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 68 degrees in the Desert Southwest with an expected daytime high of 100. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Apologies for the missing Moose Saturday afternoon – the domain registrar was trying to get some sort of “re-approval” and it was being rejected by Gmail because Gmail is free and decides what is spam and what is important. Anyway, problem fixed!
I was worried that my home computer had caught whatever it is that makes my work computer refuse to load the site. Glad you’re back!
Good morning. Did not go to the rally yesterday. Bought groceries, made a couple of days’ worth of dinner (Trader Joe’s asparagus risotto with added vegetables), laundry & housework. Now I have tea steeping & watching the news. News is talking about the incredible heat, and about the eclipse.
Good morning – am away from home – Damn White supremacists
BMS posted
It’s 70 heading for 86 – the heat index may or may not get over 90 – and sunny at the moment. Yesterday we had enough clouds to cut production a couple of KWHs but we still generated 17.7 and we’re starting this morning with 187 for the m-t-d. A slight gain I hope we don’t lose when the clouds move in this evening for tonight’s rain. (We also got 1″ of rain which I truly wish I could send Aji.)
Aji did a minute or so video last night of the wildfire plume they can see from their house. Conditions weren’t exactly great for recording so the audio broke up more than once but what she was saying got through. (That’s the 1st time I’ve ever heard her voice.) Basic Yikes! Also basic unsurprising as this – like the stronger & more frequent hurricanes – was foretold at least 40 years ago by those warning about global warming.
I haven’t been to twitter yet so don’t know if anything’s new with Lisa or Jill. They’re both still in the middle of not-good spaces and they’re both still hanging on as of last night.
I’ve done my treadmilling and all the Sunday chores except vacuuming and am now taking a break to check in and eat breakfast. Heading over to twitter & to DK for Dee’s diary. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, Moose Peeps! For once I am washed, brushed, and dressed at the early hour of 10 a.m. Have breakfasted and noted the upcoming lack of half-and-half, so Someone (not I) will have to go to the store.
Our weather in Ashburn is as grotty as ever: 67 F. on its alleged way up to 84 F., with thunderstorms predicted. It’s cloudy at the moment. This means we’ll have some threatening black clouds, three drops will fall, and then I can get back to what I’m doing. My neighbor said a tornado is threatening for tomorrow. Rubbish! This means we’ll have a roll of thunder and a flash of lightning. Pretending to believe this, however, is a good excuse for doing everything on the computer that needs to be done today.
I’m glad there were marches all over the country yesterday. I deplore the murders in Buffalo. Was it Buffalo? I pointed out on Tweeter that those 10 slaughtered people were l’il embryos once, where’s the reverence for life? The divide over abortion will never be bridged because the Wingnuts simply can’t see that if brutish old Supreme Court judges have a right to privacy (no marching up and done on the sidewalk in front of their houses carrying candles), so do WOMEN. Actual, living women.
I have a feeling, and I could be wrong, mind you, that things aren’t going to go quite as smoothly as the male justices and the Rethugs in Congress believe once they take OUR MOST BASIC RIGHT away.
I read in the Post this morning about teenagers deliberately reading banned books. Daughter gave me one of them for my birthday, but the beginning is so horrific I haven’t been able to bring myself to go on with it. Writers should know never to START a book with horrific murders, or sex scenes between characters we haven’t met yet. How can I care about these people if I don’t know them?
Well, that’s quite enough from me this morning. I’ll let you know if we really do have a tornado. Not likely. In the meantime, I’ve got to look up the ingredients for Moroccan Chickpea Stew. We’re having that and Portuguese custard tarts for dinner tonight. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
I also believe this.
My brain tells me that they will pay no price – because they never have! – but my heart tells me that now may finally be the time when there are enough of us to overcome them. We flipped the House in 2018, we managed to get TFG kicked to the curb in 2020 and won the Senate – maybe our time has come.
Good morning, 54 and partly cloudy outside my window today. Thanks for fixing the moose access Jan. I’m usually the last one to check in and when I couldn’t yesterday I was missing everyone!
So yesterday was a more “normal” day in my small world with a visit to an antique store, first time I’ve been since covid confinement altered my life. It was nice to browse and I found a blue platter and some vintage Vera napkins with a veggie print. I smile at the word “vintage” because Vera linens were too pricy for me when I was a young woman and now they are a thrift store find :)
We also went to Joes Gardens for a few veggie starts and some plants for the hummingbirds. It’s still to cold to plant the veggie garden so Ron’s indoor garden is overtaking the wine room but that’s ok.
I’ve finally found what seems to be the “right” fabric for repairing my grandmothers quilt, so that project is now underway. And best of all, the fabric was in my stash, just waiting to be found. My thrifty grandmother would approve.
The big world feels overwhelming me today, so I’m grateful to be living in my small world. As always, my best wishes to all.
I think that all of us were permanently altered by COVID confinement – both forced and chosen. Human interactions seem different, the level of competency in my personal transactions has dropped by a factor of 1000 – did everyone who knows how to do stuff retire or do people who only deal with faceless customers on phone calls and in online chats just not care because there is no human connection and no knowledge of the real life consequences of those they are supposed to help?
Interesting that you should say that about COVID confinement, Jan. I find I’ve stopped caring. I used to put a new wreath on my door every month according to which season it was, and I had cute little displays on the shelf outside my door and even a little dish of wrapped chocolates so passers-by could help themselves. With quarantine, we were ordered not to put anything on our outside shelves because that was reserved for the mail.
Quarantine ended ages ago, but I don’t do those things any more. It doesn’t seem to matter. Other people go in for such displays with great enthusiasm and many of them are very eye-catching. We haven’t arranged our screened porch since quarantine, either. We just use it to stash empty cardboard boxes and junk. We keep meaning to call College Hunks Hauling Junk (they were not hunks at all, last time we called, quite ordinary-looking), but we never get around to it.
Is it just that we’re slobs? Yep. Are we tired of making such an effort? Yes. Are we unable to focus because the Wayward Beagle wants to go outside every five minutes? Yes. H’mm.
Good morning. I stayed up late enough to see the last but of Moon go dark. Didn’t stay up for the red shadowy part, what I saw was cool enough. Record highs all week, sigh. But maybe rain next weekend!
By the time the moon came up over the mountain, she was already about 1/3rd covered. We could see the light changes reflected in a wispy cloud visible from here but not the moon. I stayed up to see the moon covered and the reddish glow but did not stay up for the second half of the show.
We had cloud cover most of the night. But between 4:30 and 5:30 the clouds thinned enough I could see a bright and ever-changing shape glowing behind them out my bedroom window. Which of course wasn’t the eclipse but it was beautiful in its own way.
The full moon is always beautiful and always amazing to me.
I didn’t get to see it, as usual.
It’s 62 heading for 81 and sunny so far. According to the widget we’re back in Spring for the next 10 days or so with way too much cloudiness and some rain. (I hope it clears enough to give me a good laundry day next week.) Heck, next Saturday’s high is currently showing 66! Yesterday we generated 12 KWHs – so lost a little ground again – and are starting today with 199 as the m-t-d.
I didn’t sleep well last night – a couple of hours of good sleep and a lot of dozing that might total 4-1/2 hours. Maybe. Lisa’s got some stuff she needs to do but is having to fight down the anxiety attacks before she can even start. Jill’s situation is safer than it’s been, but it’s still not good. And she keeps finding issues that the RV supposedly was checked for and supposedly didn’t have. (Salesmen are right up there with doctors on my list of people not to trust. Although doctors are worse. Salesmen can just rip you off as far as money is concerned. Doctors do that and can kill you.) Aji’s pain is doing nothing but getting worse and those wildfires just over the ridge from her are doing nothing but getting bigger. Holding the Good Thoughts for all.
I’ve done my treadmilling and had breakfast. Off to twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good Monday morning, Moosekind! Nupe, I didn’t stay up late to watch the moon’s shenanigans—I couldn’t even see the dratted thing–but I knew I could view the whole thing comfortably on the televicious this morning. Goodness, sometimes it’s nice to live in the modern age.
Right now it’s 67 F. in Ashburn and cloudy. Thunderstorms and tornadoes are predicted between noon and 7 p.m, but that’s a load of old codswallop. What might happen was what happened yesterday: at 4 p.m. dark, angry-looking, purple-gray clouds gathered, and at at 5 p.m. it rained hard for 3 minutes. Big deal. Thunderstorms, tchah! Tornadoes, forsooth!
I have to return an Amazon purchase before noon. Made Apricot Bran Muffins this moaning and they were AWFUL. Dearly tried one and refused to finish it, opting instead for a bowl of Strawberry Clusters and Flakes cereal. I’ll either have to get a better recipe or make it with the ingredients called for next time.
I need to write a note of condolence and drop it off. Problem is, I keep putting it off. I know the widow slightly (she is the best-known author here and her books are made into Hallmark TV specials), but I don’t know what to say. Her husband was in hospice care and had zero quality of life as far as I could tell when I visited her (and him). She probably feels overwhelmed.
In other news, if Rethugs can control my body, can I control theirs? I will put the question to Twitter.
Wishing a nice, peaceful day to everyone at the Pond!
Ha!! “If Rethugs can control my body, can I control theirs? I will put the question to Twitter.”
I saw a tweet last night from Al Franken suggesting that Democrats should craft a bill protecting the right to contraception and bring that to a vote. Put all the Republicans on record as being anti-contraception as well as anti-abortion and insure that the mask is torn off. Peg them as the party of forced birth and make them run on that.
I wish that would happen! They’re going after Griswold next. I’m pregnant with a plot to go to Target and buy up every OTC contraceptive I can find to stash away for my grandchildren when they need it.
Good morning, meeses! Monday …
It is 72 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 95. Yesterday it got to 104 and impact from that is that it takes a very long time for it to be cool enough to open the windows after it gets that hot. I can do it first thing in the morning (or if I wake up at midnight) but opening windows before going to bed just brings warm air in. For now, we still have the cool mornings and I will enjoy those while they last.
White supremacy can never be beaten now that it has been mainstreamed by the Republican Party and has shown itself to be a winning policy position in the gerrymandered Congress we have right now (and will have for the next generation). Republicans will always win in enough districts to make the House a toss-up every biennial and Republicans will never vote for a Democrat even if the Republican “shoots someone on 5th Avenue in broad daylight.” In the olden days, there were people in the party who were able to tamp down the always present anti-democracy base but now those people have died, been purged or joined the MAGAts in order to save their seats. I am not sure how it ends. I guess is it good news that Biden is finally acknowledging that there is no way to bridge the partisan gap because the other party literally hates America and Americans who do not look like them. We shall see where his epiphany leads us.
I had designated May 15th as my day to return to normal activities after relocating (to stop spending money and resume earning money). I still have a few lingering personal projects that I need to address and I should get those done first so that they aren’t hanging over me.
See all y’all later!
Good morning, 51 and raining outside my window today. RonK is planting some cold weather veggie starts but I’m staying dry indoors. A hot cup of tea, nice music, and my solitaire games are much more inviting. Best wishes to all.
Good morning. Record heat continues, but there’s hope for rain this weekend. Nothing much going on. No word about the laptop take away, so I’m just going to happily wfh today & tomorrow and not think about it.
Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …
It is 66 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 95. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
So Fox News never heard of this “so-called” Great Replacement Theory? You wonder what kind of brain you need to watch Tucker Carlson espouse just that theory night after night after night and then accept that he never once mentioned it. I hope those people, as they die off, are replaced at the ballot box by people with functioning brains. You can’t demand that a demagogue lose his TV show but you can certainly blame and shame the people who peddle their products on Fox News and essentially pay for Carlson to ratchet up the race war.
The Pennsylvania primary is today. It will be interesting to see just which crazy the Republicans nominate for Senate. We can win this open seat and goddess help us if we don’t. I am not sure how Fetterman’s stroke will impact the race (and how many ballots have already been cast) but Any Democrat should be the winner in the general election. Pennsylvania went for Biden and out of all the Obama to Trump to Biden states, they appear to have become the least insane. Election Night 2022 is definitely going to be a nail biter. Here is a link to the other primaries today from NPR.
The Abbott baby formula plant shut down because the unsanitary conditions literally killed infants is going to re-open after an agreement with the FDA. Abbott should be shunned for what they tried to do – to take advantage of lax Trump era oversight to save a buck, create a health menace and then try to avoid fixing the problem. Once the shortages are rectified, they need to be investigated and fined big enough so that it hurts.
Busy day here – I best get to it.
See all y’all later!
Cloudy morning and looks like more rain coming. Goddess! I wish I could send it 700 miles due east! Anyway, it’s 64 heading for 82 and it may or may not clear off after the rain. Yesterday we generated 20.9 KWHs which while not as much as is possible this time of year is still quite nice indeed and gained us a bit of ground. The m-t-d is 220 to start this cloudy day and almost half the month still to go.
As of last night everybody’s still hanging on. Amelia and Aji’s situations are getting worse although both of them got minor bright spots yesterday. Jill’s is, apparently, getting better. Everybody’s still hanging on.
I got diddly sleep again but at least it was mostly in a solid chunk and not zone-out dozing. That helps. I’ve done my treadmilling and am eating my breakfast. Off to twitter. Bright the day, Meeses.{{{HUGS}}}
Good Tuesday morning, Meese! It is still morning. Right now in Ashburn it’s 75 F., sunny, with horrid winds forecast. There was a huge storm in our area yesterday at 4 p.m. which, as usual, missed us completely. In other parts of the DC metro, hail fell, trees fell, and hard rain pelted down. We had half an hour of hard rain in the morning, which did to some extent help our rainfall deficit.
Today is going to be dedicated to work because the rest of the week is busy. I have to finish the Peace Corps story (the Committee will NOT be happy with the wordage), work on the Writers’ Group story, and find a bunch of pictures for the Peace Corps story.
When I finally get this Sword of Damocles off my back, so to speak, I have a whole bunch of clean up projects to do with respect to putting this office into some kind of order.
I sneaked a peek at the Lenovo laptop I want on Amazon and felt cheered to see that it’s gone down in price. I shall buy it on Prime Day in July and hope that Windows 10 and its attendant office suite will be on sale also. I am SO longing for a proper online filing system instead of this fiendish Mac! I also hate my keyboard, which has a habit of stopping dead and meanwhile, I’m already on page 2 of what I’m writing. First-world problem, I know!
Hope that everyone at the Pond will have a good, productive day.
You will likely be required to be on Windows 11 – all new computers are being delivered with that version of Windows. I have not seen it yet but reports are that it is stable and not too different from Windows 10. The last thing updated with Windows new releases is the hardware drivers, making it difficult to connect and use old printers/scanners/AIOs. It is possible that enough time has elapsed so that legacy peripherals will function but I am not interested in finding out on behalf of my clients! Only two of my computers are Windows 11 “ready” so I will be using Windows 10 for the foreseeable future. I may switch my laptop over later this summer when I have time to experiment with it.
Before you buy Office, check with me so that I can point you in the right direction to get the Microsoft 365 / Office 365 version you will want in order to have SharePoint, the cloud storage software. You may get something included “free” that will not do what you want; often for a slight upgrade fee you can get the fancier version.
Good morning, 48 and cloudy outside my window, but it’s wet from rain earlier this morning. The plant growing in the patio beds seem to love the rain because they are growing so fast I need to clip them back again. I should work at my desk this morning, and if energy allows I’ll do some light gardening this afternoon. Best wishes to all.
Logging in late – a break in the ceremony – we now have a brand new priestess of Yemaya – I’m tired – but happy
👍💖💖💖💖💖
Good to see you, Sister Denise!
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 66 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 93. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
Lots of primaries, TFG wins, TFG loses – it is difficult to know what it all means. The only thing I know for sure is that it is NEVER wise to root for the worst Republican to win in a primary because “then we can beat him.” It does not work that way and hasn’t since 2010 when three Republican Senate hopefuls lost because they were too awful for the general election. The Republican base is now convinced that Democrats winning will result in white genocide and they will crawl over broken glass to vote for ANY Republican. That is how we got tRump and that is what we will face in the fall. Do not wish for the worst person because if they win, we will have them in power, wrecking things, for 2 or 4 or 6 years. Our democracy will not survive another tRump presidency.
I have the transcript of Joe Biden’s speech in Buffalo and will try to put up a post with it. I don’t think fiery rhetoric will solve problems that festered for hundreds of years and finally boiled over when the first Black president was elected. But it is important to say the words and for people to hear the words so that we know what we are fighting for – what is at stake.
See all y’all later!
Good morning. Record heat, blah blah blah. I ran downtown to grab some more applications; I logged off early yesterday because I just couldn’t call the people I had again — 4 times in 1 day seems excessive. So I grabbed some old applications, maybe I can get some people we missed in December. Anyway, just working from home.
Checking in – things are fine here at the ceremonies
Puerto Rico
Enjoy! {{{HUGS}}}