So Mojo has a neighbor--her closest neighbor, as a matter of fact, who still lives about a quarter mile away--who has had a couple of years of bad health. In and out of the hospital sort of thing. To complicate matters, he owns a couple of German Shepherds. The dogs are fairly well behaved, although a few times a year they get loose and come up and visit us.

We can't even see his house unless we walk down the driveway to the road, and then we have a straight shot at his house, a quarter mile away. And a couple of times a year, coming back from a hike, I occasionally see this bullet come tearing up the hill--one of the dogs got out, and now is making a scary beeline right for me. I've always stood my ground and given the dog a glaring of a lifetime, and the dog always skids to a stop about five feet away and then turns tail.

Ordinarily I don't mind dogs, and I wouldn't mind these dogs, except the owner himself (our neighbor) has warned me that ONE of the two, he is afraid, might actually bite someone one of these days. I would still be okay with that if it were a Yorkie or a dachshund, but a German Shepherd is a slight cause for worry. Mojo does not care to be dogbit, but if she were she'd rather it was some little rat dog and not the sort that the government uses to kill bad guys. But I digress. But despite our neighbor's warning, neither dog--I can't tell them apart--has shown any inclination to actually bite, thank heavens. But it has always been in the back of my mind.  MORE Mojo! »

Or, "'Tis the Season..." The season of Mojo vaguely wondering WHY I bother to get dressed in the morning, since the last thing I do before leaving the house is, I load the stove full of wood. And, as careful and delicate as I try to be, I invariably end up looking like pre-ball Cinderella, just head to foot with ashes.

'Tis also the season when the tiniest bit of strife enters my otherwise happy marriage, for my Favorite Husband and I view the stove--and fire in general--quite differently. When camping, for example, Mojo is all for Prudence and Decorum, while the Favorite Husband cannot relax until our campfire is raging at least five feet in height. Since Mojo is too lazy to seriously intervene, her job is to move back from the scalding flames as they reach for her and all she holds dear, and occasionally suggesting Helpful Things like "Um, I think that's enough wood for now." He can go through what I would consider an entire NIGHT's worth of firewood in about an hour.  MORE Mojo! »

So this morning I am bopping around, doing my morning computer things, when the dog and the cat both come piling into the dog door like the Three Stooges minus one. And Rosie, the more demonstrative of the two, runs to the dining room and starts staring wildly at something out the window, so I figure something's up.

Sure enough, there's a moving black form between the garden fence and a line of an impenetrable thicket of blackberry briars. A bear. And I'm still in my bathrobe.  MORE Mojo! »

So yesterday I took my daily pictures of the little spudlings in their nest. And this morning when skipping out for whatever it is I do all day, I glanced in and shore nuff they were all there, looking up at me.

I was a teeny wee bit worried because my Favorite Husband looked in on them yesterday when he got home from work and he very casually asked something along the lines of "Ummm...are they still alive? Because I didn't see them breathing or moving or anything."  MORE Mojo! »

Okay, so right now Mojo is not thinking too kindly of ANY industry involved in heating her house. And in the midst of Mojo's heartbreaking Stove Day Fiasco, she gets a postcard in the mail from the oil company saying they're going to come clean and maintain her furnace on such-and-such a day, like a week from now.

And Mojo, speaking from the pain of heartbreak, gets a terrible, terrible idea. Of course, as we all know Mojo has her boundless love for all of God's creatures. But here she is in a nadir, a twilight of the spirit, one of those pivotal times in life where a naive innocent might get seduced by the dark side.

In other words, the thought crossed my mind to not change the cat box for the whole week leading up to when the poor oil guy comes to work on the furnace.

The cat box is about five feet from the furnace. Ratty's a big cat. He also has a rather annoying tendency to not bury things after he's done. In short, if I keep thinking along these lines of cruelty, the poor furnace guy is in for a world of hurt. At least where his nose is concerned.

I won't do it. It's not the poor furnace guy's fault oil prices are where they are and Mojo is stoveless. But the thought DID cross my mind.

Mojo

No, not in the narcissistic-greed-is-good if-I-am-sufficiently-grateful I'll-become-a-millionaire trendy sense of *Gratitude*, Inc., but rather in the simple quiet pleasure of having one's needs met. Like my garden. For the past month or so instead of having breakfast and lunch I just go out to the garden and graze. Right now the peas, carrots, lettuce, beans and squash are going nuts, so if I feel the least bit hungry I go out for five minutes and waddle back to the house stuffed.  MORE Mojo! »

A couple of years ago--the same day the pope died!--our dog George, after fifteen years of keeping the house safe from squirrels, had to be put down. We still miss ol' George. He was one of those magical smart dogs, even if he wasn't very efficient squirrel-wise.  MORE Mojo! »

We were fishing at C's pond the other day and my Five-Year-Old Friend was running around pretending sticks were guns and all the usual boy stuff. And then in the midst of his imaginative play he says, "And THAT looks like a really big SNAKE!"  MORE Mojo! »

This weekend my husband and I went up to NH to visit his parents. We stopped, as we often do, at a local diner. Typical diner fare, neither unbearably wonderful nor unbearably bad. But the highlight of our meal was our teenaged waitress. After serving us our food she left us alone and instead flirted with an apparent boyfriend/ school chum/ wandering derelict.

While I remember what it was like to be that age, and I am full of compassion for those currently wading though it, I have no overwhelming desire to relive it, especially the painful leaning-how-to-flirt phase. And she was just beginning, so it was particularly painful to be in the same room with her.  MORE Mojo! »