Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: October 10th

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 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.

28 Comments

  1. It’s 47 heading for 80 and sunny. The sun came out yesterday afternoon and we actually got 9.4 KWHs – 105 for the m-t-d. So that’s good.

    After checking online and see one can have a sinus infection without a fever, I went to the clinic yesterday. All patients with respiratory symptoms are being seen in the parking lot in their own cars. All patients with respiratory symptoms get a COVID test. Medical staff were all masked and the ones doing the COVID test had face shields over their masks. So. I’m negative and they called in an antibiotic for me. It has to be taken with food so as soon as I got home from the pharmacy I got out the cheese and crackers and made some cocoa. No miracles, I didn’t expect one, but the stuff that normally lets me sleep that hasn’t been working worked last night. 7 blessed hours of blessed sleep with only one bathroom interruption! I’m nowhere near caught up, of course, but my eyes aren’t burning and I feel more alert. (Whether or not I’m actually alert is of course a different matter. 😁)

    Amelia’s fever came back yesterday and the cough never left in the first place. Jill’s managing better. Things aren’t good or even stable yet, but they’re getting better. I haven’t connected with anyone else so am hoping/assuming they’re at least not doing worse. Well, Aji – today is a very bad anniversary for her, which she may or may not mention/take note of online. So Good Thoughts for everybody and an extra candle/prayer/Good Thought for Aji would be good.

    I need to get the laundry on. Today is the one sunny and warm day in a week of overcast and chilly. And over to twitter of course. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  2. Good morning, 38 and foggy in Bellingham. Thanks to our son the new dishwasher is installed and the cook top and vent hood should go in today. Heidi was here with him, supervising from her big feather bed. She can’t walk very well, but she still is still interested in life so lets hope her lab results are ok.

    I was hesitant re getting new appliances but the update was long overdue and we might as well enjoy them for as long as we’re living here. We discuss moving but neither one of us wants to so I guess we’ll muddle on here for as long as we can. Best wishes to all.

    • Continuing to live there will spare you the agony of missing everything—the view of the maple trees, your great outdoor living space, your sewing room.

      I do like having people to do things with, like the Raging Grannies, the Book Club, and now the Writers’ Group. I just wish I’d had access to those people when we lived at home. But then again, I’d have had to drive everywhere. I hate driving, especially when I’m alone, and at night.

      • Thanks Diana, it’s hard to know what’s best to do. But we both enjoy living here so we’ll see how long we can continue to do so.

      • There are trade-offs to downsizing but when home ownership ceases to be a joy and becomes a burden, it is time to move on. Elevators, someone else shoveling the snow and mowing the lawn, no more worries about HVAC and plumbing and electrical and appliances going on the blink – things to weigh against having less space and VERY CLOSE neighbors and more rules.

  3. Good Wednesday morning, Moosekind. We’ve got Brigadoon-type fog here in Ashburn this morning, complete with cricket song, birdsong, and smells left by a visiting skunk. Current temp. 63 F., going up to 78 F.

    Had a night of pain with my teeth and jaw. It was awful. However, when I got up and took my last two daytime cold pills, I’ve started feeling better. Should I try to see the doc and get something prescribed for sinusitis? I’ve got three big days coming up: Writers’ Groujp Thursday, child-tending Friday, and Book Festival on Saturday. I can get more cold medicine this very morning. What do y’all think?

    Anyway, bfitz, I now know what you’re going through with that sinusitis. My teeth and jaw hurt so much! It’s just awful.

    Going to see whether I can swallow some toast. Not sure, and oh, dear, I didn’t get any half-and-half because I felt too ill to go to Trader Joe’s. I am a mess.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.

  4. Good morning. Rainy day here, and rainier tomorrow. In the office today, will try to do things to help my back. The legislature is gerrymandering the new districts. The good news is they’re doing it along racial lines. There is already a SCOTUS decision involving Texas that says that’s wrong. Unfortunately the same decision said gerrymandering for political reasons is just fine and dandy.

  5. Good Wednesday morning Meese. 56 here in Kingston going up to 74.

    Puerto Rico

  6. It’s 73 going to 74 and very overcast. (Lights are on.) Is supposed to rain starting another hour or so. A lot heavier predicted this morning than last night. Yesterday we got enough sun for 8.2 KWHs – even that’s not likely today – the m-t-d is 113.45 and is losing ground. I’m truly not sure we’re going to make it to the “usual” 4 MWHs for the year.

    I’m doing better. Not good, but better. And compared to how I was doing 2 days ago, I’ll take that with thanks. Jill has still got concerns for herself – and a bunch of stuff she has to do but can’t yet – but her personal safety is now secure enough she can focus on her son’s safety. Progress of a sort. Amelia’s fever went away yesterday so hoping this was just a minor flare of what she had last week. My friend overheard one of the professors telling another that it’s not the kids/students who want face-to-face classes, it’s their parents. (Let’s just say pandemic has made an already bad situation at work worse.) Everybody’s hanging on. How frayed the ropes are getting is another issue, but still hanging on.

    I need to mix and grill breakfast sausages this morning. Which is exceedingly messy and why I try to not have to do it often. It’ll be 6 weeks before I have to do it again. But before I go to squishing salt and spices into raw meat, I’ll get over to twitter and “set up” for the day. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  7. Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …

    It is 61 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 68. Storms expected later today.

    Busy morning, less busy (I hope!) this afternoon.

    See all y’all later!

  8. Good morning, 43 and cloudy in Bellingham. Yesterday was messy progress in the kitchen as both the new cooktop and vent require a bigger opening than the old ones. The cutout for the new cooktop is done, but we’ll have to patch and paint before the vent can be installed. I hope we can match the old paint. A bonus from this project is that 3 cupboards are now empty so they can be easily cleaned, and the contents are in the dining room where it’s easier to edit what I want to keep and what will go away.

    Time for coffee, and as always to send my best wishes to all.

  9. Thursday Meese. 57 going up to 74 here in Kingston NY.
    I’ve been following Barbados PM Mia Mottley for a while now. I got pretty upset yesterday when I saw that her meeting with MVP Harris was ignored by our press
    There was zero US media coverage, and one tweet from Harris’ press secretary.


    Thankfully, found coverage from Barbados’ newspaper.

  10. If you haven’t seen “Takeover” yet – please watch it – it is being streamed free

  11. Puerto Rico

  12. Good morning, meeses! Thursday …

    It is 63 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 66. Sunny skies are in the forecast. Tomorrow we will being a period where the morning low is in the 40s – and time to turn the furnace on.

    It looks like the rubber is meeting the road on enforcing the Jan. 6th Committee’s subpoenas. If the Justice Department blows off the criminal contempt referrals, you can mark “Finished – Tried and Failed” on the American experiment. That a sitting president fomented, organized and facilitated an attempt to illegally stay in power after a democratic election can’t be allowed to go unpunished – every one of those treasonous bastids needs to be arrested and imprisoned. I haz spoken.

    It is frustrating to watch key legislation languish – held hostage by sorta-Dem Manchin and Jill-Stein-democracy-killer Sinema. We knew our Senate majority was slim but it is still shocking to see them squander the good will of millions of people – a majority of people – who want #BuildBackBetter. This is not herding cats, even cats are more compliant, this is herding gnats.

    w00t! A nice raise for the olds – a 5.9% increase in Social Security benefits will mean a lot to a lot of us squeezing by on fixed incomes. NOW, let’s keep the Medicare rate low so increases there don’t eat it all up like it did a few years ago.

    I am down to two last trips, one today and one Sunday, followed by three hard deadlines next week, then I can take a deep breath and hunker down for the winter. We are also within a day of surviving the last Mercury Retrograde of 2021 – I wonder if I should put off for a day or two a banking change I am considering. Those are the kind of things that go haywire during the retrograde. :::insert hand to chin thinking person emoji here:::.

    See all y’all later!

  13. Good Thursday morning, Meese! The fog is so thick this morning that fog-pearls are clustering on the porch screens and making noise in the rain gutters. Current temp. is 61 F., on its way up to 81 F. ,and They say it’s going to be a lahvly day! Well, that encourages me to wash the area rug on which Monty has barfed three times. Luckily detergent plus Oxyclean seems to work—it’s getting the rug dry that takes so long. Can’t put it in the dryer, it has to dry either outside or on the warm rail in the bathroom.

    Yesterday I called the Medical Center. The person on the other end of the line said the doctor would FaceTime with me at 4. However, after she told the doctor my symptoms, the doctor and a receptionist came to our apartment, conducted a ‘flu test and a Covid test, and said they’d let me know. They haven’t yet.* I did go to the store to get cold meds. Taking them definitely helps with the jaw pain and the headache, etc. but makes me very disinclined to eat anything. Thanks, Meese, for all your good wishes!

    I have to prepare for the Writers’ Group at 1:30, for the child minding gig tomorrow evening, and the Writers’ Festival on Saturday, when it is going to rain, so they say. I think they’re setting us up in tents, though.

    Need to prepare breakfast for Dearly. I promised him a proper breakfast, so I’d better get on with it. Wishing all a good day!

    *They open at 8:30 so I’ll them if they haven’t called me.

  14. Big loud thunderstorms last night, lots of low water crossings closed & school districts on delay. Not so much in town, but I’m still glad to be wfh today. I turned off my alarms because it was supposed to still be storming at 5, which of course it wasn’t. Maybe I’ll walk tomorrow.

  15. P. S. I called the Medical Center. They forgot to call me yesterday to tell me that both tests were negative. The receptionist said I could go ahead and party, but not too hearty.

    Duh. These people are very lax. Meanwhile, they left a pile of equipment in our flat, saying they would reclaim if the tests were negative.

  16. It’s 64 going to 74 and overcast. Might clear off later. Maybe. Yesterday was so dark we generated less than 2 KWHs (m-t-d 115) so definitely not on track. We did get over 2″ of rain so that part’s good.

    I’m doing better. Slept reasonably well. Breathing a little easier. Not clenching the jaw as much. Still groggy though. But not fuzzy and that’s a blessing. Used the last of my milk with breakfast so need to go get more before mid-morning coffee time. Need to get set up on Twitter first. I’ll read Dee’s diary when I get back. I’ve boosted it, just haven’t read it yet. Everybody seems to be hanging on. Some have better grips and strong ropes than others, but all hanging on.

    Thank heavens for the COLA with all the Social Security things – apparently that includes Disability. Except as far as I know Disability is capped so I don’t know if my friends on it will actually get the COLA. Folks complaining about “inflation eating it up” are kind of missing the point. Inflation is why the largest COLA ever. sigh. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  17. Good morning, 46 and cloudy in Bellingham. If all goes well the new vent hood will be installed today and the migration of tools will move back to our son’s truck. I knew this would be a messy project but it’s nearly done. Ron wants to do some touch up painting in the kitchen but that can happen later.

    Time for coffee, a brief look at the news, and then to sort out my day. Best wishes to all.

  18. Friday Meese. 55 going up to 77 here in Kingston NY.
    Puerto Rico

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