Author: Stephen J Frankenberry

How lazy is lazy?

Yesterday (Saturday) I broke out the clippers, best 18 dollar investment ever though my lack of skill is clearly evident underneath my hat and stood in the shower (not running) as I always do when I break out the clippers and did a bit of a clip around the old noggin and the cheeks (face cheeks ya weirdo’s).

The hair that fell has been sitting on the floor of the shower since then just waiting for me to sweep it up and warning me, in my dozen or so trips to the bathroom in the interim (I’m old – I trip to the bathroom a lot) that I’m going to be pissed if it’s still there tomorrow (Monday) morning.

Well, just now, I finally brought in the broom and dustpan … and leaned them up against the wall by the light switch.

Lazy takes small steps.

Stink Bug

Noun

• any of numerous broad, flat bugs of the family Pentatomidae, that emit a disagreeable odor.
• any of various other malodorous bugs.

Frankenberry

Dude

• in a Pittsburgh Pirates hat with cats, singular and thin (minus that beer bulb above his belt) of the family Frankenberry human
• malodorous or disagreeable scents are only for cats to decide and they poop in an open air box so they’re not much to judge

Stink Bugs seem to be a fan of my apartment, and me, and I’m guessing some of you might be able to relate.

Now, I’m not overrun, sometimes in the summer there might come the occasional mini swarm of ‘em but, though it is just a few, but there is never a time where there aren’t at least a couple to be found hanging around somewhere in this place, doin’ Stink Buggy stuff, which is generally just that, hanging around, on or in or under things and usually found with a bit of surprise. Now they  don’t freak me out, mind you, as they might some and there is no knee jerk to quickly kill them as could be the case with others or even you. It’s not a “me or them” kinda thing, they pose no real threat to my life as far as I can tell, well, except for maybe that one crazy for bug and bug country kamikaze flying stinker who might hit you full buzzing speed fly mid yawn to get lodged in your choking throat becoming a folk hero to Stink Bugs all across Stink Bug Nation but, otherwise, they’re pretty harmless.

My ex, Maria, was on the freak out end of the stink bug, or any bug reaction spectrum and found no humor in me finding humor in her freak outyness or my smiling indifference to complying with her demands to kill them as she cowered with eyes wide and a pointed finger. Even the JG, her son, cowered and pointed the same. And he was a kid. Isn’t gotta crush bugs right in a kid’s wheelhouse? I don’t know, maybe there was some early childhood trauma associated with bugs I wasn’t aware of before we threw in our hats. A spider on his pillow whispering nightmares, a centipede crawling leg legs legs legs legs over his arm in the middle of the night, an aunt that came out from under the floorboards and squeezed his cheek too tightly giving unwelcome kisses? If so, apologies for sounding callous JG, but Stink Bugs, for the most part, are pretty simple, slow meandering things who don’t really do much, flit to flying only on occasion, but usually are pretty easy to gather into my catch and release empty Friskies cat food can … have open window, will Stink Bug travel.

You see Stink Bugs and I here have come to a sort of understanding. You stay away from the bed, especially my pillow, you don’t buzz my noggin tower in the middle of the night, you stay away from my sundries and my bathroom towels, you back off on the Human vs Stink Bug wartime propaganda to try and keep your kamikaze prone in check and I in turn … won’t kill you. I think that’s pretty fair. I will even call all of you Ralph (apologies femme stinkies – and any Ralph’s that may be reading this … or hearing this) to sort of, though generically, personalize our relationship and make you feel more at home and give you a bit more reason to stick to our agreement.

Now occasionally there are those that will break the armistice though some of it is my own doing. I don’t use my bathroom hand towel very often, for example, so when I do come across a Stink Bug on it I can’t be overly upset and just resort to a, you know, willy nilly lobbing of killings at all Stink Bugs. It’s what they do. Ya leave an anything hanging too long, some rogue Stink Bug gonna test the waters, or cloths. I can give that a pass, but there was a situation a couple of evenings ago that seriously tested our truce.

After getting home and going about my routine of getting to the top of the stairs and greeting Mimi the Quirky (always waiting just there amid a tappy tappy toe toe tap tap to the floor stretch) with a pick up to my shoulder where she awkwardly enjoys my pets and hello’s in her quirky, old girl shy to the touch squirmy kinda way, then giving a pet and a wink to my little Bella and being quiet so as to NOT wake up Cricket the Blind, that’s when the meowling and counter clockwise circles pacing starts if you do, I began cleaning up after Cricket the Blind who can take the simplest of cat functions like water bowling or litter boxing and make them the not simplest of messes (she literally fights with the water in the water bowl and splashes it around like she’s trying to teach it a lesson for saying something it should regret before drinking it off her paw). Then it was to filling some cat bowls with some cat food, get a plate of some Steve food ready and get changed into some comfies all before I made my way to the bathroom for my evening … ummm … my evening make way to the bathroom.

When I was finished with this evening make way to the bathroom I stood, and just before my bend down for the pull up a Stink Bug fell … to the floor … from, oh God no please … to just between my heels inside my underwear waiting for that pull up and just before slowly Stink Bugging away.

I said earlier that Stink Bugs don’t freak me out, and they don’t, though this came close to qualifying. It had an at first glance obviousness that I was just unwilling to consider.

Could that have?

Is it possible it?

Am I a freak?

I detectived.

Did you feel any tickles or scratching during the day I said to a me?

No. (penciling notes on my little mental detective notepad)

Did anyone at work comment on your butt muscles moving in any strange way while you walked past them?

No.

Plus that could have possibly prompted a call to Bev in HR. 

Were you the subject of a coolly looking though horrific scene in a monster movie watching under skin bumps slowly rolling, crawling from your brain to your buttocks?

No.

Do you have any weird ass entomological predilections you should never, EVER, mention out loud in any company, mixed or not, if so?

No.

Then, continuing to detective, I thought of other places that a Stink Bug could have fallen from to between my heels instead of out of what was just too much to consider.

Then, light bulb! (save my thoughts light bulb please).

I had just put on a long sleeve T-shirt that was laying on the futon from the Saturday before’s laundry and had been for almost a week (my futon is kind of like a dresser, just minus the folding, the drawers and the picture frames, with my actual dresser envious of the use and attention). Yeah, that’s it I thought. That’s the ticket. It must have just fallen from the inside of my long sleeved T-shirt I kept thoughting.

I went with that.

I had to.

Could I have, again, possibly started lobbing killings, as this could be considered a breaking of our Stink Bugs & Me treaty or do I instead go with the aforementioned understanding that the unattended can be considered fair game in Stink Bug Land?

Alright Ralph, we are good for now my friend. We’ll just call this a one off. But please, if ya can, just grab and hold on to shit in my closet that I never wear will ya? Stop falling out of the seeming unimaginable. It’s very  uncomfortable at the thought.

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Yesterday morning, after a stand up from my … uhhhhh … make way to the bathroom in the morning pre-shower a something fell to the floor between my heels. Again. And it was a little on the hairy side. Bella, who is always my company around my legs and feet before I jump in the shower in the mornings, stepped over my feet to sniff at it … then promptly hightailed it out of there as if she had just sniffed at a cat demon or been bitten in the ass. Now it was nothing more than laundry fluff from yet another recently washed and dried long sleeve, layed on the futon dresser, but it scared the shit out of a cat enough to a mad sprint. Truthfully, it kinda concerned me a bit too. But,  at least it just stayed there, it sat, all hairy and maybe worrisome but, it just sat.

In Bella’s defense it was some pretty frightening looking laundry fluff – something that John Carpenter might have imagined could sprout legs and scamper off malevolently  – but it was still just laundry fluff.

Seems new agreements might need to be reached though with laundry fluff.

My sis, yesterday, posted, with a few pics, of a hangin’ with the girls, the blessed old guard, and of games played and laughs had, Mom, Aunt Lib and Aunt Elfriede, her own girl being one of mostly smiling fond observer status I’m sure (unless there were $ involved in the games – then I know all bets were off/on and someone definitely got fleeced). Cousin Josephine noted in a response to that post that all that was missing was her Mom, my Aunt Ann, Aunt D’Artagnan, to round out the three musketeers to the right four.

Growing up these four were a mainstay and our rocks. if only Aunt Marie could have joined more often they would have made quite the formidable team and screwed up so many musketeer stories.

I sat in the middle at family get togethers when I was a kid. I loved the stories my dad would tell, joyfully being part of the rapt, while I kept my cousins at bay, never quite fitting with a kid’s day, playing just enough, but I always thought to be in the kitchen listening to Mom and the girls talking shit over a dinner’s prep and glasses of wine, Aunt Marie always giving them a nod and a smile from a table in the center.

These pictures Beck?

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Aunt Lib has never forgotten my birthday in my 50 + years and always with a dollar or two in a card and a “Hey Kid” phone call knowing that however old I am I could use it, the dollars sure but more importantly the phone call. I can never do the same as how are you going to send a card with a 5 or 10 or 20 spot to your Aunt at 50 + years old? You can’t repay such things as an overgrown “kid” with dollars in a card so I make sure to well spend a call caught or a one back or make one myself and joke briefly about how we don’t agree on some stuff and how about them Steelers but most times just to listen to Aunt Lib doing all the talking rat-a-tat-tat-like as she always does, agree or not.

She talks … fast.

I dare you to get a word in edgewise.

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Aunt Ann and Uncle Don welcomed me with open arms, so many years ago, when I needed a place to escape to from broken things, to try and start again, some Florida sun seeming the ticket and to join my cousin Connie, even taking my Benny (the Ben) at the time into the fold. They had their couch spots and chair spots in the living room for some TV at the end of a day so you just had to be Ok with floor spots crosslegged if you were going to hang. I was good with that. Always so much more room and nothing uncomfortable or too close on a floor anyway. Aunt Ann always allowed a stretch out with a welcoming, hearty and so infectious laugh. I’d fall asleep there sometimes if I had a pillow for the stretch.

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Aunt Elfriede has the most perfect of names. Elfriede. It seems to fit and not just because that is all I’ve ever known to call her but that it seems elf-like and fantastical just like her. She calls me “Stephen” in the most wonderful of tiny lady German accents, accents that just can’t be lost no matter how long the time stateside, like my Mom’s English. I can joke about how I might take a step back at the calling me Stephen, a stop, the full name call indicating that I might have something to explain or apologize for. I’ve always just been “Frankenberry” a name with silly distinction but one I’ve tried to own since a pink sugary cartoon character arrived with bad jokes and prank phone calls when I was 7, on the radio or “Hello customer service? Name? yes Stephen with a “P H” and “Frankenberry” just like the cereal.

But when Aunt Elfriede says “Hello Stephen” I’m good, no stop. There’s no admonishment to follow. It’s just warm. And who doesn’t love the lilt of an accent at the sayin’ of your name?

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I get lost on occasion, I anger at the world and the stupid we seem forced to endure, the dangerous empowered stupid that keeps us on an edge that none of us want, especially now, a stupid that is almost too much to bear sometimes but then my sister posts a picture, pictures, of the girls, and I remember that there is a tether.

Thanks Beck

Been experimenting with the air fryer I got for Christmas from Celie (my landlady), another cooking thingy to add to my countertop kitchen. It joins my age old convection oven who I have spent so much quality time with over the years that I have come to lovingly, almost intimately refer to as convection oven, my hard boiled egg egger which is quite possibly one of the greatest little inventions since electric light, the DVR or shoes you could pump for some unknown benefit back in the early 90’s, and LAST year’s Christmas present from Celie, and my double burner coolly streamlined hot plate from a company whose name I actually recognize, which was yet another Christmas present, this one from my Sis and Bro and my Mom. Seems Christmas still does hold a little bit of magic, even just a one of please feed yourself Stephen with anything other than a microwave or that grimy convection oven that even those in the middle ages, had it somehow worked, would have thumbed their dirty middle agey noses up at … boil something … how about some soup, it can cure all ills … make some pasta for Christ’s sake … something … if for no other reason than to make us feel better knowing that we tried.

Tonight’s experimenting was only me attempting to perfect the one thing I seem to have gotten down … cheese fries. Garlic and onion powdered, Sweet Baby Ray’s hot sauced cheese fries with four different cheeses to be specific. Sounds kinda tasty cool when you detail it like that right?  Some other experiments have become nothing more than almost useful doorstops or paperweights or the thing you hope to be holding in your hand at response to a house break in but the cheese fries? I got ’em bangin’ with some salsa and sour cream.

I even picked myself up a little air fryer cookbook, the one I used to first figure fried potatoes, ie French fries ie cheese fries (I got to the cheese part all on my own). Page 59. There’s already stains on that page now which makes it seem grandma legitimate replete with admonishments of the terrible life you’re living. That page, and all the others, are filled with recipes of some of the tastiest sounding of things, Chickpea & Avocado Mash, Chicken Mushroom Casserole, Parmesan Crusted Tilapia, Prawns (my God, now that sounds like some fancy shit huh?), Special Maple-Glazed Pork Ribs, which of course are special, how could they not be, it’s in the name. But being a lazy single guy my cooking has only ever consisted of a something with a few spices and hot sauce on aluminum foil in a too well worn pan for 25 minutes with nothing on the side while I watch (or re-watch) whatever episode of M*A*S*H was on Me TV then when I first bought it, right after I had moved out of the house into a new little place on my own or now of whatever Pluto TV’s next Star Trek Next Generation episode is that I’ve seen before after Celie killed the cable star, but not without asking me first if I was Ok with that. Have Firestick will travel I told her, I’m good Celie, whatever it is that can save a couple of bucks and whatever it is to distract until I hear a “ding”.

So now I thought, I have a roadmap, a roadmap of food preparation, a cookbook. But one of the drawbacks of being that lazy single guy, whose cooking, as I said, has only ever consisted of a something with a few spices and hot sauce on aluminum foil in a too well worn pan for 25 minutes with TV distractions? I don’t have any of the ingredients it calls for other than that main something and I probably never will. That would require thought in my shopping and we can’t have that. I know where the beer and cat food and litter are with some other things grabbed quickly in step along the way.

Damned cookbooks and their details.

Cheese fry anyone? … hold on, let me grab the sour cream. Do you like salsa … yes, I do have a little bit of rhythm … I’d love to …

When I was courting my ex-wife, yes, I said courting, what of it, I hoped to get myself on the ins and into the good graces with Mr and Mrs P (Danielle’s last name started with such) as any gentleman caller would when it comes to a Mom and a Dad. I thought of anything I could to ingratiate myself to them as I already knew the question of their daughter would come, I knew that from the first time I saw her, yeah one of those, across a bar at Station Square in Pittsburgh where we both worked, she at a little cigar shop and me part time at a little CD store, “Jukes”. I knew right then and there as I decided on a stop for a beer and a snack and a sit down before home that that question would come eventually, maybe with a bended knee, maybe with a wild plan or maybe even with a simple over lunch and a “hey, by the way would ya like to …” I don’t really recall exactly what that moment was, I just knew that it would and did happen. I don’t know of any other time that I was as in love as I was then … suddenly.

I’d eventually be introduced to Mom and Dad and would be invited to the house doing my best to cut down any awkwardness by, well, being awkward. It went awkwardly, but I’d like to think that I’m a fairly likeable guy just with awkward moments for stuff like this that can maybe be almost endearing and soon we were all watching the X Files together with me on the floor leaning against the couch next to Fish the dog, Danielle behind me at my shoulders, her Dad in his captain’s chair and her Mom at her side and we talked between commercial breaks of the goings on of the show but also about the goings on’s of goings on’s. We would soon have dinners, I would take Fish for walks around a wonderful little suburban dream Mt Lebanon neighborhood, I’d start calling them Mr and Mrs P, I’d meet her sister and her brothers, one of which was a Pennsylvania State Cop who told great cop stories and kept me straight backed (my own choice just in case) and we slowly came to be family which was so welcome for a guy whose own family was back in NY, 500 + miles away and who had been alone for quite some time.

It was around then that I discovered that Mr P was a fan of Jamie Lee Curtis, quietly, as if Mrs P didn’t really know. We all spend looks, innocently, and Jamie Lee Curtis was Mr P’s look. When I told him of the smallest of movies that had Jamie Lee in it, that he didn’t know of and made my way to a Blockbuster one night he lit up, well, as lit up as Mr P could be as he was a pretty reserved, quiet guy.

Amazing Grace and Chuck

My buddy Rick, the editor of the school paper at WVU and a guy who helped save my life with a place to stay and a friendship after the fire that had me standing in my underwear in a late 80’s December watching things burn and go away, including “Bob” my first cat, I’m so sorry Bob, who allowed me some latitude after not dismissing me at my first off the street stranger’s walk into the paper’s offices with queries of writing for him asked me not too long ago if I had a copy of a review I wrote of this movie 30 + years ago.

Now note that I am an awful movie critic as they range only from yadda yadda suck to yadda yadda cool. Movies and words about them are Rick’s purview which he has proven over the years and proven really well. But me? Not so much. I don’t know all the words and phrases and metaphors and analogies that movie critics use, seem to have a library of some sort of, no, I just resort instead to that yadda yadda suck or yadda yadda cool. But I did write a review of this one back then, a one of those hidden gems type reviews that was actually Ok. I could probably find it for you Rick but that would require me going through the storage bins that have a lifetime’s worth of shit buried in them just becoming things that you move from place to place, giving them a tour of new stops in your small world, always promising yourself that you’ll finally explore them at the next place but eventually just become heavy things you keep moving and placing in windows for cats to survey their world on with a towel or two layed on top for the comfort.

I became “the guy” after that trip to Blockbuster as we watched this fable, this little fairy tale of a movie about nuclear weapons being put aside play out, with a final wondrous Gregory Peck and a couple of equally wondrous movie newcomers, Joshua Zuehlke and Alex English along with William Petersen and of course Jamie Lee, a movie that promised what the best of ourselves could be if we would only just allow it.

What a beautiful, heart affirming little film, a one that would have made a Frank Capra proud, though he would have added that Capra touch that could have made it one of the greats.

It’s not one of the “greats”, it is though still damn good and pretty close, but I was reminded at the re-watch this weekend that it is mine, it didn’t/doesn’t have to be great, it just has to be mine and hold memories … and still bring me to tears. Freakin’ thing.

That accepting of the question from Danielle so many years ago now didn’t work out as I would have liked, wished, wanted, planned but I had found a thing that her Dad and I could bond over and her Mom, seeing the connection, bonded with me as well. I miss them.

It’s not the review I wrote years ago that was kind of Ok, not just yadda yadda suck or yadda yadda cool Rick, but maybe this one is a little better and no searching through storage bin cat spots. I can continue to leave them be as they just wait for me to lug them, again, to wherever the next stop on the tour may be.