Teagan is warning young lovers, Tim and Laurie, to escape from the sinister circus before they too become a whiter shade of pale — Teagan Riordain Genevien.
Teagan had the idea for her and me to collaborate on a Halloween-themed music video. We chose “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” by Procol Harem. Teagan produced wonderful images of herself, Laurie, and me for me to use in the video, and she sounds great, as always. She wrote a really cool story to go with the video that you can read on her accompanying post at https://wp.me/p30Tpb-9R4.
Halloween Kitties
N
Nightmare on Elm Root Road
Reincarnation Newborn into an elm root Got mauled by a dog
When I was young, the Rio Grande would flood into the Bosque in the springtime and then dry up completely by the end of June and stay dry until the middle of July or the beginning of August after the monsoon rains started. After Cochiti Dam opened in 1973 and the Conservancy started holding water in Cochiti Lake, the spring floodwaters were controlled along with the flow of the Rio Grande. The river has not flooded into the bosque in Corrales in 50 years. The Rio Grande is currently running at its “natural flow,” according to the Conservancy, and it is down to a trickle on the west side of the sand bar at the Alameda Bridge, 3.5 miles south of where we live.
Standing on the bed of the Rio Grande looking north at Alameda Bridge.
Alameda Bridge, looking at the old bridge, now pedestrian. You can see the pillars of the new bridge on the other side. Note the large, rusty pipe running under the bridge. When I was in middle school, I used to get kicked off the school bus often, so I had to walk 6 miles to school, including crossing the old Alameda Bridge. One morning, a friend, who also got kicked off the bus, was walking to school with me. I decided to add some excitement to the walk and tried crawling across the river on the big pipe (painted back then). The river was running low, and while trying to crawl around one of the brackets that held the pipe to the bridge, I slipped off the pipe and fell into the river. I got to school half-wet, my clothes were drying out by the time I got to school, and I was covered with crusty mud. People used to tell my mom I would grow up to be a no-good-for-nothing delinquent. Now that I think about it, I’m grown up and old enough to go on Medicare; those people were right. If I hadn’t dropped out of high school, I could consider going to the 50th high school reunion in 2026. Then those folks who are still alive could say, “I told you so!”
Intermission: Tradescant Rose.
Rio Grande archipelago
I believe this is a boat launch/landing area for rafts, canoes, kayaks, paddleboards, and the annoying airboat the Fire Department uses to patrol the river when the water is high.
At the end of Wormhole Part Three, Captain Fremont was overwhelmed by El’s technology and his unbelievable stories about the future. It gets worse.
“Please sit down, Sir? I need to explain a few events that will happen in the future to put this satellite map into context,” El explained as he sat back in the chair looking at the bewildered captain.
“In the future, the USA and many other countries launch what are called satellites into orbit above the earth’s atmosphere…”
“Launch?” The captain interrupted. “How are they ‘launched’?”
“They are launched on rockets,” El answered. “Rockets become very useful beyond wars in the future. Satellites are mostly used for communications, spying, and taking pictures of the earth from space. The image you see on the screen is a picture taken by a satellite and a map put on top of the picture.”
“How did you get the picture onto the screen?” The captain asked. “I downloaded it from Google Earth…” “Google Earth? What kind of name is that? It sounds ridiculous.” The captain replied. “Indeed it does!” El answered. “Google is a search engine, and it has an app called ‘Google Earth’ that allows users to search for satellite maps all over the world in 2016.”
“You make my head spin with all the incomprehensible words you use. I do not understand all this.” The captain explained, exasperated over El’s strange vocabulary.
“I can see how difficult this is, but I don’t know how to explain this stuff in 1943 terms.” El showed frustration trying to explain concepts that the captain had never imagined. “Satellites are the result of ‘The Space Race’. In 1957, the Soviet Union will launch the first satellite into space on a rocket called ‘Sputnik’. A few years later, the Soviet Union launches the first man into space…”
“A man in Space?” The captain interrupted. “You are getting more and more unbelievable!”
“And it gets even more unbelievable,” El continues. “The USA starts trying to catch up to the Russians, and in the 1960s we send men into space and by the end of the ‘60s, we send astronauts to the moon.” The captain just shook his head in disbelief. “You are correct. What you are telling me is unbelievable. Now you are going to tell me that people can go and live on the moon in 2016?” “Ha! Ha!” El shook his head. “That’s what they were thinking in the 1960s, but the space program was cut back in the 1970s, due to civil unrest over the Vietnam war, the oil shock, and cultural and political changes from the 1960s into the 1970s. We continue developing satellites and launching them into orbit. By 2016 there are literally tons of ‘space junk’ orbiting the earth. Anyway, this map on the screen is the product of those satellites.”
El closes the image on the screen and opens another folder with photos in it. “The photo I want to show you is in this batch of photos” El explained. “Now I’m doing what we call ‘scrolling down’ through the images to find the particular photo I want to show you. Here it is.” El double-clicked on a photo of the Sandias, and the photo opened up into a larger window. “See all those towers on the Sandias? That’s what I was referring to when I told you that after I came through the wormhole, I noticed there were no towers on the Sandias.”
“I see the towers. There are so many of them. What are they for?” The captain asked.
“They include radio towers, TV towers, cell towers, and towers for wireless Internet service. KOB radio was one of the first stations to put a tower on the Crest.”
Sergeant Prescott came back in and announced that Major Pierce would be joining them shortly.
“Prescott! Come over here and look at these photographs!” Capitan Fremont commanded. Prescott walked over and looked bewildered at the screen and asked about all the towers on the Sandias.”Those are the towers he said he noticed were not on the mountains when he came through the time warp.” The captain told Prescott.
“I can’t believe the color and detail in the photograph.” Sergeant Prescott noted as he stared at the screen. “What is this ‘device’ I am looking at?” He asked.
“It’s a personal computer in the form of what we call a ‘laptop, notebook or portable computer. Specifically, this is an Apple Macbook Pro.” El explained. “You might have heard of IBM? They made one of the first personal computers, which evolved from what will be called ‘Main Frame’ computers. The closest thing you may have to a computer in 1943 would be an ‘adding machine’ I believe?”
Prescott and Fremont looked at each other “Adding machine?” Fremont said. “Do you know what that is, Prescott?”
“I think I saw them in accounting once, Sir. The accountants had machines with punch keys like a typewriter but laid out differently. I can’t say for sure if they were ‘adding machines,’ but they probably were. But thinking about them now, they were primitive compared to this ‘device’ as he calls it.”
A tall, slender man walked into the room. Prescott and Fremont turned and saluted him. “At ease,” he told them. “What’s all this about security clearances and labs that you were talking to me on the phone about Prescott?”
“Excuse me, Sir!” El interrupted, “I can explain the security clearance issue.”
“You must be the man from the future? Prescott told me unbelievable things about you.”
“Yes, Sir! I have a lot of unbelievable things here, but more importantly, I know about what’s happening with the war effort, plus the top-secret goings-on here and in Los Alamos.”
“How do you know about Los Alamos?” Major Pierce looked very surprised at the mention of Los Alamos. “Nobody is supposed to know about Los Alamos.”
“I’ve been thrown back in time, or into a parallel universe, from 73 years in the future. I can tell you a lot about what’s going on right now and what will happen in the future up to 2016.” El explained. “But when I mentioned the labs and the Manhattan Project to Sergeant Prescott and Captain Fremont, I realized they didn’t have the proper clearances to know about them. So I asked if they knew of anyone I could talk to with a top-secret clearance, and Sergeant Prescott called you. I hope I haven’t already got them in trouble.”
“This is a precarious situation,” said Pierce. “You obviously have information that regular people, especially civilians, are not supposed to have. You are obviously not from around here by the way you talk…”
“I was born and raised in the Albuquerque area, Sir, I may be more native than any of you!” El interrupted. “It’s not that I’m not from around ‘Here’; I’m not from this time,” El explained. “The situation is this, Sir. I have the technology on that computer over there to speed up and advance the whole atomic effort. I can do many of the calculations that are painfully done by hand in seconds on that computer. Since I know what happens in the future, we can possibly change the future. Unless I can find another wormhole or time warp to put me back into the time I came from, which I have no idea how to do, I’m stuck here, and I have no problem trying to influence and change the future.”
Major Pierce stood and thought for a while. He got a look of resolve, and said, “Let’s see if we can change the future!”
Jorge answered the door to find a strikingly handsome young man with cinnamon-colored skin and curly black hair on the other side of the door. “Hi, Dad!” ricocheted off Jorge’s ears, flooding his mind with memories of the blond woman, a serviceman’s wife, with whom he had an affair 20 years ago. “Mom told me all about the affair,” the young man said, reading the emotions on Jorge’s face. “She couldn’t bring herself to have an abortion.”
Wormhole part two left us knowing the year that El ended up in after driving through a wormhole.
A large, loud man with many medals on his chest burst into the room. “What the Hell is that parked outside the building?” he boomed. He continued looking at El. “It must belong to you. You must be the man from the future?”
“Yes! That’s…” El started to answer. “That’s yes, Sir!” Captain Fremont interrupted. “Yes, Sir!” El continued. “Captain Fremont, I presume? That is my car. It’s a 2009 Mazda RX-8 with a 1.3-liter rotary engine…”
“What are you talking about?” he interrupted. “You hardly spoke a single word that made sense to me… Prescott!”
“Yes, Sir!” Prescott answered, standing at attention. “Do you understand this man?” pointing at El. “Hardly a word, Sir. He speaks English, but he uses so many words I have never heard before that I don’t understand.” Prescott handed Captain Fremont El’s license. Fremont examined it for a moment.
“At ease Prescott.” Turning to El, “Can you explain how you got here in plain, simple English that I can understand?”
“I will do my best, Sir. I was driving home from the office on Coors Road…”
“Coors Road?” the captain interrupted. “That’s just a dirt road on the other side of the river practically in the middle of nowhere.”
“Yes, Sir! It’s dirt in 1943, but in 2016 it’s paved with six lanes and multiple traffic lights at various crossroads that serve shopping centers along Coors Road. The crossroads lead up to housing developments on the West Mesa…”
“2016? Did you say 2016? That’s…” the captain paused to calculate the time years.
“73 years in the future, Sir! And Albuquerque changes a lot in 73 years from now. There’s a million people living in Albuquerque in 2016”
“I can’t begin to imagine that. A million people you say?” The captain waved for El to continue, giving El a not-too-sure look. El continued: “While driving home on Coors… “
“In that car parked outside?” the captain interrupted. “Of course, carry on.”
“I saw what looked like heat waves rising off the pavement. I drove through the waves, and my car felt like the brakes came on as I came out from the other side of the waves. When everything cleared, I was no longer on a six-lane, paved road. I was on a sandy dirt road, in a bare mesa, looking at the Sandias without a single tower on top of it. I knew I had either driven through what we call a ‘worm hole’ or a ‘time warp,’ and I ended up at some time in the past. But at that point, I didn’t know what year it was.”
“How did you end up here?” the captain asked.
“Luckily, I didn’t get stuck in the sand, so I turned the car around (I was heading north before the time warp) and drove south, knowing Coors would connect with Central. I presumed Kirtland and the labs were the safest places to go, so I drove down Central to get across the river, made it over to Gibson, and drove up to the gate. The guards didn’t know what to think of the car, but I told them I was here to show the car to scientists at the lab. They seemed puzzled but made calls, and Sergeant Prescott came out and escorted me here.”
“Labs? What labs are you talking about?” asked the captain.
“That’s right. Sandia Labs might not be very well developed at the moment. I believe they start to develop the labs after the war. But I know what becomes Sandia Labs is on Kirtland, and they are doing work to support the Manhattan Project…”
“What are you talking about?” interrupted the captain “Sandia Labs, Manhattan Project? Never heard of them, but you say they exist, now, in 1943?”
“Yes! What kind of security clearances do you and the sergeant have? If you don’t have top-secret clearances, or whatever level they call it in 1943, you probably wouldn’t know about the labs or the Manhattan Project. I don’t know if I can tell you anymore without the possibility of getting all of us in trouble. Can you find someone with a top-secret clearance I can talk to?”
The captain looked at the sergeant for a moment while he was thinking. “Go make some calls and see if you can locate Major Pierce. I know he has been working in those new temporary buildings they have put out east of here — the ones they won’t let the rest of us go near. Those buildings may have something to do with the ‘labs’ he’s talking about.”
“Yes, Sir!” The sergeant walked out the door after saluting the captain.
The captain looked at El. “What do you have on the table?” They walked over to the table and El show the captain the three cameras, cables, and adapters for the computer. “I carry these three cameras everywhere I go. That’s how I happen to have them. The cameras are all what we call ‘digital.’ No film.” El explained, “however, once the batteries run down the cameras will be of no use because I don’t have chargers to charge their batteries.” El looked inside his computer bag. “I do have the charger for the computer.”
The captain looked and the cameras, cables, and charger with much confusion. “I don’t really know what to say about these things. They are all so strange.”
El asked the captain to pull up a chair. “I want to show you some photos you will find interesting.” They sat down at the table, and El set his Macbook Pro in front of them and opened it up.
“I thought you were going to show me photographs?” the captain asked, giving the black screen a puzzled look.
“I am. I need to wake this thing up first.” El clicked the trackpad, and the Macbook’s screen lit up with a browser in the foreground on a page from his blog titled “Kissy Kats” showing a photo of two cats that look like they are kissing.
“What the Hell am I looking at?” the captain yelled as he jumped up out of his chair and stared at the screen.
“That’s my blog page with a photo of two of my cats grooming each other. The page is cached, so it still shows the pictures and writing.” El explained as he scrolled down the page. “If I refreshed the page, the page would go blank, and I would get a ‘Page not found!’ error or ‘Cannot connect to the Internet!’ error.”
“‘Cashed?’ That’s what we do with checks!” The captain commented, still glued to the screen. “You are not making sense. I see the colored photographs and the words. I hear you speaking, all in English, but I don’t understand anything I’m seeing or what you just said.”
“I don’t expect you to. This is not what I wanted to show you anyway.” El pressed ‘command H’ to hide the browser and then opened Adobe Bridge from the dock.
“What did you do? Where did it go?” The captain asked, completely bewildered.
“I hid the browser, and I’m opening a file manager that I use to organize my photos. See the icon with ‘Br’ bouncing in the dock? I hope it doesn’t try to authenticate over the Internet since there is no Internet.” A moment later, Bridge opened, and a grid of thumbnail photos covered the screen. “Phew! It opened!”
“Look at all those pictures. They are in color and so clear. How did you do that?” the captain asked, captivated by the screen.
“These photos are from the smaller of the three cameras we were just looking at, but I’m changing directories to photos from the camera with the big white lens on it. See how the screen only shows icons that look like folders with different names under each folder. When I double click on this folder, you will see a different set of photos.”
“Wait!” The Captain said looking at the screen. “What’s that?” pointing to an image that was not in a folder.
“Oh! That! Are you ready for this?” El asked as he double-clicked on the image. “Probably not!” The Captain replied. “What is that? It looks like a map, but not?” As the satellite map of Albuquerque opened on the screen. “It’s a satellite image of Albuquerque in 2016 with a map layer on top of it!” El explained.
“You are not making sense, but I can see what you are doing and the changes taking place. I can see that strange ‘Satel..’ whatever you called it.” The Captain said as he stared at the screen. “This is fantastic. It’s like magic!”
Spunk still radiating a blue aura after slipping through a tear in the space-time continuum to get back home.
Spunk’s recollection of his disappearance is that he fell into one of the many wormholes on the property and slipped into a parallel cataverse, like so many other things that have mysteriously disappeared around here. He said he believes he was in the same location, but everything was different. A snow-covered, plowed field was where our house is now. There were other buildings by the cottonwoods, but the only structure he recognized was the “chicken shed”. He said some of the cottonwoods looked similar but smaller and there were trees he didn’t recognize. He said when he stood in the field where our house should have been, he could hear us calling him but he couldn’t find how to get back to us. The days turned into a week and then another week. He caught a few mice and stayed in the chicken shed for some protection from the cold nights. On Monday he said he heard a cacophony of voices, hundreds of voices calling his name “Come home Spunk! Come home Spunk!” He followed the voices and found a spot where he could slip through a tear in the space-time continuum and slipped out of the parallel cataverse he had been trapped in. After he stepped through the rip in space, he thought he might have come to yet a different parallel cataverse than the one he was looking for because the deck now had doors and it was wired in like the catio, keeping him from going up to the French doors on the sunroom. But then Laurie came out and collected him and he knew he had made it back to the proper cataverse.
I called to make an appointment with the vet to have Spunk checked out and they had an appointment available today. Since Spunk was sneezing and acting a little dumpy, I figured I should go ahead and take him in at the first available appointment. I drove home from work, collected Spunk, and surprisingly, he only meowed a lot on the way to the vet, instead of is usual “get me out of the crate!” maniacal behavior he goes into while driving to the vet. I dropped him off and went back to work. He got tested, examed by a young, pretty veterinarian, and he got attention from cute veterinary assistants, so on the way home he acted like his normal maniacal self in the crate meowing, clawing, and rolling around like an alligator trying to drown its prey. It was a long drive home with all the stupid drivers really annoying me given I had a wild cat trying his darndest to break out of the carrier so he could make me crash the car. We finally made it home where I had to bless him multiple times and give him a lot of extra attention for what he thought amounted to cat abuse for taking him back home after being in kitty heaven among all those beautiful women at the veterinary clinic.
All the tests came back normal. He has a slight kitty cold. The vet thinks it’s viral so we will just keep an eye on him. But he does not have a fatty liver or other maladies that can result from going weeks without food or water. The vet noted he had lost “a little weight” but was now about the weight he should be. All our fat cats noted that Spunk being a fat cat himself before he disappeared served him well during his time trapped in a parallel cataverse with little or no real food and water.
Spunk, Laurie and I thank all of you for sending out your hundreds of calls for Spunk to come home that led him to the tear in the space-time continuum that allowed him to slip back into the proper caterverse.
The way Spunk described the property while he was in the parallel caterverse. Our property circa 1958. The chicken shed, which is the only building left standing, is on the right. You might notice there are no towers on the Sandias. That’s an outhouse and goat shed on the left under Resa’s tree.
Silver making what he said is a wormhole between his paws and legs. Silver thinks Spunk is full of kitty malarky.
I haven’t posted a parody in quite a long time. I’m sure there are many people who think it would be just fine if I never posted another parody. But life presses on, and I love making parodies, so another one has come to fruition. Besides, I could not let this opportunity for a parody pass me by.
It all started on New Years Day when Wade came over for black-eyed peas. We prepare and eat black-eyed peas every New Years Day for good luck (Laurie does most of the cooking). Wade and I went for a walk to Beaver point. Wade had never been to the river in Corrales, and he noticed the jetties along the riverbank. He commented that the river bank looked like Normandy with the large, jacks-shaped iron jetties along the edge of the river.
While I was explaining how the jetties were installed by the Conservancy for flood control, I pointed out a knot in one of the large cables that used to run through a line of jetties. I explained that La Llorona was the only one around here who had enough strength to tie a knot in a 1 1/4 steel cable. Wade asked “Who? I’ve never heard of La Llorona. Is she like ‘My Sharona?'” I said no, but realized at that moment that La Llorona was a perfect parody for “My Sharona”. You may know the song by The Knack? I was surprised I hadn’t put La Llorona and “My Sharona” together before now. It’s such an obvious fit. I wrote the lyrics and recorded the parody of The Knack’s music the next day. But it took a lot of thinking before I came up with an idea for a video.
It might have been right around Epiphany that I had an epiphany to employ Lego® figurines for La Llorona and her children. I knew we still had a lot of Legos out in the infinite shed of doom, so I plunged in and found some Lego figurines that were more than happy to play the parts. I also used photos of Muertas from Albuquerque’s annual Dia de los Muertos Marigold Parade in the video.
La Llorona
Lyrics: Timothy Price Music: The Knack Vocals AWB
Ooo, she lost her little ones, her little ones When she drowned them in the ditch, la Llorona! Ooo, then she tried to run, tried to run Turned around and killed herself, la Llorona.
Never stops looking, gave them up, crying all the time She can’t give them up, her wet embrace will break your spine Cry, cry, cry, cry-cry, woo!
L-l-l-la Llorona
Come a little closer, she drown you in the ditch Close enough to scratch your eyes, la Llorona She is a mystery, always crying, look and see Running down the ditch she shrieks on high, Llorona
Never stops looking, gave them up, crying all the time She can’t give them up, her wet embrace will break your spine Cry, cry, cry, cry-cry, woo!
L-l-l-la Llorona L-l-l-la Llorona (Yeah!)
When’s she going to give it up, give it up She’s just crying all the time, la Llorona Is it just infanticide, infanticide Or is it murder in your mind, Llorona?
Never stops looking, gave them up, crying all the time She can’t give them up, her wet embrace will break your spine Cry, cry, cry, cry-cry, woo! C-c-c-c-c-c-c-cry, cry, cry, cry-cry, woo!
Aaaaah-oooh, la Llorona Aaaaah-oooh, la Llorona Aaaaah-oooh, la Llorona
Here’s some “My Sharona” trivia: “My Sharona” was recorded in a single take in the studio and released on the album “Get The Knack” in June 1979. It sold over a half a million copies in record time for the 70s, and became the fastest Capital Record debut to reach gold since the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in 1964.
Off Center & Not Even 