I'm back from Barcelona and mentally a little on the jet-lagged side, and not ready for an essay-length diatribe.

However, I've been so delighted by the many fine posts by M. Simon (including an Instalanched post) that I just can't thank him enough. It's an honor to have him blogging here. And it has made my vacation from blogging a stress-free one.

Plus, Dennis wrote a post while I was away, and now I see that Justin is working on two posts. I'm feeling positively expendable, and it feels great!

I'm also delighted by the mild weather around here. It's more like returning to California than to the East Coast, but amazingly, people around here are complaining bitterly! I overheard three people in the store today bitching about the unseasonably warm weather the same way they normally complain about the usual cold weather. (They'll get their precious cold weather too, because this won't last. And when they do, the masochistic Puritanical Ice Age lovers can bask in their well-deserved blizzard.)

Unlike the Global Warming scolds, though, Coco has a couple of legitimate seasonal complaints. Not only did I imprison her in the kennel for two weeks in wretched balmy weather, but in Spain I did things like check out the art of Joan Miró.

Among other things, he painted images like this:

Knowing that such work is on display in a musem has been too much for Coco's nerves, because last winter she worked hard in the snow and created something far more original (especially considering that she's, you know, a dog!):

Miró, meet Cocó!

But through no fault of Coco, her art last winter was tragically destroyed by a meltdown of her medium. The meltdown occurred because of human-induced climate change. And this year, Coco has no medium at all! While I've proposed a Mirovian medium meltdown cooling off period, Coco is still pissed!

Global Warming is really starting to hit home!