Author: Stephen J Frankenberry

Notes from the Attic / Friday January 18, 2013:

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Hey! It’s Friday! Some notes here from a month’s plus worth of end of weeks…Hope you like.

I’ve said this before and I will say it again. Do not be envious when I tell you that’s it’s a Friday night and mine is going to prove to be better than yours. Top laundry baby! U Can’t Touch This!!! (nor the underwear, it’ still dirty you weirdo).  Na Na Na Na! Anyway, it is a Friday night and the first load is in as I watch the Yanks beat the Orioles in game five to advance to the ALCS and take on the Detroit.  I really shouldn’t start such an exciting evening with disappointment but hey it is what it is. I turned it off before the last out…made me feel better as the last thing I need to see is Yankee fans celebrating. Long story. Maybe I’ll go out tomorrow and buy a Tigers hat and start watching reruns of Magnum P.I.

Besides the obvious anticipation I felt on the way home from work at the prospect of folding, dresser placing and the knowledge that I won’t be stinky tomorrow I also knew that I would be heading home to our Brady, one half of the Brady/Jackson pup combo here at the FrankenGreco Ranch (I still refer to them as the “pups” though they are close to 3 now).  Why do I single out Brady you ask, Frankenberry you playin’ favorites meanie?! Well it’s because I’m looking forward to see how he is doing on day two of wearing the cone. Yes the cone of shame. You see, yesterday, he and his sidekick were doing their usual sidekicky thing and wrestling like some sort of WWPE (World Wrestling Pup Entertainment) event at the FrankenGreco Backyard Arena when it went terribly puppy awry and Brady ended up with a wayward Jackson happy fun tooth swipe that would require stitches and the aforementioned cone…plus some serious $ and sedatives that had him a touch wobbly and wonky last night.

When I got up this morning to take he and Jackson out after their 5:30a breakfast, Brady, still a little sedadazed, was just now learning to navigate his new coney blinders world, including discovering door jams for the first time, table legs, Jackson’s ass and even my leg. Eventually I was able to get Brady down the back steps amidst more cone maneuvering until he just sat himself down on the leaf carpet back yard and cocked his head as if to say “I’m feeling a little pathetic Stephen, can ya help?” it was one of those moments that, as a parent (for those of you who are and for me as a surrogate to 4 furries and a 12 year old) make you want to cry and laugh all at the same time. Cry for the vulnerability and laugh for the picture of it. Poor Brades.

In the attic on another Friday night and, yes (before you ask and the envy gets the best of you again) I’m back staying on top of keeping the t-shirts, jeans, jammies and assorted sundries clean for myself and the gang. It’s what I do I guess and to tell ya the truth? I Kinda like it. “Sad” you’re saying to yourself I’m sure.  Well, just keep keeping it to yourself and stop judging okay? I’m also listening to Bob Mould as I am wont to do while writing up here and, yes (before you don’t ask as I’m sure you weren’t going to) you probably haven’t heard of him. As my Maria said once while searching for band t-shirts for me as a gift “I would have gotten you some t- shirts of your favorite bands…but your favorite bands don’t have f’ing t-shirts Stephen.…here’s the Beatles.” I said thanks. I love the Beatles.

Also the Tigers hat I didn’t buy and the Magnum P.I. reruns that I didn’t watch were enough to put the kibosh on the Yanks series hopes this year. For all you cynics that dismiss superstition take that!

So a week later Brady has gotten quite accustomed to the cone though I’m sure not because it’s something in his pup mind he was looking to scratch off his early bucket list. He has figured out how to eat while the cone covers the whole bowl, how to grab his favorite toy to the inside of it and even how to discover, anew,  Shoes’s ass every day without completely freaking the poor cat out with the extra plasticware in his behind.

He still climbs to his perfect bed spot with Maria without too much disturbance (and even our friend Katy on a night when the couch was the best bet), maneuvers ok through short brush and fallen tree limbs to poop and can even keep alive the idea of wrestling with Jackson in the backyard.

As to the furries though I think little Bella might be trying to kill me. She’s a smart kit and is surely aware of my life insurance as she tried to toss me earlier with her under foot grabbing of my sock at the top of the stairs.

                Yeh , laundry again. Shut up. I’m sure you’ve noticed that it’s been basically a month since my last entry. Well, life in Radioville has been its usual busy monster and I’ve also had a few other things going on since my last entry. I’ll get to some of those few others in a bit but first I’d be remiss if I didn’t let you know that the Brades finally got his collar off. He was a definitely relieved, well, as relieved as I might perceive him to be. A perception gleaned from the apparent joy he got out of immediately sticking his nose in Shoes’s butt minus the doggy satellite dish and then wrestling with Jackson unencumbered. All back to crazy normal. Sorry Shoes.

                Tonight I’m listening to the first two of Green Day’s soon to be triple CD releases. I haven’t been able to take them out of my CD in the car (yeh, dinosaur boy here actually has to physically place hard discs in the player after taking them out of the cases in my overloaded glove compartment…no fancy smart stuff or some Pandora chick or hell…whatever). They are both tremendous no matter the delivery.

Now when it comes to the other things I mentioned earlier that had me with a month’s worth of lax the biggest one was preparing for officiating a wedding. Yes, believe it or not, Frankenberry here was the actual minister, justice, priest, Elvis or whatever person it is that stands in front of the gathered somewhere waiting for the bride to arrive while all the while trying to look officially minister, justice, priest, Elvis or whatever-like. I think I did a pretty good job on this front. It’s amazing what 10 minutes in the shoe department and another 15 in the suit department of JC Penny the night of the rehearsal dinner will do. I was dressed to the 7’s at least and had my glasses at the end of my nose looking old and pastorly-type (this way I could peer over them without the beautiful bride to be looking all fuzzy and stuff while on the arm of her father’s pride). Once she made her way to the understandably teary “My God, she’s beautiful” hubby to be I was then able to look through my prescription and start the proceedings and relieve some of my nervous.

Let’s go back. A good while before the big day that I knew was coming because I was to be invited along with my lovely my Maria, Jeremiah Johnsen (not to be confused with the 1972 classic…different name spelling and no beard or living off the land) the future groom asked if I would be the guy to do exactly what I was just talking about. Now, with Jeremiah being one of my best friends, one of my best for quite some while actually (we’ve enjoyed the woes of working together, beer and baseball…is there more than that?), I of course said yes not thinking of the incredible case of nerves I might feel as the moment approached. Hell, at the time it was forever away until, well, it wasn’t.  So the week before, on a Friday night (thus explaining my gap in writing here of at least one Friday) I, yes, still did laundry again but with another agenda amidst it…to write some meaningful words for my JJ and his gorgeous Allie. I had gotten a basic outline from Allie replete with all the beautiful wedding words, introductions of special people with other beautiful wedding words, as well as the repeat after me’s, do you takes, here’s the rings and then the finale’ spokes that were to be part of what was sure to be a wonderous day…as long as I didn’t muck it up.

I wrote within this outline and then edited, edited, and edited and then edited some more (I mentioned nerves and editing right?). I also did my best to try to make them the meaningful words that I mentioned earlier. I remembered the poem that I had written the night before my own wedding day and how important it was to me to make sure that those words were just right. I never read it at my day as I intended, something I’ve always regretted no matter how things eventually turned out. This was going to be different though…darnitt.

Then it was the 10 and 15 minutes at JC Penny and the rehearsal dinner and the knowledge that the next day was tomorrow. That’s not far by the way. I felt woefully unprepared. (on a side note, the food at the rehearsal dinner was fantastic as I sat with the bride to be’s mom and her husband. I think my profinity for eating, when allowed and provided, and my being myself, talking around forkfulls, helped me endear myself to them). The next day they seemed happy to see the guy with the funny name who, I’m sure, at some point in the wedding process they said to themselves about “who the hell is this mockery of our girl’s big day that her guy has mockeryed us with?”

Did I say “next day?” The next day came…quickly. But my nerves calmed while standing next to the teary groom and waiting for the beautiful bride and then reading, through my prescription,  my own special words that sounded minister, justice, priest, Elvis or whatever-like and included the tried and trues along the way.

It ended up being a fine, fine day (not sure if the words of your song are applicable Tony Carey but I’ve always loved the title). There was dancing and silverware glass clinking for kisses, more dancing and then more wonderful, meaningful words from friends and…there was merriment.

I like merriment…merriment is good, especially when it is well deserved.

I also didn’t muck it up. Point for me.

p.s. These were my introductory words: (I’m proud of them).

Family, friends. We have been invited here today to share with our Allie and our Jeremiah a very important moment in their lives.  A moment where we get to see light…Light in a world that is too often dark…a light that is the celebration of their love for each other bringing us all together so that we can see it much brighter as we witness the union of these two sparkling points coming together and shining like a beacon. Shining as if to say to the world “go ahead, try and dim this.”

We also bring together now, Allie and Jeremiah, to witness a “completion.” They have been working on  individual “completes” their whole lives, and will continue to do so to the end, as do we all, but they also realized that to actually finish this “complete” , well, it would require company. The company of another…The company of each other as husband and wife.

No one can really say what it is that brings two people together, we just know that it happens and today it happens in grand fashion. With the union of these two bright spirits today, who started as friends and will stay so, but who came to believe that friendship was just the stepping stone to something bigger and something better, we witness “special”.

No one can really say, either, what it is that brings friends together… which friendships will fade or, which will last, through good and bad, doing what friends do…bringing the strength that only enduring friendships can bring. I know that I am lucky enough to have found, in Allie and Jeremiah the latter. It’s been 8 years since I first met Jeremiah at 2 Pendell, through the blessing and curse of our radio lives, and have since come to feel, that if he were my own son, I would be able to look inside myself and feel a great deal of pride at a job well done. (I would also come to feel that it would be nice to witness a second Pirate victory at some point).  Not long after that I met Allie, also at 2 Pendell and I was never happier than to watch the slow, wonderful progression of their love for each other every day after they realized it themselves.  I will be forever grateful that whatever it is that finds certain people thrown together for life that these two are part of mine. I will also be forever proud of the day that Jeremiah asked me to officiate this day. The honor is great and humbling.

Remember this day everyone and look forward to watching an even greater progression of their love as it blossoms into a family and a life. I can think of no better pair for us to observe and treasure the hope of the “future.” 

Thank you Universal Life Church Monastery and the almighty internet.

When I first met my Maria she asked me to remove my mask. It was Halloween and I was partially costumed as a medieval knight (if they wore sneakers and jeans) but I did have a helmet, a mask and a plastic stick that looked like a sword or a plastic sword that looked like a stick. Whichever. I’d love to say that the second I removed my mask Brady Bunch first kiss fireworks (minus the kiss of course, didn’t know her name yet) went off and my world was shaken to its very core but instead I thought “Holy crap! She’s hot! Why the hell is she talking to me?” The fireworks and the whole shaken thing? That would come. For right now an incredibly hot girl was talking to me. Me. I took it at its face.

So I went out tonight with four dear friends from high school, some of which I haven’t seen in, well, almost since then. We went to a diner, which, in some regards, made me feel a little old as that’s what the old folks do right? They go to diners or coffee shops, not the bars of our youth or (thankfully) infrequent bars of our present. I say thankfully as, well, we remember the bars of our youth and these now are not quite our gig. Not because we can’t enjoy a drink or that we actually feel old in such places with responsibility hanging on us like an albatross in some cases or a blessing in others. But because they are just that…the bars of our youth. They were for those days but I enjoy these days. Those bars have their place, in the current time for the young and us old (on the right occasion), but that wouldn’t have been place for such a long overdue reunion. Simple was in order, something I have always been a fan of.

I didn’t feel old here. I looked across our two tables (one pushed against another to accommodate the old ones and give them a little space…insert a simple laugh) and I saw my youth, a grand youth. One worthy of the fondness that my memories have given it. There was Dave, one of my best friends, whose dad was the principal of our high school (never quite as awkward as you might think it could have been as we were good kids), Pat whose dad is apparently still the dentist we always knew, and now remembered him to be (Pat still has perfect teeth…bastard), Adriene whose last name rhymed with her first in a comical way that she always hated but now appreciates for not being Smith or Jones (not to slight any Smiths or Joneses by the way) and Rosa, who is, and always will be a proud, softly outspoken New Yorker (something I never quite adhered to, thus my escape to my beloved, adopted hometown of Pittsburgh after high school…but that is a story for another time).

There were plenty of reminisces, as might be expected, while we kept our two pushed together tables longer than I’m sure the staff would have liked (though we thanked our waitress well, I hope, for our time), and most of it involved quite a great deal of laughter, including Adriene’s which I forgot was always so vibrant and infectious. Reminisces that reminded me that we were very lucky. Very lucky to now have the families that we have, very lucky to have become our parents in too many regards to admit and very lucky to still be sitting around in a diner in Brewster, NY to actually do this remembering together.

As I made my way home I thought on how my day had not gone as well as I would have liked. Domestic bliss had a blip before I left and I actually considered calling off my joining of the get together. I had gladly agreed to feed the cats of a good friend as he and his fiancé enjoyed a night on the coast in Connecticut but, due to this blip, I didn’t feel as if I would be able to raise much of a smile and was now running late on the feeding of the furries. I was going to beg out using this an excuse to not be late for our little reunion. But then, my Maria reminded me that not going would just be plain stupid. “You don’t get very many of these moments” she said, or something to that effect. Blunt she is, but never incorrectly. These moments, indeed, do not come very often. And when I did get home? It was mine, my gang was there and my lucky was confirmed. Still breathing.

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When I was married in a late sweaty summer 16 years ago my wife and I started our life together with two totally divergent schedules that certainly weren’t as conducive to the life that newlyweds might envision, nor anyone else for that matter. When she would rise for her 9-5 (usually more of a 9-7) managing a cigar shop in downtown Pittsburgh the hello’s from me were through the radio at a station where I did mornings in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania and when she would return to our first place, a wonderful little first place, I would be in the midst of saying goodnight. Not the greatest of starts for togetherness, I guess, but we muddled through with love and promise. So for our first Christmas together I sought to find a way to fill the gaps of time spent alone in that best of little first places. I went to the East Liberty animal shelter. It was to be a surprise and that it was as she watched in wonder two kittens, on Christmas morning, enjoying their first taste of paper and empty boxes, the joys of which, for cats, is solely theirs.

Well that marriage didn’t last for very long. The time spent alone was soon extended when my radio life took me away from that first little place and I went ahead, to Dayton, Ohio, with the intentions of setting up shop in a second new little place and preparing for finally being able to start the together.

It wasn’t the original time alone nor the new one that spelled the end of the union, as it was other reasons entirely that brought it to finish, reasons beyond my control really, but one thing did survive out of that brief time…Benny.

The Ben.

He had a sidekick in those early days but sadly in the nomadic time I found myself in after the end of the marriage, Merlin, as special as Benny, was lost. Benny, though, kept me as his forever sidekick instead. Until last night.

At 16 years he succumbed to age and the kidney problems that cats are wont to after time. I found him on arriving home in a bad state and he went quietly but not without this lifelong sidekick weeping as he rubbed his ear for the kitten memories of Pittsburgh and Dayton and Pittsburgh again. The memories of New York and his first taste of the outside world replete with things he could chase, toy with and, well, eat…grossly…just the heads his favorite parts for some reason.

Of Florida and a time for me to let the constant sunshine finally cheer my mood while that same sun turned his almost all black coat copper from his lounging leading me to the nickname “Benny Brown,” ala the Peanuts and Charlie. He was always my “You’re a good man, Benny Brown.” Of watching him back then recognize my car at the end of the street and start him running along the four neighbor’s yards he would cross before getting to the front door to wait for me to exit my car and make it his way for a hello and rub on the ear.

Memories of he and I then making our way back to New York in the special spot I devised for him in that U-Haul in the upside down room created from a computer desk placed on its’ side under a mound of continuing personal history and laid against that little door in those trucks that slides open to the cab. For what turned out to be a 48 hour trip with some slinking into non-pet friendly hotels in a couple of places obscure to me now, he had his litter box, food, water and an opening to come out into the cab and sit in my lap whenever I started to sing along with the radio on the road. He liked my singing…he was one at least.

Of his first view and then endurance of a screaming newborn and eventual maturing curious, grabby infant in a house I shared with my brother and no longer pregnant sister as we all needed each other to split the rent while starting over again at the same time… but more importantly needing each other just for the need at such a time. My sis, a newborn, 2 bachelors (who knew nothing of babies other than they existed and apparently cried a lot) and the Ben just looking either curiously or disdainfully (you never could tell with him) upon the whole happy mess.

Memories of his surviving a lost fight with a car and back surgery and the jerry rigged cage that I built for him with uneven two by fours, bent nails, plastic chicken wire and a slightly functional staple gun. The whole monstrosity took up three quarters of my bedroom but it housed him comfortably and safely near me. Of the stray cat we adopted in that house who we didn’t know was pregnant but would soon pop out 5 kittens. More newborns for the Ben to look at curiously and/or disdainfully while he pretended to hate them following him everywhere like a surrogate dad. Of the pride I felt at moving Benny the next time into my first place alone in eons after finally making my way back into the world of radio, at least when it came to making enough money to go it alone. We also had, at this point in time, added one of those kittens so he and I had a new sidekick to move along with us and make us more Musketeer like. This was Shoes, the soon to be fat orange tabby, who would become Ben’s best bud for the next six years, sometimes eclipsing even me.

He also right around here met my Maria and her then 5 year old son Jagger, or the J.G.  He would also eventually meet my Maria’s dog Shana (badly though with an eventual truce), 2 puppies (incredulously though with an eventual and delightful fear of him) and find himself, along with Shoes, in a house with his very own spacious space…Frankenberry’s Attic. His own nomadic existence paired with mine had found a home, 3 whole years without moving, 3 whole years of finally finding a constant space that his Steve would come back to, and him, uninterrupted.

This is where I found him, after a “his” lifetime and my own it seems, laid out on the warm golden browns and yellows of a carpet he so loved to lay on while I sat at my computer while also pawing at it, wrestling with Shoes on it or fur-balling up all over it. This is where I found him still breathing and, I’m hoping, hanging in there long enough for one final return of his Steve…one final come back to

I will miss you my Ben…so miss you.

-Your Steve xXoO and rubs on the ear

Prety straight forward and silly. I like silly.

Coming this summer to a theatre near you and starring Aloysius “Cutey” Furr it’s the soon to be horror classic “Sinister Fruit” – “In the orchard, no one can hear you Meow.”

This was produced by the U.S. Government, specifically the U.S. Information Agency back in 1976 to commemorate our nation’s 200th! Timothy Leary was probably envious of whatever it was those folks in U.S.I.A. were on. Holy trippy Batman!

These two are just 15 and 16 and too damn cool!