Photo of the Day: Only in Santa Cruz...

I'm having a coffee and I hear these weird noises. Turns out, this woman had had a flat tire and her parrot heard the sound of the electric drill they use to take off the tire and was imitating it.

She has two parrots on her shoulders, which, she explains, live as long as a human. One was 28. The other, a toddler.

She tells me she's on her way to feed her 12 feral cats at her old house by the railroad tracks off the frontage road.

Then, with the birds on her shoulders and a big plant in the passenger seat, she gets into her beautiful red Acura NSX sports car, which must  cost as much as a house in the rest of the country.

My mouth was agape and I didn't ask enough questions. I just let her go, with my standard mantra: Only in Santa Cruz....