Dear Baby Mojo,

I hope you're enjoying your relatively idyllic, privileged and carefree childhood. You might be pleased to note that your adult version is likewise reasonably happy with how things turned out. Like that guy you'll meet when you're eighteen? The one where it was raining out and he looked like a drowned rat? Yeah, him. Turns out your stupid little moony infatuation was right: he's a really good guy, with the added bonus of getting even better as time goes on.  MORE Mojo! »

THERE, now! You SEE why Mojo reads her Mary Worth every day? Of course, I suppose it might not be so funny if you haven't been following the story this past month or so. A story, like so many of them lately, that has nothing whatsoever to do with Mary Worth, yet they plug her at the end so we remember who's the actual star of the comic strip. Besides, when one is in love, and finally reunited with one's object d'affection after years and YEARS and YEARS of separation, it is only right that one thinks of the elderly biddy who once talked to you in a diner while you brought her coffee.

It's like, Mojo has been married for over twenty years, okay? And unlike those unfortunates who get bored or angry or whatever, Mojo remains vibrantly and stupidly in luv with her Favorite Husband, at least thus far. And I can't help but suspect that one of the clues to this revolting sort of storybook happiness is, when I tell my Favorite Husband I love him, usually (usually, mind you!) I am not also privately thinking, "I love chocolate chip cookies, too!" Nor do I receive a thank-you hug from said Favorite Husband, only to turn to the camera behind his back, a la Television Commercial Wife, to whisper, "...and thank YOU, Aunt Jemima!" Because that behavior, to Mojo's Stodgy and Old-Fashioned Way of Thinking, indicates that your heart really isn't in The Moment, is it.

Not that there's anything wrong with chocolate chip cookies. I've forgotten where I'm going with this one. Have a good weekend, anyway!

Mojo

Mojo's Infamous Chicken Stew

(Feeds a family of two for about a month, or until one of them says "If you serve me chicken stew one more time by God I'm gonna kill you where you stand and no jury in the world will convict me", whereupon the stew will be put in the freezer and forgotten until we next lose power and then it will be thrown out with all the other spoiled food.)

1. Buy WAY too much chicken at the grocery store. Make sure you buy chocolate chip cookies for the ride home. (They won't spoil your appetite, because stew takes all day to make.) See a display of green beans and think, I don't need green beans, I still have bags and bags in the freezer from the garden this summer. And then remember you lost all your frozen food when the power went out for eight days last month. Go back and buy green beans. And broccoli. And carrots. Potatoes? No, there's a whole box of potatoes from the garden somewhere in the house. Don't need potatoes.

2. Cut the chicken up on the cutting board into cubes and throw it in a large cast iron pot or dutch oven. Add water up to the top. Cover it and set it to heat on the stove, but not so hot that it boils. (Optional: if you want to sound like you know what you're doing, say "If you boil it you spoil it" to interested parties. Yeah, like there are any.)

3. Remember to wash the cutting board, so that you don't come into the kitchen later and find your Favorite Husband making a sandwich on a pile of dried raw chicken goo. Which would be REALLY kinda not cool, especially if YOU'RE the one responsible for paying the doctor bills and you have your eye on, like, a new iPhone or digital television antenna. Besides which, if he eats a tainted sandwich, who's gonna eat all this stew we got here? Huh?  MORE Mojo! »

Got up nice and early to get to the voting place (aka the town's elementary school) to cast my ballot.

The great thing about small town voting is, you know everybody there, and instead of those scary computer thingies we still use folded slips of paper and pencils and big X's to denote our choices. The papers are then taken out of the box at the end of the day and counted--and I know at least three of the counters personally. So the opportunity for voter fraud is pretty slim, since the people counting them are all very nice, honest people who are trying very hard to do a good job.  MORE Mojo! »