to, but I was out of eggs. And since I was going, I got everything I get from that store that I’ll need this month (I hope). Haven’t had coffee or breakfast yet. A situation I need to remedy shortly.
Folks are still hanging on. Which is a blessing. But no paths are clear, some aren’t even visible. Holding of Good Thoughts. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good Monday morning, Moosekind! A hurried post because we have to pay an emergency visit to the Costco hearing aid department. It’s a truly beautiful day in Ashburn, 73 F. going up to a whopping 81 F. and we’re looking at a week of temps in the 80s.
A note to all $300,000-a-year weather forecasters: You lie. Yesterday you predicted a day without rain. We received three prodigious downpours, spaced evenly through the day so I was able to enjoy them, and even listen to the rain falling when I got into bed before I took my hearing aids out. At this rate I won’t need to water until tomorrow. THANK YOU, YEMAYA!
We went to Elder Son’s house for tea yesterday afternoon. We gave little E. his birthday presents and then inspected the others he’d received on his actual birthday, which was Friday, from his birthday party, which was Saturday, and then Sunday. I’ve never seen so many presents! It must feel like Christmas to him. Some presents, in fact, were duplicates.
Thank Goddess our DIL is a very practical woman. She’ll get on the neighborhood app, MONA (Mothers of North Arlington), and exchange the duplicates for something else. She’ll put some away for Christmas because he’ll have forgotten having received them and will think they’re brand new. Neighborhood apps have enabled mothers to save a ton of money on toys which, as we all know, are wanted today and abandoned tomorrow.
Elder Son has installed a charming backyard patio with firepit area to rival that of princesspat. They watch TV out there in good weather. So alles ist gut.
Must be off—wishing all at the Pond a good day!
Good morning, 64 and sunny in Bellingham. My legs ran out of steam yesterday so our son helped me finish the planting I’ve been fussing about. With his help it was easy and fun :)
Erica and Ryan will be here later today so it’s going to be a much needed week of family time together. Best wishes to all.
Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …
It is 54 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 81. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
Today is the day that Ohio 11 decides if they want the Democratic president undermined by hostile Congressmembers of his own party or if they want a solid Democrat from the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party to get the nod. Fingers crossed!
Greatest headline ever from The Nation: “Florida faces ‘death by DeSantis’ in latest virus surge.” I was glad to see that the Democratic governor of Louisiana put people over party and put a mask mandate in place. I am sure his “tyrannical” move will lose him his seat next year. Maybe re-election was already a long shot and he decided he didn’t want to cater to the #RepublicanDeathCult.
I have a busy day here as I was unable to work much yesterday because of personal infrastructure changes. August awaits.
See all y’all later!
Good morning. We had big, loud thunderstorms last night. Local news has footage of a patio umbrella taken up in the air. Working at home today. Plumber is coming to see if my upstairs neighbor’s plumbing trouble stems from something so far down the pipe the couldn’t see it from her place. Last time they were here they were looking at the shrubs & tree and talking. Anyway, I’ll be wearing a mask while I work from home this morning.
Tuesday Meese. 53 going up to 78 and cloudy here in Kingston.
After the elation of watching the gold medal win for PR – certain folks decided to tarnish it – among them a past USA gold medalist in doubles tennis Gigi Fernandez.
Underlying some of it was racism – since Jasmine Camacho Quinn is Black.
My husband, who almost never tweets – was livid
It’s 67 heading for 84, projected heat index 85, and sunny at the moment. We generated 16.87 KWHs yesterday. Still not on track but very close. And just fine since I didn’t have to turn on the A/C. The m-t-d at 29 has some catching up to do (on track would be 34) but is still ahead of use.
The longer nothing changes for Aji, the more afraid she is that this is her “new normal”. That the pain is never going to ratchet down. That the joint issues that have her walking in a “boot” and her right/dominant arm in a sling will never get better. That she’ll never sleep again. Jill’s situation isn’t good but she’s still investigating ways out of it. Still running into roadblocks that may or may not be dead ends, but still looking. Hanging on is pretty much what everybody’s doing. But some are pretty far out to sea, a long, long, long way from solid ground and only already-full lifeboats even close by. sigh.
Since it’s cool this morning, I’ve baked “dessert” muffin bread – a little more oil and sugar than with my coffee-break recipe. Usually butter but since this is cocoa-peanut butter I just added a bit more oil to the peanut butter. They’re out and cooling now. Depending on how warm it gets, either this afternoon or in the morning I’ll bake chicken breasts for 2-weeks worth of protein and another pan of muffin bread (probably molasses spice).
Coffee and twitter and always Good Thoughts. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Bfitz, your cooking sounds delicious!
Good Tuesday morning, Meese! We have cloudy skies in Ashburn and will have them all day. Currently the temperature is 66 F., on its way up to 81 F. Because of the downpours on Sunday, our area is now only 5 and 1/2 inches under normal rainfall at this point in the year instead of 6 inches.
Y’all are looking at the new leader of the Blue Ridge Writers Group (Blue Ridge being the name of our newest clubhouse). Now I just have to recruit people to come to the meetings and incidentally, contact the Resident Life Coordinator who allocates the time and space for said meetings.
As a parting shot, the leader of the original Writers Group said to me, “Don’t lure any of my people away!” I went to the Writers Group meeting yesterday afternoon expecting so many to be present that I might need a mask, but very few showed up. People are away on summer holidays.
So anyway, if I can induce people to attend, I’m going to conduct the meetings very differently from the way the other group leader does. Our current group isn’t really a writers’ group, it’s a “Read my little piece aloud” group. “My pets,” “My room at home when I was growing up,” “My first date,” are the topics we’ve been treated to so far.
Harrumph. Enough about that. This morning I have an appointment with the foot doctor. We’ll see what she says. I was so busy yesterday with a hearing aid emergency and getting my hair done that I didn’t get my exercise in. I’ll aim to do that today.
Feeling overwhelmed again by all I’ve got to do, so I’d better get on it. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
Good morning, 66 and smoky air in Bellingham. So nice to wake up to coffee with Erica and Ryan this morning. He is at work now, excited to be there, and Erica and Ron are walking at Boulevard Park. I’ve got my legs up so all is well. Best wishes to all.