Anecdotal Mojo

In these last few days of life with Mojo, I am feeling the need to recount some of the wonderful moments I had living my life with him. They are not in any particular order chronology-wise or other, just moments.

"Strangers in the Night"
When we moved back to the city after living the good life in Sausalito for four years, life changed dramatically for both me and Mojo. I could write a list a mile long as to how my world was recreated, but everyone has experienced a move, and mine was unremarkable from the norm. But Mojo's take on things turned dramatic from the second we started up those ninety stairs to get 'home'. Yep, I said ninety. Over the years we've lived here, those steps have helped a lot in keeping us both in shape, because for Mojo they were the only way to get down to the tree. I'm talking about THAT tree. So three or more times a day we were doing those steps. But hey, at the time we were both four years younger, had been doing three mile runs together and doing the stairs didn't seem that daunting.

Our walks were the second biggest change to our new move. In Sausalito, Mo roamed off leash peeing and pooping at his leisure in the voluminous ivy that lined the streets. There are no sidewalks, so he became adept at listening for and getting out of the way of cars. There were tons of adventures to be had on those hillside roads for both of us; the occasional raccoon or skunk for Mo, and I once met and dated a cute republican (although our affair was short lived as you can imagine).

Back in town, I leashed him for the first couple of weeks, not sure if he'd think it was okay to bolt towards a cat or another friendly looking dog. He's a smart dog and lived in the city, and in fact the same neighborhood before our stint in Sausalito, so he caught on pretty quickly. Soon we were enjoying our walks with him either a few steps ahead, or more likely lagging behind endlessly sniffing and pissing on trees and bushes.

One evening while walking a couple blocks down our street, Mojo stopped dead in his tracks and stared into the dark at a little cat walking toward him. Walking toward him! The look on his face was incredulous. Didn't this cat know she was facing off one of the all time great small creature chasers? What fool cat would have the nerve to walk TOWARD the dog who willingly (thank god for leashes) would have thrown himself over the edge of the Grand Canyon to nab one of those little scampering chipmunks? She deftly moved closer and closer as Mo lowered his head in that way all dogs do, as if to say, "One step closer and I'll..." and then she brushed her entire body right across his chest. He lifted his head and rolled his eyes upward in what appeared to my anthropomorphic eyes as a mixture of fear and ecstasy. Just then, the unthinkable happened - the cat laid down right in front of him and started writhing around on her back.

Well.
Mojo couldn't quite believe what he was seeing, and every time he looked down at her, she would stick her face toward his and he would look away. She got up and swept her body across his again and sashayed over to some bushes where she found a nice low branch to scratch her back. Mo followed but kept his distance.

This went on for a couple of weeks with the 'meet-ups' happening about every other night. Mojo was totally into it. We would walk down the south side of Green St., and when passing her house on the opposite side, he'd start scoping out the scene to see if she was there, and if she was the meandering and tree sniffing would end and he'd start trotting in her direction. And always, when she saw him she would run up to him and touch her nose to his and do that chest rubbing thing. Clearly the two of them were quite enamored with each other.

On a rainy evening, doing our usual night time walk, we approached her house. Mo looked around in the bushes, underneath the car parked in front, up and down the street. No cat. I watched him and happened to look up at the apartment building we stood in front of, and there, in the bottom floor window stood Mojo's love pacing back and forth. I grabbed him and pointed toward the window where after a few moments he caught sight of her.

It was one of those moments when a song comes to mind (at least in my mind) and that song was Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night". You know, exchanging glances, wondering what were the chances... and so on. I let him stare at her for about five minutes in that pouring rain, and then had to leash him just to pull him away.

We eventually learned the cat's name when one balmy evening her caretaker had her window open and was drinking wine around the table with friends. "My dog loves your cat."
"She's not afraid of dogs, she lives with one." I wanted to tell her that Mo and I both witnessed the cat run and hide from another dog that had walked up and interrupted their romantic interlude, meaning that she didn't love ALL dogs - but instead I asked about her name.
"Willa"
"Oh, like the writer?"
"The who?"
"Willa Cather, the writer."
"No, I'm not familiar. Just Willa."
Well it would figure Mojo would fall in love with a cat who had the same name as a writer, since he has been the sole witness to my many late nights pounding away on the computer.

It touched my heart that these two different species could seemingly fall so hard for each other. It makes me think about acceptance and that elusive unconditional love. To me, that's the best part about living with our four-legged friends, that all the best we could ever hope to be - they are.