Cooler Cats

The AC here is temporarily on the fritz, a fix to come, though it’s something I don’t mind really, even with the last few days being balls hot. I mean I’m glad that things have backed off a bit from sun stifling to just not quite but I’m alright with sweat and turning over my pillow. I was alright before this, probably wouldn’t have wanted to turn it on anyway as I’m not a big fan of AC. I’m a single dude so any stench or almost puddles are all mine with open windows and the girls haven’t complained yet, though their absence from the bed these recent nights does give some sweat’s stinky pause.

But I worried of them at Celie’s reminder and of maybe grabbing an AC if I could for the interim during this hot. They’re all older now, my little Bella being the youngest at 10 and there is only so much the tall fans I have are gonna do (though I love my tall fans by the way, two of them that I’m almost proud of, even remember the brand name, “Yeah they’re Lasko’s” over talk with old men and coffee who sing of such things, of great purchases made years ago that you always remark in your head, like those old men might, as you pass the breeze, of what great purchases they were). But it was Celie’s reminder to get my head out of my Ok for the moment and think about the girls. They’re not on the same sweaty plane as you Steve. They wear fur coats.

Now please know that I do not NOT think about my girls, you know me better than that I would think by now, they’re my constant, my thing, but sometimes I forget different comforts. Celie was right, as she always is.

So, telling my Sis of this, Beck, she offered me an AC that she doesn’t use. Cool I thought, literally, I know just the window for it and know the relief that I would feel, and them, that while I was away at work there was a spot here that was just a few degrees cooler than balls.

But that window I had in mind was in the living room, a huge room I don’t use, with, I don’t know, a 20 foot ceiling or something and dust, a lot of single guy dust, I’d measure it and clean but I am only so tall or motivated, but a huge room nonetheless that, with another room, the bedroom, next to it, might make the cooling a bit difficult. So, with another Celie suggestion, I hung a sheet between the bedroom and said unused living room to try and help that “new” AC” be more efficient, make it more of a “room”. It’s an old sheet from an older time that used to cover a comforter, an oversized pillow case (has a fancier name I think but I’m just gonna go with oversized pillow case) something I have kept all these years for no reason and with no purpose other than the memories of pretty toes and smiles sticking out from underneath it.

But, well, old men hold onto stuff, for those memories or maybe for future practical purpose that they will wait, sometimes years, to finally be proven correct in their holdings … “see, I told ya it could be used again”.

Would the girls figgur though?

Well, when I came home on the first of these last balls days, AC now in hand and running in house, my little Bella was on her living room kitchen table, Cricket had found her blind way to next to the couch that I never sit on with a TV with no remote, right next to the base of one of the ugliest side tables you’ll ever not want to see and the Memes was on the top step where I had placed a chair for bit of a sheet layover for one of my old men proud fan purchases to blow a little new, cooler air.

Yeah, they ain’t dumb … they figgur’d.

It does though, almost feel a little bordello-like now, with the attendant seemingly taking a break at the moment while I push back the curtain to pass, but, in this case, only to find comfortable not cathouse cats …

… though, in dreams, a bordello’s thoughts might be interesting.

Stuff

Stuff.

Ya know I do stuff, stuff that just barely keeps a roof and beer and cat food, stuff that more often than not pisses me off, the stuff of required things for that roof and what’s under it. It is a stuff that is just that, stuff. We all have stuff. You have yours, stuff that you then put out there for the complained remarking, stuff that is your daily and stuff you want to be noticed if only to commiserate … we all want to commiserate.

Stuff.

But I do other stuff, we all do other stuff, hobby stuff, project stuff, exercise stuff, picture stuff, stuff that actually defines, stuff to distract us from the mundane pay the rent stuff, in my case stuff with words and sometimes a bit of a tune, stuff that mitigates that commiserating.

My best do blog stuff. Lori about books and Tom about all things horror in movies and other places and Mark, though he doesn’t know it, about things yet to be found and not just things that keep us informed, no he has stuff, I’m sure for the escape, like the rest of us. I’m most interested there Mark and if you ever need a cat or two for some company and muse by the way, we have a few extra lying around here. And Mike, my newest, podcasts about stuff. We stuff about our world, worlds, write or sing or pod about it, stuff that is a saver for us. Stuff for the real notice, at least stuff that keeps the head from fallin’ off it’s swivel.

I, not too long ago, changed my page here of entries of stuff with a new header, 30 bucks at some website I forget now and after so many searches of way too many complicated and visually busy possibilities at that site, I came to the simplest of things, a little swipe/swish that looks pen-pointed and with some colors added that I’m comfortable with. And I also added a little caveat to the header, “a Frankenblog”. I just like the way it looks and the way it sounds when I read it back … “Fankenberry’s Attic … a Frankenblog”. Then Tom jokingly said that this should be a network of, sorts, an umbrella under which we do this stuff, a Frankenblog production or family if you will. It’s silly but I can’t tell ya how much that makes me smile, especially with addendums made to the bottom of pages.

Friends and stuff.

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Mimi the Quirky does her, in her singular Mimi way, an uncomfortable looking cat stretch thing with a tappy tap above my keyboard till a lay down on a bar towel and she reminds me of stuff. She’s been a constant of mine along with Cricket the Blind and my little Bella of course for quite some time now. But it’s she that reminds that it’s stuff time as I pick her up after her straight legged clickety clackety clack steps across the hardwood from wherever she was catting to say do what you do human, I’m here, bar towel lay.

She reminds me of a keyboard she lays above, a keyboard that is a lifeblood that she’ll step across on occasion adding unintentional nonsensical letters or numbers in these steps for a left hip lap, or she just lays above, after that pick up, to tell me you got stuff, stuff to stuff.

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Lori’s book talk stuff has welcomed her to a talking books universe that is apparently pretty huge and also pretty unforgiving in its talking books judgements but she holds her own now after some navigating.

Tom has his crowd, folks that wait for his latest stuff in his quest to write yet another great post a day for a whole year of horror movie reviews and remembrances while straying from the initial idea on some days, those stray days being his best of things. I wonder what day 366 will bring with the triumph and the exhale.

Mark and I just tag along.

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“Ok, I’ll throw a die that says my cleric has you beat”

“Really? Is that what you’re going to go with?”

“He knows stuff”

“Does he know how to beat this dude?”

“No”

“Well shit, so much for clerics … get him big guy”

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Mark and I hunker down behind small hills with Lori and Tom in hand, another die throw, as I imagine our troupe just wanting to get into town and out of the wood, clerics now becoming fairly useless to lead us in the right direction.

Mark knows the way. He’d read of such, he always reads of such.

Stuff.

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Well now hasn’t this become the silliest of shit as stuff sometimes turns with no apparent reason, a turn with no purpose and and one that won’t circle back. Just sideways stuff.

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Stuff can take ya places even with sideways left turns (apologies to the left handed out there always feeling slighted by seeming condescending left handed references from the right handed) be it words or maybe words about it. Stuff that can be the thing of dreams or nightmares or the cliché of dreams and nightmares. Stuff that keeps ya sane, stuff that is just that, stuff … but your own stuff to that maybe get noticed and not in a commiserating kinda way.

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I gotcha Memes. Keyboard under your ass and stuff.

Yes, a few words Memes.

Your muse attentiveness so appreciated.

Stuff.