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! »

So Mojo gets to her morning commitment after a long holiday weekend only to be called five minutes after she gets in and told to go home. To watch the inauguration.

To which Mojo sez, "Yay democracy!" Since about halfway along my journey I suddenly realized Miss Responsible (that would be me) did NOT load the wood stove this morning and furthermore did NOT damp it down, thereby assuring her that the fire is going to go out before she gets home.

Not that it's such a HUGE deal; just that Mojo would then have to pay the Evil Oil Companies that much more this winter.

Incidentally, they just refilled our tank. Usually this time of year we use up 180--200 gallons of oil. This bill--less than 80 gallons. That's over the span of about two months. Not too shabby.

Wood heat. It's a Good Thing. And yes, Mojo has always led a Charmed Life.

Mojo

I am being suddenly called away for the rest of the week, so this will probably be my last post until next Monday.

In the meantime, I leave you with the following thoughts. I joined YouTube the other day, late as usual. I put up my magnum opus, Squeaky Ball, the movie as a gentle reminder to others as to how tolerable their pathetic lives are compared to mine.

My intent is to put up various videos, once a week, and have a once-a-week video festival of one, illustrating Mojo's inherent jeeenyus. But I digress.  MORE Mojo! »

No video, yet. Man, what's up with Mojo? She is busy living her life is all. Too busy to digitize a minute or two of baby praying mantises.

On the other hand, yesterday while Mojo was driving to her Five Year Old Friend's house, thinking feverishly about a big hairy computer programming problem she was working on, she suddenly had a revelation that looks like it solved the whole problem. I'm about 99% sure it's gonna work. And, like many big hairy problems, the solution is so utterly simple I am ashamed for not thinking of it right off the bat.  MORE Mojo! »

Okay, it was mildly fun for a while, but now I'm sick of it. I hate trying to figure out what routes to take to get anywhere, only to find THEM closed, too. It took me over an hour to get to my Favorite Parents' house, because every road I attempted to use to go down south ended up closed.  MORE Mojo! »

Well, we FINALLY got a snowstorm worth mentioning. Although much to my chagrin most of it came down as sleet and not snow. So instead of pretty fluffy stuff we have about six inches of slimy greasy granular stuff.  MORE Mojo! »

Finished up the Olmstead video. I'm getting quite good at Final Cut Pro. And I must admit I'm an absolute whiz at Flash animations. Still it took most of yesterday to prepare it for today's meeting. So I've been busy.  MORE Mojo! »