Day In The Life Of Inchcock

I made this parody back in 2017. Inchcock did a post recently on memories about when he was in the hospital after he had a stroke. The post made me think of all the getting out and walking about Nottingham Inchcock did before and after his stroke, up until he was put in home jail where he’s been locked up in solitary confinement for months due to the COVID cooties. Of course, being placed in solitary confinement with much less access to medical services increases his risk greatly, but good old Inchcock takes his pain in stride and presses on entertaining us with the daily details of his dealings with life in solitary confinement.

A Day in the Life of Inchcock
Music by the Beatles
Lyrics by Timothy Price

Great pain, high spirits today oh boy
A lucky man standing by the Methodist Church
I think I should be rather sad
But I just had to laugh

I took the photograph
Out the window, mind you houses and cars
Off to Sherringham for shots, so quick, times have changed
Nicole the nurse she just stood and stared
Trying to stop my blood
Was this really it
Was I off to see the Lord

A Whoopsiedangleplop today oh boy
The phone went off a dingling and a dangling
T’was the nurse bitching about my ambling
‘You’re not in your Flat?’
And you don’t have the book
I’d love to turn you Down

Got back, had a Weeee!
Refreshed, and accident-Free!
Got back out front and had a cup
Doorbell rang and I noticed it was late
It was the Nurse she had no hat
Up the lift in seconds flat
She had a firm, tight end that was smokin’ hot
She poked me in the tummy and I came out of my dream…

Great pain, high spirits today oh boy
Four thousand holes poked in me tummy there were
Although the holes where rather small
I couldn’t count the lot
We still don’t know how many holes it takes to fill old Inchcock

I’d love to turn you Down

The Owlet & The Stink Bug

Video of Big Baby Owl’s encounter with a stink bug

The night before last, both owlets flew back over to the tree by their nest. They’ve been getting really good at flying over the past couple of weeks, and we have been finding them within 100 yards or so north, south, and west of the Tangle Heat Tree. They seemed to want to take a longer flight and reminisce about old times by the nest. They have also been spending their daytimes deeper in the bosque.

Last night I went out a little before 8:00 pm. It was cloudy and windy. I walked by the Tangle Heart Tree but did not see the owlets. I knew it was a little early, so I walked down to the south beach, walked back to 4th of July point, made my way back up onto the levee, looked for the owlets but I saw and heard nothing more than the trees swaying and the leaves rustling in the wind. I walked up to Beaver Point, saw and photographed a beaver, then I walked back toward the Tangle Heart Tree. About 200 feet from the Tangle Heat Tree I thought I heard a peep. I stopped and called the owlets, listened best I could through the sound of the blowing wind, and I heard another peep. I called again, and Big Baby Owl flew to a branch about 100 feet from me. About a minute later Little Baby Owl flew up on the branch. Both of the owlets were looking out towards the northwest when Big Baby Owl flew off in that direction, out of the bosque, and landed on the lower bank of the levee. I walked toward her and started the video.

It was after 8:30 pm, and quite dark, when I started the video. I was +2 stops on the exposure, and the camera was having a hard time staying in focus. The Owlet flew up to the upper bank of the levee, ran toward me stopped, bent over, and started trying to eat something on the ground. She straightened up and shook her head. A stink bug dropped in front of her and started walking across the levee. Its stink must have tasted pretty bad because she kept shaking her head as she persued it across the top of the levee. Once she reached the edge of the bosque, Mama Owl fley by out of view of the camera and landed in a cottonwood on the edge of the bosque. The owlet saw her, peeped, and flew up into the cottonwood with Mama Owl. I moved to where I could see the owls, but Mama flew off before I could get her on the video. I was close enough to the owlet to get her in good focus, and she can be heard peeping through the wind.

Big Baby Owl in the cottonwood by the nest on Thursday night.

Little Baby Owl looking back toward the bosque.

Beaver at Beaver Point

Big Baby Owl right after she flew up on the branch last night.

Little Baby Owl joins her.

Both owlets were looking out at something to the northwest before Big Baby Owl flew down to the levee and had her adventure with the stink bug.

Feline Matchmaking

Resa, who has the Art Gowns blog, and Spunk have had a thing going for a while now. When I posted The Persistence of Spunkery a couple of weeks ago, Holly and Marina got confused and thought that Resa’s cat Jeep* and Spunk had a thing going. With inspiration from Holly and Marina and collaboration with Resa, I wrote a song about our feline matchmaking and creating a modern, virtual, long-distance romance during these times of Covid cooties between Jeep and Spunk.

Feline Matchmaking
Music & Lyrics by Timothy Price
Inspired by Holly and Marina
Collaboration between Resa and Timothy

Intro
Can we have long-distance love
For kitties locked down, locked in, Zoomed?

Verse
Jeep’s up north to the east
Spunk’s down south to the west

Jeep says meuw, not meow
Spunk says mew followed by a growl

Jeep is four dimensions in three
Spunk’s dimensions? Egyptian eyes
Jeep is a sweet girly whirly
Spunk has his destructive manly ways

Bridge
Girly/Manly ways attract
Equals
Virtual romance for a matter-of-fact

Chorus
Feline matchmaking during Covid cooties
Long-distance love-making, feline beauties
Purring, growling, rubbing screens
Jeep and Spunk have hit the scene

Bridge
Virtual love and Covid Cooties
Modern romance oh so beauti…
Full of screen-time Zoom Zoom Zoomed

Chorus
Feline matchmaking, Covid cooties
Long-distance love-making, feline beauties
Purring, growling, rubbing screens
Jeep and Spunk have hit the scene

*Jeep is named after Eugene the Jeep in the Popeye comic strip[1]. The vehicle we know of as a Jeep was also named after Eugene the Jeep by soldiers during WWII who thought the Willys MB light utility vehicle was “small, able to move between dimensions and could solve seemingly impossible problems”[2].

Non-Tubular Bells

John at Las Vegas Photo Blog posted a video of church bells ringing in Banff, Canada, which reminded me that I had recorded the bells ringing while on the bell towers at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, in 2018. I found the video and decided it was boring by itself because the bells at Notre Dame were very loud standing in the bell tower, and they didn’t have any variation other than a bunch of bells ringing at once. Therefore, I wrote a piece of music to go with the bells and put together a rather strange music video called Non-Tubular Bells. I include photos from Notre Dame in 2018 before the fire, pictures of Paris taken from the bell towers, video of the American Flag at our neighbor’s house, video of our neighbor’s dogs playing in the Rio Grande, and video of the Owlets flapping their wings and flying a little.

Wet Coachwhip Snake

I got a video of a Coachwhip Snake (Masticophis flagellum testaceous) swimming in the irrigation ditch. I know a lot of people have trouble with snakes, but they are really quite beautiful. It’s not often I see a Coachwhip Snake taking a swim. After we got back from checking on the owls and walking in the bosque this morning, I wrote a song to go with the video, appropriately named Coachwhip Snake. I recorded the song and put it all together in the above video this afternoon. Enjoy!

Coachwhip Snake
Lyrics: Timothy Price
Music: Timothy Price

Verse
Slither swimming in the ditch
Sloppy sine wave between the wake
Slips the bank scales in cross-stitch
Stops and eyes me with suspicion

Bridge
We stand we stare he and me
Paparazzo and snake admiration

Chorus
Masticophis flagellum testaceous
That’s what I said
Beautiful snake, braided scales
Colubrid whipped up in western red

Verse
Slither swimming in the ditch
Sloppy sine wave between the wake

Bridge
We stand we stare he and me
Paparazzo and snake admiration

Chorus
Masticophis flagellum testaceous
That’s what I said
Beautiful snake, braided scales
Colubrid whipped up in western red

Sphingidae — Sphinx Moth

A Sphingidae — Spinx Moth, AKA Hummingbird Hawk-Moth, was fluttering around feeding on our Purple Salvia with the bees and the butterflies. I made a short video of it and added one of our recordings of Caña for background music (I’m playing and Laurie’s dancing). The only sound on the original video was the wind.

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Dinnertime

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Owlet out of the nest in the morning

The owlets are starting to get out of the nest. Last night I was checked on the owls well after sunset. Daddy Owl was hooting way up at the top of a cottonwood above the owlets. Soon Mama Owl brought home the bacon in what looked like a gopher. She perched with Daddy Owl for a few minutes before she flew down and gave the owlets the gopher for dinner. The three-minute video below is edited down to two minutes forty-five seconds of owl video from Daddy Owl hooting to Big Baby Owl hopping back into the nest with dinner followed by 15 seconds of credits.

Being well past sunset, I could only see outlines of the owls with my bare eyes. I increased the exposure on the video by two stops which let me at least see when the edges of things looked sharp when I focused on the owls. I had to focus manually and hope for the best. Daddy and Mama Owl were backlit, so the increased exposure was able to get their details pretty well. Once Mama Owl flew down to the owlets, the background became dark. I didn’t increase the exposure further, because the picture probably would have become very pixilated in the darkness. As it is I got the video pretty well focused and you can see some details in the owlets in full-screen.

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Owlet out of the nest after sunset.

Flamenco in the Old Church

While I was looking for the video file for Bite ‘Em on the Old Shin Bone last night to make a few updates to the video before posting it, I found a video of Laurie (Laura de Corrales) and me (El Cheo) performing Alegrías with Pablo Rodarte in a show we did in the Old Church in Corrales in the mid-1990s. Pablo danced Alegrías, Laura de Corrales is the Palmera, and El Cheo accompanied on guitar. I transferred the video from VHS to m4v several years ago, so the image quality is not very good. However, the sound is not too bad, considering.

In preparing for the show, Laurie and I practiced daily, I practiced with Pablo’s other students several days each week, but when it came to Pablo’s performance our practice together consisted of 15 minutes of Pablo doing a quick run-through of each part of the Alegías a week before the show. I simply had to follow all his leads during the performance.

Laurie and I both studied flamenco dance with Pablo, and I played flamenco guitar for many of his dance classes back in the 1990s before we moved to Spain for almost four years.

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The Old San Ysidro Church in Corrales
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Laura de Corrales dancing Tanguillos. El Cheo providing guitar accompaniment.

Mr. & Mrs. Owl

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Mr. & Mrs. Owl sitting in a cottonwood across from their nest.

We walked down to check on the mama owl who’s been sitting in her nest for a little over a month. She and the daddy owl where sitting in a cottonwood across the irrigation ditch from their nest. Mr. Owl would hoot at Mrs. Owl and then she would peep. After he flew, I walked around to the other side of Mrs. Owl, and I could see she had something in the talons of her her left foot, but I could not make out what it was. She finally flew over to the nest and then we could see she had a gopher for her little ones. I expect we’ll start seeing the owlets poking their fuzzy heads up over the edge of the nest to look out at all the people standing on the ditch bank gawking at them in a couple of weeks.

Below is a short video of Mr. Owl hooting at Mrs. with wind and a pesky chainsaw in the background.

 

You can click on the photos in the group below to see each image enlarged:

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Mrs. Owl in the nest with her ear tufts blowing in the wind.

Livin’ La Vida Lockdown

Livin’ La Vida Lockdown

Music: Ricky Martin
Lyrics: Timothy Price

From LA to New York City
Canada to the wall
It’s like bad renditions
Of movies like “The Fall”

So many lamentations
News gives us all a fright
Only sick and grave predictions
We are in an awful plight

You can take your clothes off and stand naked in the rain
But there’s no one to see you, now isn’t that a shame?
Isn’t that a shame? Come on.

Inside can’t go out
Livin’ la vida lockdown
Makes us scream and shout
Livin’ la vida lockdown
We can’t earn our bread
Enough to drive us loca
Lockdowns wear us out
Livin’ la vida lockdown (oh man!)
Livin’ la vida lockdown (how sad!)
Livin’ la vida lockdown

Woke up such a pity what a funky nasty spell
We do your part to save some money
But it’s like a living hell

Restless, climbing walls, all this waiting’s such a pain
Now we’re all alone, and it’s driving us insane
Yeah, we’ll never be the same

Inside can’t go out
Livin’ la vida lockdown
Makes us scream and shout
Livin’ la vida lockdown
We can’t earn our bread
Enough to drive us loca
Lockdowns wear us out
Livin’ la vida lockdown (oh man!)
Livin’ la vida lockdown (how sad!)
Livin’ la vida lockdown

Ride a horse naked like Godiva in the rain
But there’s no one to see you, isn’t that a shame?
Isn’t that a shame? Come on.

Inside can’t go out
Livin’ la vida lockdown
Makes us scream and shout
Livin’ la vida lockdown
We can’t earn our bread
Enough to drive us loca
Lockdowns wear us out
Livin’ la vida lockdown (Yeah!)

Livin’ la vida lockdown

Livin’ la vida lockdown
Livin’ la vida lockdown
Livin’ la vida lockdown