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.
…
Good Wednesday morning, Moosekind! It’s 52 F. in Ashburn, going up to 55 F. later, with cloudy skies. Tomorrow the temperature will plummet.
Just back from our bimonthly Building Coffee morning. People here are so kind! A lovely woman who lives upstairs and does the costumes for our plays finished sewing on gold buttons to my “Open Mic” dress. She also lent me some gold earrings to wear. Another neighbor said she had a black dress that was for special occasions that she’d give me. Lawks, I won’t have to buy any clothes for years! Still another friend gave me a fake black leather jacket (love it), a pair of grey trousers, and a pair of dark (rather snug) jeans. I can always use more jeans.
Off to drop some food offerings at the box for Loudoun County Hunger Relief. Then home to do various chores before Physical Therapy at 3:45 p.m.
My neighbor may not have that awful cancer after all. He has a new doctor who’s going to try some different tests.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond.
Good afternoon, meeses! Wednesday …
It is about 70 degrees and quite sunny. Tomorrow will be warmer.
I got caught up in a series of client crises this morning and then needed to run an errand. By the time I cleared my “must be done” list it was 2pm and I needed lunch and to finish my daily puzzles.
See all y’all tomorrow!
Thursday Meese. Going up to a “hot” 40 today here in Kingston.
Puerto Rico
“Puerto Rico is fed up with the manipulations of the PNP. Unlike Jenniffer González and Thomas Rivera Schatz, who, like weathervanes, repeat the lies that suit them best at each moment, I do not speak for Trump nor for any government. I speak for principles and values that I defend without getting distracted by attacks. Now that 2026 begins, let us not get distracted. The most important problems for our people are the most basic ones: economic opportunities, energy, health, education, and real democracy.”
Hurricane Melissa
Good morning. Yesterday I made it to kickboxing then I was glued to the couch by a channel playing How The Universe Works all day. It is cold today, not going outside till afternoon. I do need to think of what lunch to make for when I go back to work. (vegetarian, freezable so I can make 2-3 weeks’ worth, doesn’t need to be heated so I don’t have to wait in the microwave line).
It’s 19 heading for 46 and looks like it’s going to be sunny. Maybe. Yesterday we generated 6.55 KWHs and the m-t-d at 90.37 is on track and gaining.
Saw the little sliver of moon this morning as I was putting out birdseed and catfood just before dawn. Always a blessing. The buckwheat pancake recipe I was trying turned out to be more of a crepe recipe than a pancake recipe. So we cut our ham into strips and had “roll-ups” for dinner. With maple syrup. It was quite nice – but I think I’ll adjust the recipe a bit for actual pancakes the next time we do it.
Rough night. Not any particular reason I can think of but I kept waking up. Got back to sleep relatively quickly – not awake long enough to give up, turn on the lights, and read but definitely not straight back to sleep. If I managed a single full sleep cycle I’d be surprised. Oh well. There’s still boosting to do. Holding the Good/Healing/Protecting Thought for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Good Thursday morning, Meese! It’s 29 F. in Ashburn, overcast and windy. I never see Herself nowadays.
I had to make a phone call at exactly 10 a.m., and I have a full, grim day of banking chores. Granddaughter is coming over about 6 after her tutoring. I’ll be glad to see her, of course.
Have developed a nasty cough, even though I put on a mask when I leave this apartment. The cough kept me awake a good bit of the night, so Bfitz, I thoroughly sympathize. Hope to get to the gym sometime before 6 p.m.
It’s SO HARD TO BELIEVE that the Rotting Pumpkin thinks we can just take over any country we want, make Canada the 51st state, Greenland the 52nd, and so on. What’s next, annexing Iran? They’re all insane. I know this wasn’t a perfect country before Mango Mussolini arrived on the scene (ask any Native or Black citizen), but I used to think the USA had some decency. Now we have none.
On Saturday January 17th the first female governor of Virginia will be sworn in, along with the first Muslim lieutenant governor and the first Black attorney general. YAY! And Virginia has a hugely lopsided House now, two-thirds Democratic—ha, ha! Plus, we have two more votes in the Virginia Senate and the lieutenant governor is, as I said, a woman and a Democrat. All those people whose livelihoods were ruined by Melon Husk and Rotting Pumpkin are slit-eyed with fury. Having once been a civil servant myself, I know that they work just as hard as anyone else.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond. I’m off to take some cough medicine. I hate this! I’m supposed to sing Monday night and Tuesday afternoon, Goddess help us all.
Hurray for Virginia! They deserved so much better than the Fleece Fascist.
Good morning, 45 nd sunny in Bellingham today. Ron and Ava are exploring an Eagle nesting site today so they will have lots of photos to share. I’m resting, but Elsa is here so I’ve got a busy companion. Sue is also here so my house is getting some attention. I have a lab appointment soon and after I need to see if I can fix a non responsive keyboard on my desk computer. I’ve done all the easy fixes and the next steps seem complicated so I may need to look around for a replacement. Computers should last longer! Best wishes to all.
Thursday is nearly gone! I was off the grid all day and now have my feet up. Gorgeous weather, 72 and sunny, and I was able to be outside to enjoy a lot of it.
See all y’all tomorrow!
Friday Meese. It’s 20 degrees here atm going up to 30 they say. Lots of my friends are sick atm – with either flu or COVID. Ugh.
Puerto Rico
Hurricane Melissa
Good morning. It is supposed to freeze Saturday night, and I have a lot of plants so one project for today is to take all the elevated ones down and bunch them all up. Tomorrow I’ll cover them, then Monday I’ll put them back where they belong.
Jan! I thought this was so cool
Great!
It’s 31 windchill 25 and trying to be sunny. Yesterday we generated 8.23 KWHs – yes, the days are getting longer – and the m-t-d at 98.61 is on track and gaining ground.
The construction sites next door are currently making lots of noise as trucks, heavy equipment, and cement mixer/pourers do a lot of backing and forthing. sigh. I am not happy with a dozen new houses, ugly houses at that, going up on what had been grassy and brushy empty double lot and riparian buffer but I will certainly be glad when all the actual building is done. All the promises of environmental anythings – including floodwater amelioration/prevention were lies. Surprise. But then our new mayor’s campaign was all lies too. I didn’t trust her and voted for Mayor Jordan again. Blue-collar worker and union man before he was elected. “Mayor Molly” was and is a developer.
Oh well. Need to get Cloud’s meds today. They were out when I called in the refill for Wednesday. At least I did have enough left to get through until today. Otherwise, it’s just another day. Off to start my boosting. Holding the Good/Healing/Protecting Thought for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Good luck with the keyboard, princesspat! Yes, computers SHOULD last longer! Nora came over and installed the external keyboard for the Mac and did a lovely job.
Good Friday morning, Moosekind! It’s 27 F. here in Ashburnikins, going up to a whopping 35 F. Too cold to go out, really, but I may have to.
Many boring things to do this morning involving banks. I have physical therapy at 1 p.m. and if it finishes in time, I could possibly make it upstairs rill fast to look in on the diabetes support group meeting. The leader of that group had to change the meeting time from 11-12 to 1-2, and I didn’t know about it until she sent the email. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I had a great night’s sleep last night! Wow. The cough still isn’t completely gone, but I’m feeling MUCH better! May defer auditioning for “Into the Woods” until the second round of auditions on Wednesday the 21st, just to make sure the cough is gone.
Went to see my neighbor across the hall yesterday. He assured me that he is doing all right, and told me not to worry about him. He’s facing a very unpleasant, invasive procedure. I told him if he needs anything to let me know, even if it’s just listening (without judgments or advice), and he thanked me.
My darling granddaughter, who came over last night for dinner and computer chores, will be 17 a month from today. I can’t believe I used to be her nanny-granny! Asked her how she’s doing in school (she’s a junior), and she said she’s in all AP courses, and two of them are difficult. She hopes to attend college in Florida. She’ll be in a volleyball tournament in Richmond, Virginia, this weekend.
Elder Son and lacrosse whiz grandson are in Florida for a tournament. Gad, all this must be expensive! Of course, Eric always uses points he’s accumulated on his credit card so he can fly, but it still must be expensive. When the kids were growing up, it was all we could do to afford an annual visit to the beach in Maryland.
Different times. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
Good evening, meeses! Friday …
It was 70ish and sunny today, not as warm as yesterday but nice.
I am 5 days from getting past my January hard deadlines then I can run my life and my business on my schedule.
Getting ready to watch some Unrivaled Women’s Basketball League games. My favorite team, the Rose, is playing the late game so I may have to watch it off the cloud DVR tomorrow.
See all y’all tomorrow!
Good morning, meeses! Saturday …
It is 46 degrees in Tucson 🌵 with an expected daytime high of 72. Sunny skies are in the forecast. Yesterday I saw the prettiest waning crescent in the ESE sky just before sunrise. She will be new Sunday at 12:51pm MST so I will not likely see her until she starts waxing.
We live in such shambolic times. The Rotting Pumpkin appears to be failing physically and is clearly mentally incompetent but he has enough henchmen to prop him up and deliver on his increasingly demented demands and fantasies. You wonder what it would take for Republican electeds to decide to rein him in. It almost looked as though the Venezuela incursion might be a bright line but most of the Senators who chastised him folded like cheap suits. In Phoenix, a Navajo man was detained by ICE for four hours because he didn’t look ‘Murican and they would not let him produce his identification which was in his car. I hope Justice Kavanaugh’s children, when they grow up, come to despise him for the “Kavanaugh Stops” he authored which allow federal law enforcement to conduct stops based on a person’s perceived ethnicity, spoken language, and occupation because “what’s the big deal, they just have to show their ID and they will be let go!” May a colony of fire ants take residence in his shorts.
I have many things to do but I can do them at my own pace today. Most of my clients are working on Monday so I don’t get a three day weekend from work but I do have today and tomorrow.
See all y’all later!
From yesterday morning, waning crescent at the edge of the mountains, near sunrise:
Lovely. It’s been cloudy here the last few mornings so I haven’t been able to see her. Thank you.
Beautiful. So calming to look at. Thanks for sharing.
Good morning. Getting ready for kickboxing. Later today: groceries and cooking. My neighbor gave me a bunch of kale, so my beans & greens for lunch next week will be extra yummy. But first, punching things. I had decided not to cover my plants, to just bunch them up. But now they’re saying it’ll get down below 30, which means freezing for longer than I had thought. So maybe I will cover them…..it’s a lot of work though. The wind will be from the north, my porch faces south, so as long as I pull them all in close, they should be okay, right?
If your porch is sheltered enough the wind can’t get to them they should be OK on a south-facing porch really close to the house. {{{anotherdemocrat}}}
It’s 19 heading for 37 – the windchill won’t get above freezing – and the clouds are clearing off. They’re supposed to come back midday. I hope the widget’s wrong. As it so often is. Just not usually about cloud cover. Yesterday we generated 6.55 KWHs and the m-t-d at 105.15 is ahead of on track. For the time being anyway.
Welp, with 6 houses there was already a lot of impervious surface where this time last year there’d been old cow pasture but now there’s a heck of a lot more impervious surface – like most of the crest of the hill/rise/high point on this street. And no sign of any kind of flood remediation. I hope anybody along Little Hamestring Creek who gets flooded out from this point on sues “Mayor Molly”. Of course the suit would actually be against the city and it would be tax dollars paying the damages rather than the mayor herself who shifted the city’s priorities from “protect the citizens & the environment” back to “build build build”. Sigh.
There’s a whole lot of wrong stuff going on that I can’t do anything about. But I can post folks needs so I’d best be about that. Holding the Good/Healing/Protecting Thought for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Posted
Mah lands, Meese, it’s SNOWING this Saturday morning! Yep, big fat white flakes. Snow is very rare in Northern Virginia nowadays. It’s supposed to disappear into sunshine later, but, ah, it’s starting to stick to the grass.
Don’t know if I can go out and get that light bulb at Lowe’s. It’s a 25-watt, pointed clear glass one that lights up the fake woodstove. I’m bitterly dithappointed. I actually unscrewed the back of the woodstove yesterday, vacuumed up all the dust, and went out to Batteries ‘n’ Bulbs to get the replacement bulb. NATURALLY, they did not have it. I also went to UPS to find that they don’t make color copies of important legal documents.
Yethterday, therefore, was a bummer, with all the first-world problems. However, when I finish my tiresome photography chores this morning, I’ll need to get ready to help our beleaguered Secretary set up for the Drama Club meeting. The meeting lasts from 1 to 3. After that I devoutly hope I can get a nap before meeting my friend for dinner at 5. After dinner we’re going to the movie next door. Forget what it’s called, but it’s about a woman who is the only hearing person in her family.
oday our first female governor will be inaugurated. Our choice this year was between Winsome (she isn’t, actually) Searles, a gun-totin’, conservative-votin’ ex-lieutenant gubernator, and middle-of-the road Abigail Spanberger. Last night Abigail, who evidently subscribes to the adage “a new broom sweeps clean,” fired the three conservative, DEI-hatin’, lib’rul-baitin’ members of the University Board. Good.
Yikes, it’s half-past nine! Must get going. Sent my daughter-in-law a dozen red roses for her birthday today. She’s in Richmond with Nora, who is playing in a volleyball tournament.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
Good morning, 46 and sunny in Bellingham. It’s nice to see color in the sky but it seems very bright after so many cloudy days. Yesterday I took my old Betty Crocker and James Beard cookbooks to a local book binder. It was fun to see his shop and to talk with him about old books. He can fix the broken bindings and loose pages for about the cost I expected so I’m pleased. I can’t do a damn thing about fixing the mess in this country but I can restore my well used cookbooks.
I don’t want to buy a new computer but looks like I have to because updating the BIOS system didn’t fix the keyboard. So a trip to Best Buy will happen this afternoon and I hope my foggy brain can cope. Best wishes to all.