What do cats do in the heat of hangdog daze of summer? They be cool. As everyone should know, cats are always cool. Spunk knows he’s “Hot” based on his kitty good looks, but he has always been, and there never was a time that he was not, a super cool cat. But when it’s hot, the cats like to “hangdog” around and look cool.
Spunk putting on the cool hangdog daze look.
Silver in a hangdog daze.
Sasha hangdogging in style.
Spunk knows a cool place to be on a hangdog hot day is in the cooler. Marble thinking about joining him.
Loki enjoying in the airflow from the cooler.
Spunk daydreaming, while Marble naps on the cool glass top.
A thunderstorm blew in around 5:00 pm with a lot of noise and about 4 drops of rain. However, the temperature dropped from 103º F (39.4º C) to 89º F (31.6º C) in a matter of minutes.
Glenda hangdogging and planking at the same time.
The thunderstorm produced some cool clouds.
A hangdog daze tail wag from Glenda.
Gwendolyn hangdogging on a worm rug.
Sunset lights up Resa’s tree.
Glenda: “What’s your problem Paparazzo?”
Not a good mix it.
Good colors, anyway.
The painter broke through the hangdog daze pallor of gray overcast skies at sunset.
Glenda: “What’s up with you going back and forth to look at the sky? Enough already. You’re bothering me boy!”
While the official high temperature in Albuquerque was 101ºF (38.3ºC), the temperature in the east side of the building when I left the office was 107ºF (41.7ºC). I stopped by Costco on the way home and parked in the shade under their solar panels. When I got in the car to leave, the temperature still read 107ºF. The temperature did not change until I got home and it went down to 99ºF (37.2ºC).
Black bamboo sprouting in Julie’s Giant Dr. Huey has a Japanese look to it.
Click on the galleries to see the photos enlarged in slide shows.
I was going to buy a ultra-wide-angle lens for my Fuji XE-1 that I used to use as a carry camera. But the 10-24mm zoom lens is quite large, which makes it not as desirable to carry when I’m also carrying the Bazooka on a 7D Mark II body, and the 70-200mm zoom lens a 5Ds body. I have been using my iPhone XE for all street photography and wide-angle photos, stitching together panoramas for ultra-wide-angle shots. I finally decided that since an iPhone 12 Mini was the same price as a Fuji 10-24mm lens, I might as well upgrade my iPhone to the iPhone 12 Mini. The 12 Mini is the same form factor as the old iPhone 5, which is my favorite style of iPhone case, and the camera has wide-angle and super-wide-angle. The iPhone 12 Pro has telephoto, also, but I have the Bazooka and the iPhone 12 is bigger than I like.
What’s really nice with the iPhone 12 Mini is the “Portrait” setting works for any abject or critter as you can see in the photos of the kitties and the America Rose above. The “Portrait” setting on my iPhone SE only worked on human faces. When I tried using it on the cats, or anything else, it said “No faces recognized” and would not take a photo. I’m really happy with the camera on the iPhone 12 Mini.
Not a cloud in the sky at sunset. The ultra-wide-angle setting is 120º field of view.
Tangle Heart Tree under a clear blue sky in the early morning light. Sandias and Rio Grande in the early morning light (iPhone SE). The moon at sunset shot with the Bazooka 400mm lens.
All photos below were shot with the Bazooka 400mm lens on a Canon 7D Mark II body.
For the birds.
Snowy Egret in the clear water ditch.
Cormorant flyby
Tiny butterfly.
Mama Owl, Sleepy, Mona Lisa and Major Tom Peepers. Mama, Mona Lisa and Major Tom were in a tree between the irrigation ditch and the clear water ditch. Sleepy was still in the tree with the nest. I think he will probably fly over to the tree with the other owls tonight.
I finished recording a new original song on Sunday. Gabriela at Short Prose Blog, asked me if I was going to send her a poem, so I sent here Canonical Day, and told I had been working on the music. She wanted the song also, but didn’t say for what reason in her replies. Now that I have the computer I use for recording back, I checked to see where I was on the song. I had gotten the “Ticktock” sound for the clock created and that was it. I spent most of Sunday recording and assembling tracks. Tonight I added a little bit of synth to the recording after Marina mentioned she would probably add synthesizer. I had done a lead guitar track, but decided it detracted too much and took it out. The synth I added is subtle and it seems to work.
In case you don’t know what a Canonical Day is, it’s the liturgical hours of the day defined as follows:
Vigil – eighth hour of night: 2 a.m. Matins – a later portion of Vigil, from 3 a.m. to dawn. Lauds – dawn; approximately 5 a.m., but varies seasonally. Prime – early morning, the first hour of daylight, approximately 6 a.m. Terce – third hour, 9 a.m. Sext – sixth hour, noon. Nones – ninth hour, 3 p.m. Vespers – sunset, approximately 6 p.m. Compline – end of the day before retiring, approximately 7 p.m.
The poem came to me while I was listening to a lecture on theology. I was thinking, while monks get up at Vigil or Matins to pray, I get up at Matins to pee in a nightly Vigil after the kitties have stomped across my bladder. That gave me the idea to write a poem using the Canonical Hours based on a general day in a life. The poem has one or two Canonical Hours per verse, or perverse, depending on how one wants to look at it. After I got the verses down, I decided to add choruses and make a song out it.
I’m happy I took the time to record the song on Sunday as Gabriela has good intentions for both the poem and the song.
Canonical Day By Timothy Price
Bombed at Vigil kitties in the night Matins listens Owls Hoot under moon’s light
Lauds wakens Dawn Throw off covers Spread colors Reds, pinks, yellows Tugs on sun lights blue skies
Primetime rise Face another day Lost in ironic phases Teeth comb hair Sad and pretty faces
[Chorus] Sacred routines never fail Hundreds, ten, thousand times Begins each day a blessed right Immortality of the whole
[RAP] Terce it all coffee’s cold Virtual whistles blow Tap on keys, boxes packed, Phone music Plays on hold
Sext at last Satisfies Food fantasy Peanut butter tofu chicken Thirty minutes of ecstasy
Nones dear coffee’s cold Eyelids weigh a tonne Ninth hour sleepy time For Heaven’s sake stay awake
[Chorus] Sacred ways never fail Hundreds, ten, thousand times As each day goes by some insane Immortality of the whole
Vapors rise at vespers Dinners hot-cold served Debates circles tables World made right For an instance
Compline pulls on covers Sun tucked in welcomes night Bedtime lost videos play Medianoche greets another day
[Chorus] Sacred darkness never fails Hundreds, ten, thousand times Conjures spirits Ether Immortality of the whole
Spunk @ Compline
As a dry and dusty storm blew in this afternoon, the temperature dropped from 82ºF to 59ºF from one hour to the next. The sun managed to throw a slight bit of red on the clouds at the horizon as a last hurrah before slipping into to its sunny slumber.
The moon got a sepia tone from the thin layer of clouds catching what color they could from the setting sun.
Off Center & Not Even 