Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: May 1st

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.

17 Comments

  1. Good morning, meeses! Friday …

    It is 61 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 91. Sunny skies are in the forecast.

    I, for one, do not believe the breathless reporting that Republicans are worried about abortion becoming a mid-term election issue. They welcome it! Their base is 1000% more rabid than our base is (we couldn’t even get Democrats to vote for the Democrat in 2016 when there was an open Supreme Court seat to fill) and they know that they can ride the “hate blacks, hate women, hate immigrants” vote all they way to a House and Senate majority. They laid the groundwork by ratfking the election process to disenfranchise people who are unlikely to vote for them and to gerrymander in a way that dilutes Democratic electoral power. It starts and ends with the Supreme Court that Bernie Sanders and his cult turned over to the Republicans because “purity.” It will take a miracle or an unlikely Epiphany to keep our majorities.

    I got a Moderna 2nd booster and have a sore arm but not as sore as the Pfizer 1st booster. I don’t feel as fatigued as I did after that one, either, at least this morning. It feels good being protected with the latest reports of a new surge. It looks like most Americans have de-masked and are willing to take their chances that they won’t get sick and die. To me, wearing a mask is easy enough and I will continue to do it.

    See all y’all later!

    • Hi, Jan, agree that wearing a mask is easy and I will continue to do it. I don’t see why people get so agitated about it.

      • My own opinion is that the die hard (literally!) anti-maskers do not like to “look like the Chinese people” who have been wearing masks for quite a while due to the awful air quality in their major cities. When the pandemic hit, it started in China and the first face of the crisis was millions of Chinese people wearing masks. There is nothing that MAGAts hate more than to look foreign or to hide their lily white faces – the outward manifestation of their privilege.

        • My masks are KN95s, all tie-dyed in various colors. I like the yellow-and-blue best because they remind me of Ukraine. Not sure how effective they are, but after two jabs and two boosters, I’m not rill worried.

  2. It’s 53 heading for 68 and overcast again. The rain accumulation was over 5″ and there are flood warnings still for the low-lying areas. We generated 5.4 KWHs yesterday – not quite my daily usage. The m-t-d is at 37.6 – 13 short of even being on track for 300. But the sun is supposed to come back tomorrow and for the next week at least so we shall see what we shall see.

    My sleep was 10:30 to 12:30 then 4:30 to 6. I’m groggy and slow moving. The vet’s due in a bit over half an hour and I haven’t a clue whether or not I’ll be able to get one cat into a carrier, much less three. That’s another we shall see what we shall see.

    Aji’s still in pain, is still breathing wildfire smoke, but so far no fires near enough to endanger them. Goddess knows what they’ll do if one starts near them. They’ve got 3 dogs (one of whom they can’t catch), a flock of hens, and not only their own 2 horses, but several more of their BIL’s because BIL no longer has enough water for them. Amelia’s rent’s due today so her anxiety is rising. Jill might, maybe, have found a solution for her son’s dogs. But her husband’s been sighted in Roswell and that’s scary-dangerous. Wildfires and war and global warming are all continuing apace. Holding the Good Thoughts.

    Going to go get set up on Twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  3. Good rainy Friday morning, Moosekind! I woke up to heavy rain and did not mind at all. “They” say it will rain on and off all day and into tomorrow. No problemo! I keep thinking of those thirsty aquifers, eagerly receiving every drop, and of the “year-to-date rainfall” overcoming its deficit. The current temperature under our gray skies is 57 F., going up to a whopping 62 F.

    Yesterday I received my second Pfizer booster. Felt all right at first, then, as the day wore on, began to feel “blah.” Felt so grotty that I didn’t get my act together to go the Celtic Music Beltane concert. I regret this very much. Even this morning, although I’ve been breakfasted and coffee’d, I’ve a headache and don’t actually feel 100%.

    Don’t know whether I mentioned in here that the blood pressure pills are working. It’s gone from the 150s to the 130s, and this is a Good Thing. The doctor did say my cholesterol is a bit “borderline,” but I intend to go right on drinking half-and-half in my coffee and eating the occasional half-cup of ice cream. Hail, I’ve already given up sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll, I cannot forego all pleasures that remain to me in my declining years!

    Much to do today. Haven’t been to the gym in two days, so I’d better go. Little Karl is meant to come tomorrow and Eric, at the last possible moment, has invited us to a Mother’s Day Brunch, thank Goddess! The “brunch” they plan to have here sounds bloody awful. First-world problem, I know.

    Apparently there will be a Women’s March on the 14th. (On the Great Orange Satan they’re spelling it the “woman’s march” and talking about Reality Winner as an unjustly imprisoned ‘women.” Why people can’t spell such a simple word I will never know.) I’d really like to go but need to find somone to go with. I’m certainly not goin on my own—I could be trampled by a wild Trumpanzee!

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and a better day to all in Ukraine. If Putie declares war on Ukraine then Ukraine could declare war on Rusher, right? And bomb the beautiful St. Basil’s Church, which is shown on TV every time the word “the Kremlin” is mentioned on the TV news.

    Blessed be.

    • It would be sad to bomb the iconic St. Basil’s but it was also sad for Russia to bomb places that Ukrainians hold in reverence. War is so destructive.

  4. Good morning, 48 and partly cloudy outside my window, a nice break from yesterday’s cold wet rain. I did get my immediate desk work done but then needed a nap to recover so it was a very quiet day. I have a hair appointment this morning so I hope that will improve my appearance enough to mask my bad attitude! I want to stay at the salon in Fairhaven, but the person doing my hair will be new to me, which always makes me nervous. Seems like I just get comfortable with someone and then there’s a change. Oh well, a basic short hair cut and color should be ok regardless.

    Best wishes to all.

    • I had to change hair stylists and I took my chances with one that was close and inexpensive. I was quite pleased! I think short and basic should be easy but I have to keep any new stylist from trying to make my hairdo into something that it can never be; I just need it cut, not re-styled. I brought photos of the back and sides from my last haircut and that helped. The key for me is to not let it get too wild – if I do, it makes the “lines” hard to find.

  5. Saturday Meese. 46 here in Kingston going up to 54 and cloudy. Trying to make arrangements for being away from home for a week – we’re having a priestess initiation ceremony at my old home at the farm, now owned by my godson – and I have to be there for a week. Even though its only 20 minutes away from where I live now – I have lots to do before going on Wednesday next, trying to get some writing done in advance, and am taking my computer over there when I go.

    Puerto Rico


    Excellent reporting from Dánica Coto @danicacoto


    “This is one of the biggest environmental crimes I’ve seen,” Rep. Jesús Manuel Ortiz said during an April 27 public hearing on the issue. “It’s outrageous. A crime is being committed right in front of everyone.”

    • How very nice to have something good to look forward to and plan for. {{{HUGS}}}

  6. Happy Saturday! We’re under a heat advisory. The upper range for the “feels like” high is 108. After I pick up my groceries, I’m staying inside. Cooking & laundry.

  7. Good Saturday morning, Meese!

    Well (heaving huge sigh of relief), good. It’s 51 F. and raining. The needles of rain were icy cold and the winds were blowing when I took Mr. Monty out. We’ve put the little electric fire on. This morning I have to bake Trader Joe’s Spring Cupcakes. They’re white cupcakes with roughed-up green frosting and little nests of candy eggs. These are for Karl, who will be 8 years old on May 30. This child has never had a birthday party in his entire life because his family always goes out of town for Memorial Day. Apparently they will defer their departure to June 3 this year, so the little lad might get a party this time.

    He’s coming over today, so after lunch I’ll take him to Barnes & Noble to choose a birthday present, then we’ll go swimming. At least, he will. Grandma, who will take an hour just to squeeze into swim shorts and a swim t-shirt, will just watch. He’s an expert swimmer by now, his father takes him every Sunday morning.

    Gods, I wish (not for the first time) that I were a tidier person. When one is a Seriously Housework-Challenged person, it requires many hours to get the place in order. Therefore, I’d better get to it while inwardly rejoicing that ELON will have to wait for E LON time before he can buy Twitter, if he ever does. The good news is that we had so much rain yesterday that we are now only 1 inch under normal for rainfall for the year rather than 2.

    Wishing all a peaceful day.

  8. Good morning, meeses! Saturday …

    It is 64 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 95 (“only” feels like 90!). Sunny skies are in the forecast. We are inching closer to daytime highs of 100 but they are not expected until mid-month. We are still having cool mornings and that helps a lot.

    Good lord! Clarence Thomas, whose wife actively tried to overturn the 2020 election and block the transfer of power, is worried about people who are unwilling to ‘live with outcomes we don’t agree with’. Of course he is only concerned about people not willing to live with outcomes he personally supports, not outcomes he disagrees with! I wonder how he feels about Loving v Virginia, a ruling that his pal Alito took direct aim at? It is unlikely it reached his consciousness because he really does not believe he is a Black man.

    From a New York Times editorial today:

    Imagine that every state were free to choose whether to allow Black people and white people to marry. Some states would permit such marriages; others probably wouldn’t. The laws would be a mishmash, and interracial couples would suffer, legally consigned to second-class status depending on where they lived.

    It seems an unthinkable scenario in 2022. That’s because in 1967 the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that barring interracial marriage, as 16 states still did, violates the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. ‘Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the state,’ the court stated in Loving v. Virginia.

    More than half a century on, Loving is considered one of the court’s great rulings, and yet it was not universally admired at the time. Southern states complied only grudgingly; Alabama didn’t repeal its ban on interracial marriage until 2000. That’s the point of having a federal Constitution that is supreme; the guarantees and rights in that document apply to all Americans equally, wherever they live. The court system — and the Supreme Court in particular — exists to protect those rights when state and local authorities refuse to.[…]

    In short, constitutional rights are meaningless unless they apply across the entire country. That is why the Supreme Court decided Loving v. Virginia and Roe v. Wade as it did. These rights are inherent in the Constitution, even if they are not explicit in it.

    The principle is clear: Women and men should have equal control over their own bodies, as many Americans believed in 1973 and a majority believe today. And yet the right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy is on the verge of being eliminated because five members of the current Supreme Court don’t like it.

    That editorial, and an editorial by Michelle Goldberg, make it clear that the end of Roe v Wade protections will not make America less divided, it will only widen the current divide. We can’t be a country that pretends to care about people if half of our citizens are turned into forced embryo incubators to appease the christo-fascists and their minority political party.

    I woke up early to get some things done and I actually did! I still have a too-long to-do list and need to get back to it. My goal is to have all of my personal accounting projects completed this weekend so that I can get back on a work schedule.

    See all y’all later!

  9. Happy Saturday! The sun is shining! And it’s mostly supposed to for the next week. YAY! It’s 55 heading for 80 – and the overnights are supposed to be warm enough this week I may (temporarily) take the quilts off my bed. heh. Yesterday we generated 7.6 KWHs which is at least more than I use in a day. The m-t-d is 45 which is seriously not on track for anything but covering what I average using in a month. But we’ll start gaining today – and the whole of next week. How much? We shall see.

    I need to get used to and stop being irritated at the fact I have a disabled cat. As with my disabled human friends, it’s not something that shows on the outside. But if I want him healthy, I have to hold his water bowls and food bowls up under his nose a few minutes at a time and a few minutes apart repeatedly for the first hour I’m up and the last hour before I go to bed. If I don’t he manages to eat and drink enough to prevent organ collapse but that’s it. If I do he maintains a healthy weight and isn’t in as much pain/isn’t as grumpy (doesn’t growl and swat at the other cats when they come near him). It disrupts my own morning routine – like every 3 minutes if I’m lucky – but I guess once I’m used to it I’ll manage my own stuff better. I hope.

    I need to get to twitter and the treadmill. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  10. Good morning, 48 and partly sunny outside my window. The new to me stylist did a fine job cutting and coloring my hair yesterday so that worry is over. Small worries! I’m going to lunch with my son today and if energy allows to a garden nursery with RonK. The empty pots look tidy but I’m missing the tree on the front porch so that’s the first replacement to find. Best wishes to all.

  11. Good morning. Got tea steeping, berries thawing so I can make breakfast for the week. Today’s the farewell for one of our associate pastors, really sorry to see her go. Oh, and my boys went to Ukraine

    President @ZelenskyyUa invited us to perform in Kyiv as a show of solidarity with the Ukrainian people and so that’s what we’ve come to do. — Bono and The Edge #StandWithUkraine— U2 (@U2) May 8, 2022

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