Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: July 24th

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.

32 Comments

  1. Puerto Rico

  2. Good morning. Another super hot one. Watching astronomy TV and eating breakfast. One more wfh day then 2 loud in-office ones. Local news is running a story about how the heat is affecting mental health. The women’s Tour de France is going well. I’m catching highlights on Twitter.

  3. Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …

    It is 73 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 88. Partly cloudy skies with a chance of rain after 3pm.

    I only have time for a quick scan of the news as I have to get a few things out the door before 8am – including me for an appointment! I am really unhappy about what Democrats are doing in an attempt to find the worst possible Republican opponent for the general elections. Expecting Republicans be repulsed by gross and disgusting low-intelligence politicians is failing to understand their party’s recent history. If we end up with a Congress filled with QOP idiots, how does that help us? It is bad enough to hope for the worst possible opponent but to actively promote them is foolish. I wrote about this once – let me see if I can find it.

    See all y’all later!

  4. From 2012: The Edge of the Cliff is Too Close for Comfort

    Aside from the fact that it would say a lot (not nice, by the way) about our country if a major political party nominated someone who was clearly ignorant and plainly unqualified, it would be crazy for us to want to play chicken with our country.

    I turned out to be prescient! In 2016, people were convinced that tRump was too gross to be elected president and now our democracy is facing an existential crisis. Don’t do this again.

  5. It was 81 when I woke up and the A/C was on. And has cycled on twice in the 2 hours since then. sigh. At least it’s sunny. For now. Forecast says clouds (a certainty) starting later this afternoon/evening and rain (maybe) tonight. Yesterday we generated 18.8 KWHs. The m-t-d is 460.5 and on track for over 500 for July with 5 days left in the month.

    Sinusitis flare last night that finally settled down around 2:30 am and let me get some sleep. I’m groggy of course. But hanging on. As everybody was yesterday, some in better shape than others but still hanging on.

    Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. Off to twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  6. Good Wednesday, Moosekind, “Dianer the Whiner” here, ready to complain about having to go to the doctor for a CAT scan (why?), complain about my weight (what in the di-diddley hail is causing this?), and most of all, about the dawg.

    No sooner had we paid $1,100 the day before yesterday to have the carpets cleaned so they’d look decent for Daughter’s visit, than Monty scarfed grass this morning and barfed greenly all over the dining area carpet! What a monster! And after he was so good all yesterday while Dearly was away—I didn’t have to scream or curse at him even once! Why the hell would a dog want to eat grass that’s rank with the, uh, offerings of other dogs and poisoned with whatever fertilizers they use here? Even if I worshipped the Great God Pan, I wouldn’t do that.

    Well, anyway, the ugly gray clouds of this morning have given way to sunshine and blue skies. It’s 77 F. now, 87 F. later. There is the possibility of thunderstorms every day this week, but if it lives up to what usually happens—not much at all–Saturday and Sunday are supposed to be nice. Yesterday it rained after dinner (not a rumble of thunder nor a flash of lightning, if you please), when it was becoming too dark to enjoy it. Once again I curse myself for not growing tomatoes this year. I’d hardly have had to water at all. Luckily my neighbor the hall is very generous and gives me a tomato from time to time.

    I’m still much exercised about the long-term care insurance. I was supposed to reply to them before Friday but that’s not going to happen.

    Well, enough of my whining. Hope everyone at the Pond will have a lovely day. I’m going to put the porch cushions out so we can at least sit out there for morning coffee. See y’all later!

  7. Good morning, 74 and sunny outside my window today. Marcus, the tree guy, will be here soon to prune the camellia that is now as tall as the house, two rhodies that have grown to tall for their spaces, and some branches on the aspen trees that are filling our neighbors gutters with leaves. Years ago my challenge was designing and planting our garden and now the challenge is maintain mature plants so they will be healthy and less overwhelming in size. I can’t prune on a tall ladder anymore so I’m grateful Marcus is willing and able, even more grateful he has the skill to shape mature plants and not ruin them. I did fill the pool last evening, but will wait until Marcus and his helper are finished before I use it. I’m a mature sight/size now as well!

    Best wishes to all.

    • The “skill to shape mature plants and not ruin them” is not something people are simply born with. I am glad you found someone who does a good job. There are few things worse than a badly pruned tree or shrub that you have to live with until it grows back. At my last house, there were a couple of trees that really needed pruning and I could never get anyone out to give me a solid estimate. One tree finally got so unwieldy (and also had some disease) and I just had it removed rather than get it pruned and the disease treated and have the problems come back. Now the trees I enjoy are other people’s responsibility. :)

  8. Another 100+ degree day, and we’re not even at the hottest part of the year yet. Watching the Women’s Tour through twitter. Some poor brogressive dude wandered into a thread of Courtney Milan’s last night — and he’s still arguing. He thought he could just “what do you know, you write about corsets” and all the little girls would see the error of their ways. Ugh.

  9. Good morning, meeses! Thursday …

    It is 73 degrees and muggy in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 91. Rain expected after noon. I keep waiting for when I can slide open the patio doors to let the cool air in – it won’t happen as long as the humidity is over 80% and by the time it drops, we are into the upper 80s.

    Manchin has flipped back – we need to get his vote quickly so that he doesn’t change his mind again. I am not sure yet what carrot he got (and I am sure we will hate it) but in my mind if it saves the planet from burning up it will likely be worth it. I suspect that gas prices coming down helped make the deal possible – even Manchin knows that if his failure to help people desperate for health care support is linked back to a temporary blip in gas prices he will look pretty bad.

    I got my project with the hard deadline (and penalties for late reporting) finished but now I have a hard deadline with “looking foolish” penalties that I need to get done. This past month was busier than normal and the accounting things always seem to be pushed off. The end of the month is a Sunday so I need to get some things done Friday morning.

    See all y’all later!

  10. Good Thursday morning, Meese! It’s currently 77 F. in Ashbugged, going up to 89 F. with thunderstorms arriving after noon—or so they allege.

    A lot has been happening. First of all, after my CAT scan (which lasted only a few minutes and the feline in question, an elderly marmalade type, went to sleep during it)—I went to have my hair done and shop for a few items at the store. During this time Daughter texted that our cousin had died, the poor man. I knew immediately that this would alter plans for the weekend.

    The funeral is on Saturday, so on Sunday afternoon Daughter and SIL will fly into National Airport (I refuse to call it by anything other than its original name), head toward their BB, and we’ll go out to a New Mexican dinner. I’ll still see her on Monday, which is her birthday (and our Sister Moose Denise’s birthday as well).

    I can’t go to the funeral, so I thought instead of sending flowers, which last only a few days, I’ll contribute the same amount to the scholarship fund named after my poor cousin. Along with other donations, it will help someone to attend college. Our hometown is not famous for its wealth.

    The other news is that Monty stole my sandwich right off the plate yesterday! I had made a particularly nice sandwich with Irish Farmhouse Brown Bread plus some cheese, and planned to drink water with my meal. While I was fetching the water from the kitchen, he stood up on his hind legs and snatched it off the little table on the porch! I told him he was a Very Bad Dog and refused to cuddle him the rest of the day.

    But every day is a new day, so this morning I walked him in the steam-bath outdoors after breakfast and now he’s passed out on the sofa. Good. Dearly has MORE doctor appointments this morning, so I’d better get busy on my tasks.

    Wishing everyone at the Pond a good day and hoping we’ll all enjoy the coming weekend.

  11. It’s 79 heading for 93 but overcast. We got a little rain yesterday and are expecting more possibly this afternoon and definitely for the next 3 days. So July is going out cloudy and wet. Yesterday we generated 16.3 KWHs. The m-t-d is 476.98 – IF these last 4 cloudy & wet days manage to generate 50 KWHs between them, well cover the A/C usage and stop drawing from the “bank”. If not, then not.

    I managed more sleep but I still feel groggy. I hope to heaven that’s not my “new normal”. It could “just” be the heat. We shall see. As with whole boatload of other issues. Meanwhile we’re all still hanging on. Holding the Good Thoughts for us all.

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

    • This weekend I am going to do the second step of the “cleanup” that will get the security up to date. I did not want to do it all at once – I also had hoped that the upgrade I did last week would have fixed the issues. Thanks for persevering!

  12. Good morning, meeses! Friday …

    It is 68 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 95. It is raining now and has been raining since at least 2:30 when I was awakened by the heavy downpour and thunder. We have been having flash flood warnings in the area; where we live is not in danger but a lot of the roadways have places where you need to be alert to the potential for the washes getting filled and flooding. Yesterday, there was a warning of a flood wave of 4 feet heading down the Cañada Del Oro wash; that would definitely sweep your car away if you were not alert. I don’t need to drive anywhere, I can walk across the street to the grocery store if I need anything. Later this morning I will go there to buy my winning Mega Millions lottery ticket. I will use some of the winnings to start a Retire Sinema PAC to find a Senator who is not funded by corporate interests who hate our planet. She is the poster child for the Green Party – just say both parties suck, grift some money from people who think that GREEN means you care about the planet and then vote the way your corporate sponsors and your BFF John Cornyn want you to vote. Disgusting.

    I am up earlier than usual and will use the time productively by finishing the “must be done in July” things and contacting clients to make sure I have what I need to work on their projects over the weekend. Monday is August!

    See all y’all later!

  13. Good morning. Super hot and getting hotter. Not much going on, too hot to think. The Women’s Tour is still going well. I think the brogressive dude finally got tired of being dunked on by the “ladyporn” – his word – community. But he gave them great ideas for items for the next Romancing the Vote auction.

  14. Good Friday morning, Moosekind! It’s overcast AGAIN, 74 F. in Ashbug-filled, on its way up to 82 F. Showers are predicted for some time or other. Yesterday at dinner time, after teasing us with black clouds all day, the heavens opened to allow torrential rain to fall for 10 minutes. It even swept into the screened porch. Raindrops are still clinging to the window panes so Dearly thinks we must have had some rain overnight.

    Have almost finished Daughter’s milestone birthday letter, even found some fetching scroll images to insert at the top and bottom. However, I forgot to add a sentence about her million-dollar smile (I call it her Elizabeth Taylor smile), so will have to go back and put that in. So relieved that it’s finished. One down and two to go!

    Couldn’t get an appointment at the nail salon until 12:30 today, so will concentrate on tidying the place and working on the short story which, I’ve realized, to my bone-dissolving horror, is due to the Writers’ Group on 4 August. We circulate our offerings the week before the meeting so that all can read, think, and comment on paper, then we discuss the comments in class.

    Because Daughter is now flying in on Sunday, we are free to accept an invitation to little Ethan’s birthday supper tomorrow. I hope he likes the dinosaur eggs, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt, and the other things. As I may have noted before, DIL no longer belongs to the fearsome-sounding Mothers of North Arlington (MONA) email group. The mothers pass toys around that the children outgrew or became bored with. Ethan has owned a car and a motorbike, neither of which is in evidence now, so I presume they have been passed on. Jolly good idea to recycle, though!

    That’s enough from me this morning. Wishing all at the Pond a good day!

  15. It’s 72, overcast, off and on raining, heading for 83. I’ve got the house open and the fans on to bring some of that coolth into the house. I might not have to turn the A/C back on today. Which would be good. We only generated a bit over 9 KWHs yesterday. The m-t-d at 486 is still on track but we aren’t going to make it to “cover A/C” goal (520) although we might/probably will make it to 500.

    I’m gonna treat myself to Mexican food take out for dinner tonight – and then stop at Harp’s on the way home for eggs so I can bake in the coolth of tomorrow morning. Might get some different dried fruit. I’m tired of raisins. LOL. I made chocolate pudding in this morning’s coolth. But the pudding is only 5 servings. The muffin bread will be 24 and maybe even carry me to the next cool spell.

    Everybody’s stressed out and tense – for a variety of personal reason on top of the ever-increasing background level due to multiple pandemics, war, price increases, and extreme weather due to global warming. So Healing Energy and Good Thoughts for everybody. I’m off to twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  16. Good morning, 62 and sunny with a high of 82 later today. Yesterday was a hard day…..our son is back in the hospital because the C scan shows the infection has returned, and that explains the shortness of breath. His doc was trying to arrange out patient care for him, but it all got to complicated so he finally got a bed last evening. Now he’s on iv blood thinner meds, waiting for a chest drain and pic line to be put in and then another round of more targeted antibiotics. The infectious disease doc is very good but the lung doc may have a different plan there is still some uncertainty. I’m relieved he is getting the care he needs, but I’m very worried.

    It was to warm to do all the pruning we had planned to do because the heat would shock the plants, so Marcus will come back next week to finish. I used my nervous energy yesterday and pruned the Rougsa Rose that was shading the veggie garden and then recovered in the little pool. Today I’ll make a birthday bouquet for Emma (20 yrs!) and a cope as best you can bouquet for our son and then rest in the pool again. Best wishes to all.

    • {{{princesspat}}} Prayers Up/Healing Energy for your son. And you. moar {{{HUGS}}}

    • Oh, no! So sorry to hear that your son has the infection back but very glad to hear that this time he is getting the care he needs. One wonders if he had had the proper care last month if he would be dealing with this again.

  17. Saturday Meese. 68 going up to 86 and cloudy here in Kingston. Wanted to post this here because of how well-ignored events with MVP Harris are.

  18. Puerto Rico

    LULAC

  19. Another hot morning & day ahead. Finally got the packet for the special assessment meeting. $44,000. They say we can finance through the HOA, but it still makes me nauseous. I’m going to see if I can borrow against my City retirement, or how soon I can start withdrawing it. Still contributing to the State one, and apparently will never retire, but that City fund has been sitting for 20 years. It’s not much, I only worked there about 6 years, just enough to be vested, but it’s not zero.

    • {{{another}}} that totally sux! I hope you can find a path out of this quagmire not of your making. Healing Energy, Good Thoughts, & moar {{{HUGS}}}

    • What a nightmare for you! This is one of the reasons I was glad to walk away from home ownership, single family or otherwise. Any money I spent on home repairs had to come out of my very modest retirement funds. My furnace and a/c replacement last August was essentially borrowing off the proceeds from my planned house sale. I know that renting means being subjected to rent increases but for at least one year at a time, I can put that worry aside. I hope things work out for you!

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