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 69 degrees in the Desert Southwest with an expected daytime high of 87. Showers expected off and on all day.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Sunday Meese. 64 going up to 90 today here in Kingston.
Puerto Rico
Good morning. Lucky it’s down to 78 degrees, my a/c isn’t coming on. I’ve got the windows open for now, tea is steeping. I’ll head to church early, their a/c is always great. Maybe hang out at the library this afternoon, after I make my overnight oats.
Posted
It’s 69 heading for 80 and so overcast I’ve got the lights on. Hoping it will clear off this afternoon. Yesterday we generated 13.3 KWHs and the m-t-d at 287 is getting further and further behind. At this rate not only will we not produce more than last year, we’ll be lucky to produce more than the 2.5K system did in ’14 (namely 350 instead of our 450 target).
I’ve got my Sunday chores done and am eating breakfast. I haven’t checked on anybody yet today but as of last night no changes. Which isn’t good since there are some things that need to be done that haven’t been. But no emergencies or crises either. I got over 6 hours of sleep but while I’m groggy I really don’t mind being awake in the middle of the night listening to rumbly thunder and rain. After I got up and closed the west windows.
Off to twitter and Dee’s diary. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good Sunday morning, Moose Peeps! My second batch of Oatmeal-Walnut cookies is in the oven. It’s the combination of brown sugar and butter that makes these cookies, once baked, so addictive. Daughter-in-Law loves them. We’re going to Younger Son’s house for tea to hear about their visit to England.
Moosekind, I really wonder whether we’re having an early autumn. This is our 12th day when the temperature won’t hit 90 F. and it’s August, for Pete’s sake! Right now the sky is “louring o’er our house,” looking as if it’s going to rain any minute. It’s 77 F. When I took Monty out for a protracted business meeting earlier this morning, the patio was covered with yellow leaves. The wind keeps blowing them off the trees. This kind of weather makes me want to go apple-picking and puts me in the mood for gingerbread-making.
Oh, well, not really much to say except that I am so appalled by the news that I don’t want to read it. Wishing a good day to everyone at the Pond.
Good day, 71 and cloudy outside my window today. I’ve had to keep my legs up so my mind has gone on vacation :) I enjoyed Lisa and Ryan’s brief visit, we got the front porch painting finished and all the furnishings put back in place, and the garden cleaned up and watered. I haven’t dealt with the plumber trampled plants yet but I eventually will do so.
Looking forward to watching the House of the Dragon on HBO tonight. I’ve been reading the GRRM Martin book, Fire and Blood the new series is based on so I hope it will be as fun for me as watching GOT was. So now it’s time to find the dragon egg vase and make a colorful arrangement suitable for the dragons I’ll meet tonight! Best wishes to all.
Monday Meese. The weather forecast says it is raining here in Kingston. It isn’t. At least not where I live. Sigh.
Continued bad news from Puerto Rico
Pediatric wing, including NICU, of the Hospital Auxilio Mutuo, completely dark. Constant blackouts cause the hospital’s generator to collapse.
Came into work the moment the building would let me in. Too hot in my apartment to even get properly dressed. One good thing — I was here when the Space Station went over Austin. Walked up to the roof of the parking garage, since the angle was only 45 degrees and I could see it between the clouds. And at least I get to be cool until noon (when I go home to wait for the a/c guy).
I feel for ya, another! The family yesterday were describing how intolerably hot England was during their visit there. No one has air conditioning, not even the museums. It’s just not supposed to get that hot over there.
Your situation calls to mind something that happened in the 80s, at the company I was working for at the time. The a.c. failed, so the precious darling executives were whisked away to an air-conditioned hotel down the street. The peasants were left to sweat. I wore a tent dress (a dark-patterned one) and a pair of underpants, and that was all. It made the day much more comfortable.
During the heat wave, one of the Irish tourist accounts I follow sent out a tweet from a museum, inviting people in to enjoy their a/c – I guess because their collections have to be kept at certain temperatures?
Good Monday morning, Moosekind! It’s very dark this morning, so overcast that a normal person would think it’s going to rain any minute. It’s 73 F. right now and our alleged high will be 85 F. This week it’ll be more like summer, with highs touching 90 F.
It was nice visiting with Younger Son yesterday. They’ve had new flooring put in at the downstairs level and a shower installed in the half-bath, so now it’s a full bathroom. The bedroom, which has a window, was also finished and painted. Younger Son works down there and occasionally snatches a little nap on the bed when time permits. He deserves to, working two jobs as he does. I forgot he was working as a part-time sushi chef on Saturdays. Anyway, the downstairs is painted in gray, floored with gray, and so on. Too much gray can get on a person’s nerves, IMHO.
Have to go to the dentist AGAIN this morning. Today there will be coffee, thank Goddess. Yesterday we realized we didn’t have any coffee filters, so we had to make do with the little Keurig. Luckily we had some pods. It’s not the same as real, brewed coffee, though.
Today is the first day of school for Fairfax County, so Miss Teenager and Mr. Third Grader will be back in the classroom. School starts much too early for teenagers.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
Is Younger Son’s House where you had considered relocating to at one time? I guess gray is neutral but also gloomy, like an overcast sky.
Our K-12 schools here started on August 4th but this is the first day for university classes. A swarm of 35,000 young people descending on the city and emptied the store shelves near campus of every snack and warm weather clothing item. My daughter’s friends reported that there were no shorts to be found anywhere since too many freshmen arrived not realizing that it gets hot here – and the stores had a low supply! You would think that merchandisers at stores in a college town would be smarter than that – I suspect it happens every year.
Oh, my! And wouldn’t you think aspiring college students would have enough sense to goggle the climate in AZ, so they’d know what clothes to bring?
Yes, at one time we did consider moving into Younger Son’s downstairs. I realize now it would never have worked. There’s still no privacy—it’s one of those open houses, so from the kitchen you can peer right into the downstairs quarters. Besides, DIL’s attitude toward yrs truly is not such that I would like to put up with it in the same living space.
Driving back from the dentist an hour ago (I thought I would NEVER get out of there), I drove past our former house and worked myself into a real state, I wanted to move back so badly. I wonder if I’ll still feel this way after another five years.
I am coming up on the one year anniversary of the sale of my house and I do not have a single regret. I have no interest in ever being in the position again where a house repair would empty my savings and impoverish me. Plus lawn mowing and snow removal – no, thank you! I will take my chances that future rent increases will be small and covered by the reserves I put away from the house sale. I do occasionally long for More Space but I am learning to make do with what I have. When I can be outside more, it will feel more spacious – right now the temperatures do not encourage using the deck to extend the living space or visiting a park. Soon!
Well, after my little fit of nostalgia faded away, I realized the truth of the old adage: You can’t go home again, even if you want to. My children no longer need me to be a full-time or even part-time nanny-granny. Although I’ll always miss the big family meals at Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter, I’ve also realized that younger people are not as interested in the traditions I hold dear.
So, where we are in our current lives is the place we need to be. It’s true that I have people my own age to do things with—the UUs, the Progressives, the Writers’ Group, and so on—that I never had when we lived at home.
Memories of home will just have to be beautiful memories. Of course, those are somewhat influenced by the fact that I didn’t have to do the lawn mowing and snow removal (what snow?). :)
Good morning, meeses! Monday …
It is 70 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 86. Monsoon rains expected at 3pm. Yesterday’s storms manifested as clouds over the mountains to the northeast but no rain in the valley. This morning it is cloudy but I saw the light from the waning crescent high in the northeast sky. New moon on Saturday.
I have not seen yet who is blowing up Russian nationalists in Moscow but I would think that Putin’s Pals in the Kremlin might want to take stock of where they are after he has included them all in his Russian Empire fantasy. It can’t happen and the only logical outcome is wiping out any chance of recovering economically – he can’t beat NATO and all he has is nukes. Would he really unleash them on countries downwind from him? Maybe. Or maybe someone will arrest him and put him in a padded cell. I shudder to think about what would have happened if tRump had won in 2020 – would Russia be in Poland now, Finland, Sweden?
I am going to try to get ahead of the end of month and get some accounting projects up to date. The end of the month isn’t until next Wednesday so there is little breathing room but if I can get everything caught up, I can enjoy next weekend instead of scrambling to get things done.
See all y’all later!
Somewhere on Twitter – I thought it was Brandon Friedman, but I scrolled down his TL & didn’t see it – there’s a thread about how the story about the Ukrainian woman doesn’t make sense & it’s much more likely that Vlad was trying to kill the dad & missed.
It’s 69 heading for 85 and sunny at the moment. Yesterday we generated 7.8 KWHs. You’d think it was December, not August. Well, maybe we’ll get a decent generating day today. At 295 for the m-t-d we’re 20 down from being on track for 450 (60 down from being on track for 500). For points west of the Mississippi, global warming means more clouds and higher humidity but less rain. sigh.
Thanks to the nasal decongestant spray and Ibuprofen I got over 7 hours of sleep. My hands are cold but functional. So I’m good for the day. As of last night everybody was still hanging on. Which is better than not. Healing Energy to everybody – whatever that means to/for each of you.
Off to twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 70 and sunny outside my window today. I was awake and ready for the day earlier this morning but my knees were not cooperating so I went back to sleep. I’m feeling very frustrated re my creaky knees….keep thinking it can’t get much worse, then it does. And one more time I need to find a way to cope. Oh well, getting older is definitely not for the faint at heart! Best wishes to all.
Primary Election Day Tuesday in NY. 68 going up to 83 and still no real rain here. Will head out to vote around 10 AM. Then come back and look at the mess in NY primaries – Democrats shot themselves in the foot with the drafting of a nightmare gerrymander which got kicked out by the courts – and Republican plan adopted.
Puerto Rico
I wondered how the New York Congressional Districts got so messed up. Lots of drama – it sounds like needless drama. I hope we don’t end up losing seats because we can’t field the strongest candidates for the general electoin, we really will not have any to spare.
Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …
It is 72 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 86. Rain likely at about noon. No rain yesterday. Our sunset is now 6:59 pm which is the downside to having no Daylight Saving Time – it gets dark pretty early. I still prefer not changing the time but it is a bit alarming – “is that a storm coming in? no, it’s night time!” Next month is Equinox.
Sheesh, Youngkin! You get elected by the skin of your teeth by lying to Virginia’s basketful of dupables, you are despised by your constituents, you are glaringly incompetent – and your response is to start running for president? I hope he gets his ass handed to him pretty quickly. He is normal Republican-terrible but DeSantis will chop him up into little bits and feed him to the MAGA bloodlust crowds. No one can out-MAGA DeSantis. I hope that Democratic strategists are game planning how to attack him in 2024. I wish there was a way he could lose in the governor’s race but even if he lost, he would never concede and will have his minions trump up a win and send his Election Integrity Squad to arrest and imprison any dissenters.
I wonder who the feds saw entering the top secret document stash in the basement of Mar-A-Lago that made them so nervous that they chose to execute a search warrant. I hope they can get good fingerprints off the documents – I would like to see the whole tRump crime family imprisoned for their misdeeds. Maybe Jared grabbed a few documents related to Israeli nukes and gave them to his pals in Saudi Arabia to sweeten his business deal. We have possibly only two years before the investigation into tRump crimes gets shut down – no time to waste, Merrick.
I have started my “must finish” project early this morning and need to get back to it.
See all y’all later!
Good morning. We had flooding in downtown yesterday, not as bad as Dallas, and it went down overnight. Going to rain more today, so I’m glad I wfh today & tomorrow. Had bad news about the a/c. It needs replacing. They say I can finance it. Ha. Going to start asking friends if anyone knows of part time work. Really bad timing with all the UT students having just arrived, but maybe one of the campaigns has paid callers. Which is sucky work, but I can do it. Or I’ll find out what the penalty is for early withdrawl on my retirement, or can I use it as collateral for a loan. Or I’ll think of something else.
Yikes! Your home hits keep coming! I hope at least they can get it fixed quickly – you are likely to still have some hot days left.
{{{another}}} I’m glad you’re working from home today. At least if it’s not too hot with a busted A/C. I’m reasonably sure you can use your retirement as collateral for a loan. Here (TIAA-Cref) you have to do it through them and they repay it from your monthly contribution until it’s paid off – you can’t draw from it until it’s paid off and it doesn’t accrue while you’ve got a loan against it. You can pay it back early from other funds if you can find other funds so you can get back to accruing. I don’t know if TX works the same way but it doesn’t hurt to check. Healing Energy for all your needs. moar {{{HUGS}}}
It’s 69 heading for 85 and overcast. sigh. We generated 9.4 KWHs yesterday – like it was October already – and the m-t-d is at a very much not on track 304. Holding the Good Thought it clears off later today.
I baked peanut butter cocoa dessert muffin bread this morning – a TBSP each more butter and brown sugar than I put in my breakfast/midmorning break muffin bread – and had one for breakfast. Definitely sweeter than I normally start my day but still good. And the kitchen is only 76 even with having had the oven on.
Amelia’s knee is very painful – she’s on crutches – but the earliest the new doctor could see her, even telemed, isn’t until my birthday. (I hope they get a cancellation and can fit her in sooner. Not just the knee, she really needs to get back on her meds. She’s been off some of them since just before COVID got going.) Jill’s husband is still being a jerkwad (and the NM cops are apparently cheering him on behind the scenes – they certainly “can’t do anything, ma’am” when either Jill or the RV park manager call them about him) and still not having any kind of address so Jill could have the divorce papers served. It’s way too expensive – more than she gets in a month on SSI – to do it by advertising and it probably wouldn’t work anyway because since nobody knows where he’s residing nobody knows what papers to put the advertisement in. (More laws written for the abuser. Once upon a time just putting it in the paper was good enough. You didn’t have to assure that he read it, just make it available for him to read.) Everybody’s just sort of hanging on. Including me with my 3 hours of sleep last night. Healing Energy for everyone, as needed.
Off to twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Sorry about the lack of sleep, bfitz! Hope you’ll get sunshine plus better news and—I know you don’t nap, but an early night tonight?
Diana got the dreaded 406 error when she tried to post her morning greeting. She emailed it to me & I just tried but nope. There aren’t any quotation marks in it at all.
The very very very short version is she’s having computer trouble – can’t get her mouse to work. They’ve replaced the batteries & all that but still nope. And she’s got lots of computer stuff she needs to do.
If you email me the planned comment, I will look at it later today (Wednesday). If there are other nuances we need to avoid, I can hopefully identify them.
Good morning, 62 and mostly cloudy. RonK is picking blackberries so he can make the annual batch of blackberry wine. It’s a beautiful color and very tasty, especially in the winter when we need a taste of summer berries. Fortunately he enjoys berry picking.
I’m trying to decide what to do today…..staying off my knees keeps them from throbbing but I’m bored and restless. I’ve got lots of choices so something will happen as soon as I turn off the computer. Best wishes to all.
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 72 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 84. Monsoon rains expected at 10am and then at 6pm. Yesterday we had storms sweep through the area in the late afternoon and they cooled things down – regular August in Tucson is very hot when there are no storms so it was welcomed.
I was glad to see that the Democrat won the New York open seat and will fill it for a few months. I am scratching my head over why a high powered attorney like Daniel Goldman wants to be one of 435 people and likely in a minority position and under the control of Gym Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Is he prepping to run for Senate against Schumer? If so, he better have a good chance to win because his life will be miserable until then.
The first GenZ’er (25 years old!) was nominated in a D+20 seat in Florida. He is a March for Our Lives guy and an activist. I was sad to see that he is also a berner – maybe when he matures he will see the error of his ways. Idealism is nice but we need pragmatists to get things done.
I have an eyes-forward project that starts in 37 minutes and will last all morning so the rest of the news will have to wait.
See all y’all later!