Just a brief note to point out that today marks the sixth anniversary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' decision to allow same-sex couples to wed. Which has always made the happily-married Mojo that little bit extra happy, thinking that ALL of her friends who choose to can share in the happiness she enjoys. (Above and beyond all the legal and human rights and treating-everyone-equally ramifications, don'tcha know.)

Some of this uncharacteristic soppiness probably comes from not enough sleep after celebrating my Favorite Parents' recent renewal of their own wedding vows, which took place nearly 52 years ago come June 8. But Mojo feels the need to remind ALL of her friends--gay, straight, transgendered, whatever--that you are indeed loved. Okay, so maybe it's just Mojo love, which--let's face it--won't even get you a cuppa coffee out there in the cruel, cold world. But at least you have ONE grumpy, muttering, wild-eyed person in your corner. Besides, you can always pretend you don't know me. I understand.

Mojo  MORE Mojo! »

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Rosie, our Golden Retriever, is the nicest dog on the planet. She is also the biggest sissy I have ever met. So much so that the tiniest thing will traumatize her for days. Such as the cruelty I inflicted this weekend.  MORE Mojo! »

...aaaaannnnd, sometimes it's not.

Over on FaceBook I got into a discussion with a friend and it eventually degraded, as such topics with Mojo often do, into the admission that Mojo was indeed nekkid during whatever it was she was talking about. Which, it turns out, is nothing new. I did a search for the term "naked" on my blog and found over 25 instances of the word, usually referring to MY nekkididity as opposed to other people's. And usually I am indeed nekkid when dealing with the sundry and various creatures the cat has brought into the house.

Of course I am not ENTIRELY naked when dealing with wild animals--the first thing I do is don a pair of heavy leather gloves so I won't get bit. And since usually I am not thinking properly, often being in the middle of the night and all, I get on the gloves, go collect the creature and only THEN do I remember I should have opened the door first, since now here I am naked with both gloved hands clamped on a very scared or angry wild beast and I have to figure out how to get the door open. You would think by now I would have learned, but no. You would be mistaken.  MORE Mojo! »

So last night I got obsessed trying to solve a technical problem. One of the advantages of not having my Favorite Husband home this week is, I can thus work and obsess without him sticking his head out the bedroom door and whining that I should come to bed and stop playing with the stupid computer. One of the disadvantages, however, is I can thus work and obsess without him sticking his head out the bedroom door and whining that I should come to bed and stop playing with the stupid computer.  MORE Mojo! »

Attention all burglars: I may have alluded to this before, but in case there is any confusion allow me to reiterate: Mojo has THE WORST WATCHDOG on the face of the earth. It is to the point that, when I hear a car in the driveway, I look over at Rosie snoozing away in her bed and I say "Okay, someone's here. How long will it be before you notice?" Generally speaking they have to be walking in the house before she'll get up. I've come in and hung my coat up and flipped through the mail and checked for messages, and then finally shouted, "Okay, I'm here! I think I'll rob the house!" before I finally hear her rise up from her bed and come look at me through the balcony railing. Not come DOWN, mind you, until I ask her to--no, she'd just stand there wagging her tail if I didn't insist she come greet me properly. (And you think MOJO's lazy!)

Of course this is not the case when my Favorite Husband comes home. Oh, no, heaven forfend! Him coming home involves some sort of national holiday, the shameless flirt. Yay! Daddy's home! He's SO much more fun than Mojo, the woman who FEEDS me and BRUSHES me!

So anyway. Lately I've been waking up around three or four in the morning. I'm sure this is NOT due to perimenopause, as one friend has suggested, but instead due to a combination of my going to sleep around eight in the evening and living the vibrant, exciting lifestyle Mojo so enjoys. But since my Favorite Husband needs his beauty sleep, I tend to sneak out of the bedroom and bop quietly around downstairs until he happens to get up, which is around five. Early on I tried to get the dog to come with me, but she is such a slugabed I usually don't try anymore.  MORE Mojo! »

Yep, woke up this morning to snow. Not TONS of it, just flakes in the air. And the beaver ponds all have a skim of ice on them, and that skim is fluffy with just the lightest dusting of snow. It's not sticking anywhere else, but it is there to remind Mojo that the snow is not over yet.

And speaking of chicken-hearted lily-livered cowardice, after a fitful night's sleep full of nightmares and guilt, it dawned on me this morning that I have YET to attempt to install the new hard drive I bought for my laptop. Why? I've replaced components in towers a GAZILLION times.  MORE Mojo! »

The two males of the household are my Favorite Husband and Ratty Cat. They have been somewhat at odds since day one. Granted, my Favorite Husband from the beginning is admittedly not particularly fond of cats. But he likes most animals, and since I have always had cats he's always put up with them well enough. And Ratty, for his part, has to be one of the sweetest cats I've ever owned, very social, and he will climb into just about any available lap. Which is often my Favorite Husband's in the evening. So the two of them sit together practically every night and no doubt conspire against us female sorts.  MORE Mojo! »

But I only have an hour of laptop battery, so this will be quick.

Woke up at one thirty with no power. Couldn't get back to sleep because every five minutes a branch was cracking and falling, and every half hour or so a whole tree came down, which shook the house.

This morning's light we see WHY we have no power. A tree fell on our lines and ripped them from the house.

Time to call the power company! No doubt they are sitting around twiddling their thumbs, so they'll be happy to hear from Mojo.

Mojo

Does TWO things, actually. Goes to see two CGI movies, and adds another jewel to her already dazzling crown.

We saw WALL-E last weekend, and it was ho-hum. Sort of like the much-worse movie, Robots, in the sense that it seems to be mostly a visual idea than a story, but it's much more tolerable than Robots, at least. And much, much better than Pixar's biggest bomb in my book, the charmless Cars. WALL-E is at least charming, and at times visually breathtaking, but the first act quickly becomes utterly dull. I suppose it's hard to depict a routine life without making it dull, but this particular dullness has a real-time feeling to it which makes it all the more tedious.

Not to say it didn't have anything to offer. But nothing spectacular. I was able to sit through it, and it didn't put me to sleep, but five minutes after it was over I couldn't remember anything substantial about the movie to save my life. Which is better than, say, Cars, where I was left with a feeling of being totally and completely ripped off, but not by much. And much better than the aforementioned Robots, which used to be the WORST OF THE LOT until Cars came along to dethrone it.

I much preferred Kung Fu Panda, which I saw while on vacation a few weeks ago. Not that it was jeen-yus or anything, but it too had its visual moments and the story was stronger. I particularly liked the design of the opening sequence, a very pretty fantasy that made me hope the whole movie was going to be that way and not what it was, which is plain ol' vanilla CGI. Still it was better than WALL-E as far as story and charm goes. And I'm not that HUGE of a Jack Black fan, so that's sayin' sumfin.

My Favorite Husband chose NOT to see Kung Fu Panda, so I went with my Favorite Brother and my Favorite Adopted Brother. We had a good time without him, and all he saw was comparatively sucky movie WALL-E. His loss. Now he'll have to wait for it to come out on DVD, since while I enjoyed it for the piece of fluff it was it's really not worth paying for the privilege of seeing it again.

But wait! What's the whole jewel thing-in-the-crown, Mojo?  MORE Mojo! »

Mojo has spent the last four days--after a solid WEEK of car trouble, mind you!--with the sort of digestive trouble that makes one feel as if one has been repeatedly kicked in the stomach for several days in a row. Plus we had to Visit People this weekend, and Mojo is not much good at being in polite society. What with her hating other people and all.  MORE Mojo! »