Hi and welcome to the Attic, I'm Frankenberry of said Blog Title and I write of just my everyday here, sometimes funny, sometimes heartfelt, sometimes angry, sometimes funny again because, well, who don't like funny, thoughts on getting older and sometimes stuff that's just kinda shit. I pen and sing the occasional parody tune and other songs, sometimes I even get a little bit poetic or short story-etic or something like that. If you're joining me here I thank you, but just mind your head and feet and keep an eye out for my little Bella and Cricket The Blind as well as the memories of Raspberry (Razzy), Mimi the Quirky, of Blink The Lil' Kit, Grayson the Mighty, Shoes the Big Orange, Shana-Girl, Benny Good Man Benny Brown, Merlin & Bob. Wouldn't want you step on them or anything … 'cause then I might just have to throw you down the stairs … damned humans.
Had a bit of snow in this Albany/Schenectady New York area near the end of the day today. It was hardly a thing, just enough to stick a little to the roads in spots or more in parking lots and on lawns, a light covering, enough to make me break out the brush for a quick once over before I left the station.
On my way home though, on roads that were mostly just wet, there was this one guy in the front of his house, one of the practically elbow to elbow homes, that almost feel like row houses, I pass on some streets in my to and fro’s, clearing the short pathway to his front door with a snow blower, and even his short driveway if he has one, that gift from his father in law a few years back that came with sage advice on how to use and then maintain it along with stories of the “Great Snow of (fill in year long past)” the snow blower that’s been gathering dust, for the most part, in his back yard shed since then.
Now again, when I tell you this snow wasn’t a thing, it wasn’t, actual “things” would scoff at this and belittle it with derisive laughter, I mean this guy’s pathway could just have easily been handled by one of his young kids in a pair of slippers with a broom but “Goddamit!!” I’m sure he thought to himself, “This is my chance! This is fucking snow people!!! I am breaking this M’Fer OUT!!!”
Cheers to you dude.
(ps … if or when we have an actual snow up these here parts he will surely have the last laugh and I will have to try and make friends … I mean, all I got is a broom … and my cat slippers are kinda embarrassing)
Now this is a one trick pony as it wouldn’t be real any longer, always thinking of some funny or stupid response to add to this concept with any people I talk with (and I annoy them all enough already, believe me) if I were to attempt to make this a regular thing. Like how reality TV isn’t really reality if you know you’re being recorded for reality TV.
No, this couldn’t be recurring, though there may come a time where I forget about this idea and revisit it.
But, for now, I am sitting here with a Cricket on a lap, under a keyboard slide and being totally comfortable and absolutely bereft of any ideas so?
Looking for some stupid, then, is all I got.
I’m also thinking you could have some fun yourself with the same idea.
RECENT REPONSES TO TEXTS OR EMAILS OR FACEBOOK POSTS OR INSTAGRAMS I DON’T GET ‘CAUSE I DON’T HAVE AN INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT BUT WITH NO CONTEXT
Dawn, really?! Damn! … whodathunk?
/////
(to me) Wizard!
(townspeople)
“WIZARD!!”
“WIZARD!!”
“BURN HIM!!!”
“WITCH!! … BURN HER …”
“(no, Bill … it’s Wizard)”
“… oh, right, my bad, Witches were last week … we still get to yell BURN HIM though, like Witches right? That’s my favorite part”
“Oh, of course!!”
“Whooo Hooo!! BURN HIM … HE’S A WIZARD!! BURN HIM!!”
“You go Bill, you’re in fine form today!!”
“Thanks Larry!!
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Tractor supply. 40lb bag for eight bucks. Hides the smell well.
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Gotcha. My sister’s cat Rikki, aka Chunky Pants, says “morning” (video). Your left foot or your right? I forget.
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You don’t look like Tippy Hedren … they might leave you be, Stephen.
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“My middle name is noise!!!” Ha!!
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(holiday dinner table)
“Aunt Millie, you have outdone yourself with your meat pie this year, you know you really have to give us your recipe …”
“Oh, thank you so much dear but let me cut you off. You know a girl doesn’t divulge her kitchen secrets”
(little Millie) “Hey Aunt Millie”
“Yes honey?”
“How come there’s never any Squirrels around your yard?”
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I know, Grayson thought corporate sponsorships may have been the way to monetize his possible celebrity but he loved the cable box and …
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I will jave to order a new lockset
There is a key fornthis one
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Does the now open refrigerator door come with something to compliment one or the other of said choices? Half a capicola and salami sub from that really cool Italian deli you just discovered for instance, or a salad you didn’t really like but are still holding onto for at least one more day just in case but still pick the cheese out of and what if when opening the door you realize your months old Blue Cheese dressing on the door really needs to go as you haven’t been in the mood for wings in a while, or what if when you open the door, just behind the choices is a glorious grassy field filled with multiple eyed, red furred squirrel looking creatures under three suns from that dimension that Bob told you about at the office (though you know he was probably high … probably … maybe) and what if … my God Man what are you asking of me!!!! … Jesus I don’t know!!! … Oh, fuck it, just go with green!! Wow, you make shit so hard!
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(to me) Saphira has the zoomies, you awake? She did that thing again.
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Well, see ya at some point maybe and if I do? Don’t take it personally if I talk to you from the end of a 10 foot pole.
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Yes, and thanks. We will talk about me being chagrined at another time.
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(to me) Omfg … the Hudson Valley is collapsing. Last week … I found Friday in POK closed. Yesterday they closed Newburgh. WTF is going on?!?!
(Aside: this one sort of confused me at the time, POK? Personal Office Klatch? (they can be soooo clique-ee). Pine Outland Cobalt (cobalt spelled wrong) and maybe a Bravo and a Charlie with click clicks and mission seriousness as I couldn’t figure why anyone would want to close Friday, and in Peter’s Outhouse Comedy (comedy spelled wrong) no less?! I mean that’s supposed to be the best day of the week right? And they closed Newburgh? An entire town?!)
/////33333333333333333333333334 … Hold on … Cricket wakes and steps like a calico Godzilla. “I will crush your small keyboard city!!”
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You ate the best!!! Thank you!!
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Hey quiet!!! Not out loud knucklehead! What did I say about the Universe being a dick!?!? Shit, looking over my shoulder as we speak …
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You’ve been trying to reach me?
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Cool man, thanks, but I don’t need one.
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Shimmy was just what I was looking for (I hate repeating words when you don’t need to which I did with “shuffle”)
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Again?! How is that even physically possible?!
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Sunday? You know I don’t do Sundays.
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Interesting.
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What? Seriously? Jim Croce was cool as fuck.
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Nope, ain’t going there … hehehehe! Plus that would definitely hurt … like a lot!
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(to me) Hahahaha! Omg. You are truly wonderful!!
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Dudette, you are too funny, but still can’t wrap the noggin around that one.
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Well, there is definitely more but it just gets into the minutia of how boring or not boring I am, depending on perspective I guess, though perspective would probably conclude boring.
Now, will I post something more interesting in the future? Jesus, I hope so, but for now this is what I got. Right Cricket? Any more cat thoughts? … oh, sorry kid … my bad … you’re asleep again now after keyboard cities vanquished … sssshhhhh … hey Kid (whispering) I can’t feel my leg.
Well it’s that time of year for this one again, an annual holiday tradition now for me to post it (if a third year running is enough to constitute “tradition”) if for no other reason, than, as a crazy cat lady guy, I just really like it.
Though I did include it recently in a post with a few other tunes, the fun song stories of my hapless friends Stevie and Tommy and Stevie’s not so hapless little brother Billy, this one needs it’s own singular post.
it’s fun, it’s catly and it’s Christmasy.
Nuff said.
It came from a Facebook post of a friend, Linda, a couple of years ago and her cat, Patrick, from a line of hers in that post that said, with him sitting in front of some Christmas pretty decorations, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Patrick”
I went with it and had a blast.
Cheers Linda and to you Patrick, again, you damn good looking Christmas cat.
‘Tis the season Patrick.
It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Patrick
It’s beginning to look a lot like Patrick
Everywhere Pat goes
Take a look in his snug cat bed laying his Patrick head
With maybe a mouse or two under his toes
.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Patrick
Fur on every rug
Till the monster is need brought out
To suck away all hair’s clout
While Patrick runs no doubt
.
An extra can can of food or some cat nip for mood
Is his wish as any cat would
Ball with a bell and a knock it to hell
Is new wish across some hardwood
.
And Mom and Dad do funny dance to not step on cat’s pants
.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Patrick
Everywhere Pat goes
.
There’s a tree that is soon to rise
Each branch a new cat prize
The hanging kind just waiting for a fall
.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Patrick
Snoozing underneath
And what brings that slumber best
Are the lights not put to test
With Christmas cats now at rest
.
(break)
.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Patrick
Runnin’ cross the floor
To every cat’s Christmas dream
And the presents that will be
Box torn paper all a-skew
.
Sure it’s Patrick once more … time to puke, time to puke it’s Patrick’s time to puke.
So a prompt for the holidays, an Etheree poem (no, I had no clue either) focusing on Christmas trees and themes of such. The full explanation of an Etheree poem and examples and the rest is in the link to the prompt from dVerse Poets here,An Etheree Tree, but it is …
… write in the form of this Etheree which is 10 non-rhyming lines graduating, per line, from 1 syllable in line 1 to 10 in line 10. The only addition to the form was two extra lines of only 2 syllables each at the end.
Now, not the original intent of the Etheree of course, but if you then center the 10 lines on the page and add the two extra lines for the tree trunk bottom you get the shape of a Christmas tree, which, well, just looks cool
It made me think of a favorite couple of pictures from so many years ago of Cal, the kitten, 2004 or so, in a house I shared with my sister and brother then.
Cal, one of the 5 kittens that were kittened to us by a pregnant cat (my brother named her Mia) who just showed up at our back door one day looking for a place to possibly stay. She had surely seen my Benny in his Benny to and fro’s around neighbor’s yards and flower beds and through his cat door and thought to herself in a wanting way, “these are good cat folk and this is just the place to lay my head” and proud, expectant belly in a toweled cardboard box world with lots of human hovering and eventual kitten squirming. She was also the Mom of my beloved “Shoes”, the Big Orange, who I would eventually write of quite a lot over his 11 too short years.
Well, this was from the first Christmas with Cal and Shoes (after we found homes for the others) and I thought they would be the perfect pictures for this.
Christmas Kitten
I
kitten
can’t see me
I hide in glow
of lights and baubles
pictures cute found subject
broken heirloom sighs know blame
but can’t hold true meaning account
Christmas purr instinct as a cat will
until climb down to plush skirt and cat nap
warm blinks
cat dreams
Oh … and since I mentioned it, this is one of that cardboard box that came with all the human hovering.
I have done a lot of songs, over the last 7 or so years, of the political parody type (but also some others) ones that you may know, but ones that I must consider in a new light now, the importance of, and whether or not I may be freedom of speechly able to produce more of them …
tick, tock, tick, tock .
Oh, you jest say you …
… tick, tock, tick, tock …
Anyway, another time. It’s the holidays, thanksgiving passed, and an album of the “some others” Christmas tunes now (ok, not an album) and the adventures of three characters, the hapless Stevie and Tommy and Stevie’s NOT hapless little brother Billy with one “Christmas” tune in the mix.
Now, however much I might love to envision myself an artist who comes out with the requisite collection of holiday classics at some point …
Studio: It’s Christmas, be all Christmasy and shit, it’s about time, we need a whole record …
… I do, actually, already have my own without that required studio mandate.
Two of them. I know, Christmas prolific I am!
Now, if two songs are enough to constitute an entire album, maybe with some remixes and extended plays and spoken word guest appearances (no, I know that’s not a thing) and one original tune that I haven’t written or performed just yet then I’m good.
First the story of Stevie and Tommy and Billy started here …
Ok, well, that’s all I got, but maybe it will be distracting enough … give me respite until the Holidays wear off, and January comes and holiday hangovers eventually fade then to figure out retreat and hideaways.
New Quadrille prompt, a dVerse poem of just 44 words with a word to include . This time around, in the prompt from Lisa, the word is “with”. And the 44 word count does not include the title by the way.
Well, I thought to one of my cats and my well practiced solitude.
Earlier this week was a prompt at dVerse poets of Dragons and some history and to write of such. Now I missed the “window” to include an entry to this prompt but I still thought to get to something about Dragons, thus …
A Dragon’s Lament
I am ‘bout fold up my wings
my lament
of Dragon lore and settling scores
with villagers who I wish fight no more
fly over to tremble their thatch
homes
and thatch fields and thatch clothes and thatch thoughts
they too easy to burn brittle
if so
and turn
into fiery jackals wishing my hide
to feast in grand time at my demise
.
They can have my riches
though I have none
of what would I do
if so
with even some
piled glinting, blinding high laired in dragon stories
told
from the point of pike and mobbed pitchfork flamed dance
Hi and welcome to the Attic, I'm Frankenberry of said Blog Title and I write of just my everyday here, sometimes funny, sometimes heartfelt, sometimes angry, sometimes funny again because, well, who don't like funny, thoughts on getting older and sometimes stuff that's just kinda shit. I pen and sing the occasional parody tune and other songs, sometimes I even get a little bit poetic or short story-etic or something like that. If you're joining me here I thank you, but just mind your head and feet and keep an eye out for my little Bella and Cricket The Blind as well as the memories of Raspberry (Razzy), Mimi the Quirky, of Blink The Lil' Kit, Grayson the Mighty, Shoes the Big Orange, Shana-Girl, Benny Good Man Benny Brown, Merlin & Bob. Wouldn't want you step on them or anything ... 'cause then I might just have to throw you down the stairs ... damned humans.
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"When your eyes meet mine, it feels less like discovery and more like remembrance. As if somewhere beyond the veil of forgetting, we promised: Find me. And we did." - The Creative Chic
A personal exploration of autism from a brother’s perspective, including family relationships, philosophy, neuroscience, mental health history and ethics