Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: July 3rd

July 2, 2022 JanF Community 80

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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38 Comments

  1. Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …

    Morning low of 75 degrees in the Desert Southwest with an expected daytime high of 93. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast, slight chance for rain.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. Sunday Meese. 63 going up to 85 here in Kingston. Got very little sleep last night since a neighbor stayed up shooting off very loud (illegal) fireworks that sounded like bombs.
    Saw almost no coverage of MVP Harris at ESSENCE Fest so here it is

    Actress Keke Palmer had a great conversation with MVP Harris at Essence Fest
    MVP gets a standing ovation


    The full convo

  3. Puerto Rico

      • I had a power outage that lasted for about 2 hours on Saturday evening after our storm – we got an inch and a half of rain in about 3 hours and it flooded some equipment somewhere. It was a stark reminder of how dependent on electricity we are. I quickly found out which emergency flashlights had dead batteries!! New batteryless ones are on order …

  4. Good morning. Watching Le Tour and the news, Ali Velshi is doing the a lot of segments on abortion. Le Tour is in Denmark for a 3rd day, the crowds are huge and thrilled to have the race. Today: laundry, church, making overnight oats. I have a super short week because I’m taking off early Thursday to see a movie. Nice to have a rest.

  6. Well, it’s 78. The widget says we’re only heading for 90 and will get some rain later. We shall see. The house is closed up already. Yesterday we generated 17.26 KWHs so we’re covering usage (with the A/C on) but not banking anything towards winter. The m-t-d of 34.47 is on track to do as well as we did in June. Not great but good enough. I hope.

    Twisted my back trying to get comfortable last night so a small chunk of time I’d have liked to have been sleeping was spent sitting in a supportive (relatively) chair with an ice pack. But it worked and I’m not only (mostly) OK this morning, I’ve gotten all my Sunday chores done. Well, I didn’t move the sofa when I vacuumed – but I did vacuum.

    Yesterday was panic central for a bit. Amelia had to go to the ER – turned out to be a UTI – but the jerkwad doctor just gave her a dose of antibiotic, wrote a scrip, and told her to go home. Since she had come in an ambulance and didn’t have her car, her anxiety went through the roof and she called me. Between me and the nice nurses, she calmed down, tried a few different that-didn’t-work options and finally they called her a cab. Local company, bless the nurses for thinking of that. The driver was very nice, took her to an ATM so she could get cash and not have to give him her card number. It was still $40. The very nice cab company also picked up her scrip for her once the pharmacy opened. That was another $40 (including tip). And only worked because the nice pharmacist allowed them to pick it up – with her on the phone with him saying “yes, please” during the process. By the end of the day she’d had her 2nd dose, was feeling a lot better, and was a lot calmer. But it’s going to take at least a week, maybe two, for her to recover from the adrenaline flood.

    Aji and Jill are hanging on about as they have been. My son did manage to get over and look at the damage. I’m gonna have to bite the bullet, get estimates, get the money from TIAA, and deal with it. The windows weren’t set in correctly in the first place and the water damage means not only is there nothing to attach the siding that came off to, the rest will be coming off. The whole front of the porch below the windows is going to have to be repaired/replaced. At least I do have the money in TIAA.

    Off to twitter & Dee’s diary. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

      • It comes with homeownership, right? Once I know what options I have, I can make a decision. Which hopefully won’t be too expensive. But. . . {{{HUGS}}}

  7. FYI: I did not get a chance to do the work on the site yesterday (Saturday) afternoon. I ending up spending more time than planned on my computer in the morning and needed to shut down to recuperate.

    If I can get client work completed this morning, I will possibly to able to get back on my computer and do the MM updates this afternoon.

  8. Good Sunday afternoon, Moose Peeps! Waiting for the pastry to become pliable enough to cut out.

    We had a thunderstorm last night at 10:30, too late for us to enjoy it, although we did see the light show that lasted a good 15 minutes. I prefer daytime storms so I can watch them and gloat that it’s cleaning all the smears of dog poop off the grass. That’s quite possibly more information than you cared to have. Anyway, we apparently got a decent shower.

    At half-past three p.m., we have blue skies, white clouds, and sunlight. I won’t put the porch cushions out until tomorrow morning, though. Right now it’s 86 F., our high for the day.

    I’m washing the fluted 3-inch tart pans with removable bottoms. I will cut out 3-inch circles of pastry to fit inside them. Lawks, I don’t have the proper pastry tools! Never mind, I’ll improvise. I don’t actually have pie weights, but I do have those glass marble things people use to weight frail flower stems in vases. I plan to bake the tart shells at 350 F. for 8-9 minutes. Tomorrow I’ll whip up a fake creme patissiere, arrange a row of blueberries and a row of raspberries on top, and decorate them with tiny American flag toothpicks.

    Not much more to say except the news is too awful to comment on. Hope everyone at the Moose Pond is enjoying their day!

  9. Monday Meese. Lovely day today here in Kingston, and can start getting work done in prep for my birthday celebration this coming Sunday. Is not my natal birthday, is the anniversary of my becoming a priestess in my faith, which is the major event of the year for me. Will not be large gathering, due to COVID constraints – all who come get gifts of fruit and blessings from the goddess (Yemaya) altar whether or not they are in the faith.

    Puerto Rico

  10. Good morning. Got tea steeping, watching Black Panther — an inspiring movie for our time. I hope this is the “worse before it gets better” phase.

  11. It’s 78 already and the house is closed up again. The house was 78 but outside was “only” 73 when I opened up. Yesterday we got a little rain and too many clouds. The 13.3 KWHs generated doesn’t cover the A/C much less bank anything. sigh. The m-t-d is 47.6 – losing ground. But not a lot of ground. So far. I went through my records and the hottest/worst July I’ve had in this house used 900 KWHs – obviously my 4K system can’t keep up with that. Especially since August that year used 890. Under absolutely perfect conditions the best my system could do would be 750 per month. Under decent conditions we’ve done close to but never reached 600. sigh.

    Anyway, I’ve got the laundry on so I can get it out before things get too hot outside. And I made chocolate pudding this morning. It’s not all that much cheaper per serving than ice cream but I can control what’s in it and how sweet it is. So. Dessert for the next 5 days will be chocolate pudding and orange-walnut oatmeal cookies.

    My son came by with the strongest bug poison Lowe’s sells and treated all around the foundations as well as down into the opening of the wall of the front porch. He said he had an idea to try and don’t call anybody just yet. He can’t get to it until Thursday at the earliest and possibly not until next week. But the “good” thing about the wall being open like that is even if we get rain, it’ll dry out again in this heat. So that’s on hold.

    My friends are hanging on. Most of us in the good and caring world are holding on. The Evil Ones are running rampant. Whether we’ll manage to survive them is an issue. But we’ll do our best. Together. Off to twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  12. Good morning, meeses! Monday …

    It is 73 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 93. My new weather widget says “a mix of clouds and sun” which matches what I see in the sky. We are expected to get some rain this afternoon into the evening. That may put a damper on peoples fireworks plans which would not bother me in the least. My dog is deaf so they don’t bother her any longer but they bother me when I am trying to sleep!

    It looks like Ukraine, after a valiant effort, is going to have to give up the two provinces that Russia claimed for themselves. They were prime for a takeover having been the scene of fierce fighting for years and infused with pro-Russia partisans – the battle was from within as well as from the outside. The best that Ukraine can hope for is that the country that is left will be let alone for a while so they can rebuild and that sanctions will continue on Russia so that they don’t get emboldened by a free pass for what they have done. The long game is that Russia collapses and the two provinces choose to rejoin a Ukraine that is part of the EU. The short game is that the military falls back to a more defendable position.

    I have one project that I need to work on while my clients are off today – it involves connecting to each of their computers to change a setting. I pushed it off from Saturday to Sunday and here we are on the last day of the holiday weekend. In the olden days, I could do this in the early mornings but with the 2 hour time difference, my 4am is their 6am and some people are already working remotely. I am hoping that today they are all taking the day off!

    See all y’all later!

  13. Happy July Fourth, Meese! I won’t add with “liberty and justice” for all, because there have never been liberty and justice for women, Natives, people of color, and the poor—not to mention other groups.

    Still, I’m determined to enjoy this beautiful day, the best we’ll have this week. In Ashburn it’s currently 79 F., going up to 88 F. The rest of the week will be cloudy, or so they allege.

    The screened porch has been set up as nicely as circs allow at the moment. I’d like to get it power-washed and an indoor-outdoor carpet laid down, and put out many flowering plants. I hope to accomplish this by the end of the month when my daughter and son-in-law will arrive from Texas to celebrate her birthday and Dearly’s birthday.

    First-world problem: I spent yesterday afternoon being curdled with shame, humiliation, and horror. My tart shells look so awful I almost ordered a whole bunch of them from England! Then I slapped myself on both sides of the face and texted my son, who graduated from Chef School. Last week he made a glazed pear-and-caramel custard tart. He’s coming over today to show me how to make these tart shells. Thank Goddess! Vesta or Hestia are the first who spring to mind, they preside over the hearth and home.

    I hope Nora is coming, but we’ll see. Little Karl and his Mom are in Montreal. Elder Son and family are at the Outer Banks. Everyone at the beach will have a great time on a lovely day like this!

    Peace to all at the Pond.

    • I scanned an article on the front page of my local newspaper about the phrase “All men are created equal” and how fraught that was when it was penned and how disappointing it has been since then. First, we had to look past that they did not consider black people to be human beings, that women were specifically excluded and that the “men” they were referring to were themselves, the wealthy landowners who felt insulted to be under the thumb of a monarch on the other side of the ocean. The article interviewed a right-wing “thinker” who claimed that it was to be narrowly read as imbuing the essence of “human dignity” but that it did NOT mean that there was any problem with denying rights to people they wanted to deny rights to – like Black people driving cars, Democratic-leaning voters, women who are pregnant, or people who don’t want to die in a hail of bullets while shopping or going to church or school. That is the nut of the problem – Americans have different ideas on who deserves rights – we think it is every human and the right-wing thinks it should be doled out to their favored classes. There really is no compromise available: we are simply going to have to wrest control from them and make them a permanent political minority.

      • To be clear, the list of people who need rights is not limited to the groups I mentioned. I feel the need to put that disclaimer in because I took a lot of undeserved crap from someone who essentially called me a Karen because she misunderstood what I was tweeting about related to a terrible non-Roe SCOTUS decision. Even when I explained to her what I meant by my tweet, that was not enough – apparently to her “white women” are all the same and we trample on everyone’s rights in order to preserve our own. :::insert ticked off emoji here::: In any event, I deleted the tweet and unfollowed her – life is too short.

  14. Good day, 61 and cloudy with rain showers outside my window today. I was outside when I could be yesterday, and in the laundry room because I had to be there. But I can now see the floor again and the piles are clean and folded so progress. Now I need to get it all upstairs and put away. Two more beds to go and I’ll be ready for the next round of company. To my relief no visits are scheduled yet.

    Our son was here for dinner last night but he has little appetite and looks very tired. It’s alarming to see how little energy he has. I’ll try to see him later today.

    Our 4th is usually a busy day with family and or friends and a barbeque so today seems very quiet but that’s ok. Best wishes to all.

  15. Tuesday Meese. 63 going up to 82 with rain today here in Kingston NY. Another night of fireworks made sound sleep impossible.

    Puerto Rico

    • I had high hopes for a quiet 4th since – in theory – it is illegal to shoot off personal fireworks here and the whole valley is in a potential fire zone. But no! Men with LARGE TRUCK issues (and the women who think they are cute) have to shoot off fireworks to scare the dogs and keep people from getting a good nights sleep. Our barrage mostly ended by 10pm but it is the scattered late sounds that wake you as you are dozing off that do the most damage to a good nights sleep.

      Thankfully, no pre-4th fireworks – fingers crossed that there will be no post-4th ones either. In Wisconsin, the entire week surrounding the 4th was like a war zone.

  16. Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …

    It is 73 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 93. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast. We had a brief storm last night that gave us some rain – that will cool us down for a few days and then we get into the 100s again by Friday. There is more monsoonal moisture expected on the weekend. My weather widget tells me that there are usually 13 days of rain in July – we are on a pace to meet that.

    Nothing says FreeDumb like a MAGA-poisoned young man with a gun shooting up a Fourth of July parade in a city with a large Jewish population. I am hoping that the voters who are unhappy about gas prices wake the hell up and see that the bigger problem in America right now is that one political party wants to arm everyone – regardless of their fitness to own a weapon – and point them in the direction of people Not Like Them. If that party is returned to power, we will have a civil war and no one will be happy with the end result, especially the Republican Party’s corporate enablers. They are willing to risk chaos and anarchy for low taxes and fewer regulations – and the right to accumulate more and more unspendable wealth. They could shut down the Republican Party right now if they closed their wallets to them.

    I got a lot of little projects done over the long weekend. I am not quite ready for the work week to begin but I have a good list of what I want to accomplish.

    See all y’all later!

  17. Happy Mon/Tuesday. At least I’m wfh so I can watch Le Tour. They’re in France now, after the earliest rest day I can remember so all the teams could get all their stuff moved. Awww — they just had a shot of a bunch of school kids out waving, the route went right past their school. Nothing to say about yesterday, we can’t go anywhere without the danger of being shot. We have to do something about our culture.

  18. Welp, I was starting to open up the house at 6 am when the A/C kicked on. 76 outside wouldn’t have done much cooling anyway. Heading for 99 today. Heaven knows how high the heat index will get. We generated 18.2 KWHs yesterday, on track for the day and gaining slightly – m-t-d at 65.88 (on track would have been 68). I’d need twice the PV system to handle summers like this. sigh.

    While my lack of sleep wasn’t caused by the fireworks, I could of course hear them. I guess ordinance is the appropriate “celebration” for a nation whose only real claim to fame is death and destruction. Meanwhile my brain seems to be asleep even though the rest of me isn’t. But I function reasonably well on autopilot. I’m not going to claim that anybody is doing well, but everybody’s breathing so I guess I’ll call it good.

    Off to twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  19. Good Tuesday morning, Meese. We were so tired from our exertions of yesterday that we overslept. I usually am obliged to get up at 6, but this morning it was 7:30. The walls must be pretty soundproof here because with the windows closed we could barely hear the few pops there are in a neighborhood populated by over-55s, so I fell asleep at 10:30-ish without problems.

    At the moment in Ashburger it’s 75 F., on its way to all-the-8s. It’s cloudy at the moment, with imaginary thunderstorms predicted for the afternoon. Just to be sure, I’ll take in the porch cushions before I leave to get my hair done.

    Yesterday was warm, beautiful, perfect with regard to weather. Trevor and Nora came and we all enjoyed sitting on the porch, a thing that hasn’t happed for three years. The guys sipped beer, I drank Perrier, and Nora drank iced tea. More about her later.

    No woman I know felt like celebrating July Fourth. By the time 4:30 arrived and our guests rolled in, I didn’t feel like asking Trevor to make tart shells. I’ll try again this evening if I feel up to it. Will Google whether a person can freeze baked tart shells. We missed the concert outside but I so rarely am able to enjoy the company of my family that I was just riveted, listening to their plans. Nora has already spent a week in Florida and a week in Chicago this summer, and the family are planning a vacation in England. DIL and little Karl (in Montreal at the moment) have never been there, and even Trevor hasn’t spent much time in the countryside south of London. So we’ll see.

    Time for breakfast and a VERY slow day, Meese. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.

    • No woman I know celebrated the Fourth. A young woman I know was at an event where the guy on stage started with “Isn’t our country great?” – he was met with deafening silence from the mostly GenZ crowd. I stopped joining public displays of patriotism during the Vietnam War and never got back into the habit of it even though I was tempted after the election of our first Black president. We have too many flaws, all of them exposed and festering after TFG’s reign of terror.

  20. Wednesday Meese. 68 going up to 83 and no rain today so I can get more work done cleaning the patio and backyard for the celebration on Sunday.

    Tired of arrogant people chiming in on Puerto Rico – Tribe:

    • I have never found Laurence Tribe very smart or insightful in any way. A lot of people lionize him for some reason.

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