Epiphany was on Thursday, but we celebrated this evening with Cocido Madrileño and Spanish chocolate outside with fires to keep us warm.
The morning sky was magnificent.
I started splitting wood for the fires this morning. Craig and Lane continued splitting wood when they came over in the afternoon.
Sunset was beautiful.
Fires kept us warm.
The clouds cleared and the stars showed brightly.
Daddy Owl
Multiple flights
Daddy Owl
Crow highway. Crow highway with cranes. Volcano at dusk.
Crow highway and cranes on the Rio Grande.
Dawn
Hey! Paparazzo! Would you put down that stupid camera and listen to me already?
Look! I’m being cute, but I’m losing patience with you. Enough! Prepare to die Paparazzo!
Dusk
Not a cloud in the sky tonight after several days of cloudy skies. We even got a little rain. The temperature was 28º F (-2.22º C) at sunset. It’s going to be really cold tonight.
We hired Cary with Cary’s Garage here in Corrales to get Tristan’s 1980 Datsun 280ZX back on the road. It’s been sitting under Gabriela’s cottonwood for the past 7 years. The starter had caught on fire in 2014, and we never got around to replacing it.
The footage Laurie took of the loading is quite entertaining.
Cranes flying into the sunset from a few nights back.
I think the bright light in the cloud is either a UFO or the grumpy old man to the left is shining a flashlight through the cloud. The light can’t be from the moon, because the moon rose at 6:45 am this morning (the skies were overcast), and it set at 4:00 pm this afternoon. We have a new moon tomorrow morning.
With all the hoopla about Omicron, we must not forget about other diseases that run amok like Space Herpes (you can learn more about space herpes at https://news.sky.com/story/nasa-issues-space-herpes-warning-as-virus-reactivates-in-astronauts-11669335). I brought Space Herpes to the attention of OC&NE readers in March of 2020. While the video I put together in 2020 was decent, the parody, which I originally recorded in 2018, was really bloody awful. I completely redid the music and recorded new vocals between a dentist appointment at dawn and shopping for ingredients for New Year’s black-eyed peas in the afternoon. The parody is now a much better PSA. Lyrics are at the end of the post.
1st photo: Dawn from the dentist’s office. 2nd photo: Moon peeking through the clouds at the dentist’s office. 3rd photo: Sunrise through the bedroom window by Laurie.
Sasha showing us her belly. I don’t think your allergies are space herpes, Sasha.
Sunset from the grocery store parking lot. I thought I was going to miss sunset tonight, but the painter made sure we got a good showing from the store. She didn’t want to disappoint Marina. Marina doesn’t need withdrawals from her daily OD on New Mexico’s Naturaleza at the end of the year.
Space Herpes
Music: Deep Purple
Lyrics: Timothy Price
Well we lip-locked with the Vals on Venus
We were making out a lot on Mars
We’re smooching with the groovy aliens
Kissed across the universe afar
We messed around with Borealis
We got space herpes from the stars
Oh no oh no oh no
we got space herpes
oh no oh no oh no
space herpes
Remember when we kissed the moon rocks
Swinging around the Milky Way
We found Uranus was a rude shock
Pluto doesn’t see the light of day
We’re messin’ round in the solar system
And got space herpes along the way
Oh no oh no oh no
we got space herpes
oh no oh no oh no
space herpes
The Fireball we drank was burning
And now we have a new routine
Yeah yeah yeah yeah Marline said
They can kiss, but they cannot sing
We’re messin’ round in the solar system
Swinging around the Milky Way
We messed around with Borealis
Got space herpes every day
Oh no oh no oh no
we got space herpes
oh no oh no oh no
space herpes
Oh no oh no oh no
we got space herpes
oh no oh no oh no
space herpes
The cranes were flying in and landing on the Rio Grande in bunches. Click on photos to enlarge them.
These are not technically Fire Rainbows (very rare) because we are below 55º north latitude, and the sun was much lower than 58º above the horizon as the sun was setting. However, the clouds were cirrus, and they obviously had ice crystals acting like prisms refracting sunlight and creating a firey rainbow effect. They are probably run-of-the-mill rainbow clouds.
Sunrise and a crescent moon peeking through the clouds.
Pink clouds make a halo around the Tangle Heart Tree.
Spunk is rather proud of himself and his Spunku about barking spiders. One thing that’s different about a Spunku is that it rhymes.
Oh my what delight
Spiders barking in the night
Holding sheets down tight
Jumping Spider
Wild clouds at sunrise
Søren: “Hahahaha! A barking spider? Right! It needs ‘more cowbell’ stupid cat!”
Owl
Sunset
Dawn’s colors were fleeting this morning.
The MLPs, Shocking Blue and Pink Venus, that Santa gave Laurie and me for Christmas started kicking the cats. I asked what’s up with that, and they said: “Kick The Cat” was a popular kids’ game. I told them the game was called “Kick The Can” and it was like “Hide and Seek”, “Capture the Flag” and “Tag” in one game and did not involve kicking cats. Shocking Blue said: “Oh! I heard ‘kick the cat!’ My bad!” I think they are mean and ornery MLPs. We had Shetland Ponies when I was growing up. One was named Frisky. She was a mean little pony. Frisky would buck us off and play “Kick The Kid”.
Shocking Blue and Pink Venus played “Kick The Cat” on Spunk, Marble, Sasha, and Silver. As it turned out, Silver, who bullies the other kitties, has taken a liking to the MLPs and got Shocking Blue and Pink Venus to settle down and snuggle with him. Maybe the MLPs with help silver stop bullying the other kitties.
The clouds were threatening rain at sunset.
Check Duolingo
Crap! In the demotion zone
Will I make it out?
At 33 minutes left on the clock, I found myself in the penultimate position in the Demotion Zone needing 140 XP to keep from being demoted. I was not the only one in the demotion zone trying to get out, so the number of XP needed to extricate myself increased as I worked through stories trying to amass points. In the end, I did make it out of the demotion zone with only 30 seconds to spare, but I had to get 252 XP to do it.
Off Center & Not Even 