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.
I know the Beatles have been a theme, maybe tiredly so at this point (I’ve tried explain that as best I can). Though this isn’t one of my favorites I still like it, it’s fun and lyrically I think it’s pretty good which is all that matters. Plus it’s still part of a plan. A grand plan? No. Just a simple one for my own version of sanity in this fucked up place as I work towards a full album of Beatles parodied Trump tunes.
…Mimi the Quirky apparently likes the number 4 preceded by a 7…ahhhh, cats and keyboards…maybe she’s trying to tell me something with these 4’s preceded by a 7. Your guess is as good as mine.
Meaning? Nothing. Just a pawed bunch of 4’s with that preceding 7 but it kind of fits with our current crazy. Complete nonsense, a cat and a paw on a keyboard, but given the right machine and the best of blind fealty I could make all those 4’s preceded by a single 7 mean anything I want. Mimi the Quirky could be King.
So as I work towards what I’ll call “The Orange Album” I have a few more tunes already in mind if you’ll just bear with me in the future.
Shill Barr Be, Hack Barr Are
William is new AG in this U.S. place
Bought and paid give Trumpy D a hand
Wrote a little White House pre-pared sum-mary
That he then touted as some truth throughout the land
Shill Barr be, hack Barr are, Trump goes on
BLAH BLAH BLAH!!
Blah Blah Trump lies they live on
Hack Barr be, shill Barr are, Trump feels strong
BLAH BLAH BLAH!!
Blah Blah Trump lies they live on
William takes a seat at a new congress store
Serenades a unilater’l will
To de-cide the findings of Mueller’s report
He echoes Trump words as he then begins to shill
Shill Barr be, hack Barr are, Trump goes on
BLAH BLAH BLAH!!
Blah Blah Trump lies they live on
Hack Barr be, shill Barr are, Trump feels strong
BLAH BLAH BLAH!!
Blah Blah Trump lies they live on
In a couple of years Trump has built a great de-vide
G-OP grunts blindly at his side
along for cruelest of rides
HA HA HA HA
Happy ever soon an autocrat’s new place
William lends the orange rule of law
The rest of us just watch as shit then hits our face
A narr-a-tive about this prez’s lawless place
Shill Barr be, hack Barr are, Trump goes on
BLAH BLAH BLAH!!
Blah Blah Trump lies they live on
Hack Barr be, shill Barr are, Trump feels strong
BLAH BLAH BLAH!!
Blah Blah Trump lies they live on
In a couple more years Trump tries play the game for long
Ju-dicial law in the partisan hand
Of William DOJ strong
HA HA HA HA
Democratic now not in this U.S. land
William lends the Orange office space
Redactions and conspiracies then take their place
And in the long run we are now sure less than great
Shill Barr be, hack Barr are, Trump goes on
BLAH BLAH BLAH!!
La la Trump lies they live on
Hack Barr be, shill Barr are, Trump feels strong
BLAH BLAH BLAH!!
La la Trump lies they live on
And if you want for ruin
Sing tune of William Barr
When I first moved into my place here a little over a year ago, a two room apartment above a two car attached garage, I moved into madness. A glorious madness. Seven dogs and a myriad of cats to navigate all surely taking the temp of the new guy. Would he be cool I thought they all said, would he pet us, should we eat him (the big German Shepherd sisters, Eve & Senta), should I just continue to bark at him until he goes away (Pea), will he call us all by name, will he maybe even eventually feed us?
Well, the petting helped…then the feeding of course and, yes, I learned everyone’s name…a lot of names. I liked that there were a lot of names.
When you park your car here you do so outside of the garage just below my windows and you walk in through this garage into a mud room, the place here for the gang of fur. An old, wonderfully dog worn leather love seat and a metal crate, big enough for the big girls that decided not to eat me, a crate that’s not really a crate, more of just a comfy sleep spot with some blankets, stuffed toys and the occasional (dog) found empty pet food can. It’s also that innate human, first place in the door, shit to be piled on spot. I’m sure in earlier times this is where soon to be pelts, rocks, crudely fashioned though effective tools were layed in caves maybe while getting crap from the better half for just this. For stuff not being properly put away in their proper of places. Nothing ever really changes. This, plus the strewn extra large pet beds and it’s a really good room, a really warm room. It’s also, when it comes to the beds, a “who got here first” kinda thing, sometimes shared, cats and dogs alike, a little community that understands each other and something that has fascinated me because of such since day one. This coexistense. The mud room then leads into the kitchen, the heart of this place. I was a little reticent to go beyond this room when I first moved in as this was the main part of someone else’s house, someone’s else’s home. I wasn’t family, I was just the guy who should hang a hard left at the mud room and head up the stairs.
But there was a kitten. A little tortoise kitten who found himself in the midst of the chaos of established dogs and cats, a little trooper of a tortoise kitten who would not be denied his spot among this established. I found myself, one night, cradling him in my arms, rubbing a belly, lightly scratching an ear, but I also found myself to be doing it while sitting on the floor leaning against the kitchen counter just as my landlady, Celie, walked in from her day.
“He’s a cutie isn’t he?”
“He certainly is”
Not even a blink as to me being in the kitchen. I was Ok.
I thought about taking him upstairs with me at the time, a new friend maybe, for my Bella and Grayson, and I even named him that tortoise coat, “Turtle”, but he suffered some awful seizures, debilitating ones that were doing damage, some of which I tried to tame as best I could at the time with more cradles and soft words and quite a few tears, but there had to come a goodbye. He was though, I think, a sign to Celie that maybe this new guy upstairs was alright. He liked this kind.
The first time I got to feeding the kit gang there was almost, I thought, a suprised look on the faces of these numerous cats as they realized that there was a new human providing dinner. Not that they minded of course, dinner is dinner after all. I did it that first time as a way to say thank you to Celie for this new best of all little spots (there was another best of all little spots years ago but this one was different, more furry, more…ummm…better). Since then I’ve done what I can to help out, at least when it comes to the feeding and the minding, cat and dog alike, the kitchen heart no longer being a fear of overstepping. There’s a comfort in it.
There’s a sun room in the house. It’s in the back, through the kitchen and then the living room. It is a good place for cats replete with it’s own cat door for comings and goings inside/outside, especially for the front porch gang who know to come in for cat towers and plush beds and good naps. This is where I first met Cricket the Blind who is also mostly deaf. In my feedings of the gang all that Cricket was concerned with was trying to climb my leg to eventually get her head behind my ear. Food? It was secondary. When there came to be some company in this room I worried for Cricket the Blind and her unseen new roomie. I didn’t want her to possibly get hurt. So upstairs it was. Though her blindness offers some unique challenges, some maddening to tell you the truth, she’s been upstairs with me ever since, a year plus now. She’s got her human now and, challenges or no, I’m good with that. Try to balance challenges with a blind cat’s Spring’s breeze…I dare ya.
I know I’ve written of some of this before but Jill said “Oh, you’re fucked now”. That was the response to my latest Pet of the Week segment on Mix 97 eight years ago. The “Oh, you’re fucked now”? That was Jill knowing that I was unexpectedly and suddenly sold on this little fur thing sitting on my chest as I did my radio bit. She knew I was taking her home without first consulting my Maria, my better half then. Her name was Ella. Jagger, Maria’s son, all of eleven or so, knew that if there were ever another cat to come after my recently passed Benny his or her name would just have to start with a “B”, my only condition. My initial thought was to name her Blink, as to her huge unblinking stare, but Jagger, instead, came up with the perfect name. He just tacked that “B” onto the beginning of her already existing name. So there was a Bella. Smart kid.
On one of her trips to Florida to work on her house there Celie entrusted me with minding the gang as she sometimes does. Let the dogs out in the morning, feed the cats when I come home and wash a few pet bowls along the way. On this particular trip though, there were two kittens included in the minding, Tank and his new as yet unnamed pal. Tank had issues from the get go, had been handed a short deck but he persevered as best he could till the end. His pal? She was fast, so fast, and, thinking I’d go with a vehicle motif, I came to call her Go-Cart. I also came to bring them upstairs with me while Celie was away. It was one less thing to worry about. That brought my temporary cat total to 5. If there is a line by the way, five might just be it. All I was missing now was a mumu, crocs and a tub of ice cream while I binge watched “Hoarders”. Funny thing happened though, Bella seemed to like Go-Cart.
Ever since Grayson passed away so suddenly and heartbreakingly back in August I’d wanted Bella to have a new pal. She doesn’t like Cricket and she only tolerates Mimi but she’d already lost Shoes and then Gray, so I thought she could use another friend. I had tried that once already with one of the cats from the shelter, the incredibly vocal Gibson, and that went spectacularly unwell as Bella was scared of him, intimidated. Gibson has since gone to a good friend from work and has truly found his human in Eric. Things work out like that sometimes. This bringing the kittens upstairs though, in a sense, was accidentally perfect. Bella liked having a new friend, and a new friend with Celie’s Ok that I decided to keep. I also re-named her that original Bella name, Blink.
Now, I’m sure you know I’ve had a few cats over the years, all, until recently as I’ve mentioned, starting from the kitten stage. Bob back in Grad School, my first cat on my own who sadly didn’t make it out of my apartment fire back in ’89. I obviously did, just barely…thank you again Bill Pearis for what surely, then, was just a mundane phone call. Then Benny and Merlin, a Christmas gift to myself and my then new wife, Danielle, in a marriage that didn’t last very long. I kept the cats and a couple of pieces of furniture. Still have the nightstand 24 years later as a matter of fact, awkward though solid well made thing that has never fit quite right in any room but has suited me well, nonetheless, all these years. Merlin lost a fight with a car back when I left Dayton, Ohio and then Pittsburgh to move in with Mom in New York for a little while, post divorce, before I then moved to Florida to clear my head, get some sunshine and hang with my favorite cousin while working with her at a Disney resort where I would occasionally don tights and a big-ass plastic head for the kids and Saturday breakfasts. The other half of that pair, Benny? He was with me for 16 years and 15 different physical addresses. A true companion and constant when I needed one most. The very definition of friend. Then there was my boy and constant sidekick Shoes who’s pregnant mom adopted my brother and sister and I when we shared a house after I moved back to New York from my Disney adventure. Eventually there was the above mentioned Bella, then Grayson, my greatest save and worst heartbreak and the now, Cricket the Blind, Mimi the Quirky and, well, Blink. Bella and the Unintentionals.
If only Bella played guitar.
Of all the kittens on this list, there was none quite like the addition of Blink. The energy, the humor, the excitement at my come homes and her bounding down the stairs to greet me was something I had really never experienced with the rest other than Shoes who always knew the time. My coming home was kitty Christmas every day with Blink. I also know being a little bit nutty is part of the kitten job description. But Blink? She took to that job requirement with utter abandon, with a fervor I hadn’t seen in all my years of being a cat dude. Nothing on any counter or table top or nightstand stood a chance. I’d also never had a cat that was not only NOT scared of water but who thought walking into the back of the shower while I was in it was just par for the course. It absolutely fascinated her. I looked down one morning, after just rinsing my hair, and there Blink was, at the back of the shower with a look that just said “what?” A Matthew Modine at the end of “Birdy” kinda thing (one of the greatest films ever by the way…or at least for me).
Well the wonder that was Blink is gone now god dammit, her name being so sadly appropriate as it was seemingly just a Blink that she was with me here in this perfect of little spots. Not even 6 months. Not even quite a year old yet. Feline leukemia. Fucking fast working bastard too. Just this past Monday she was on top of the fridge, just like Grayson, slapping at my head and being so proud to have figured how to be eye to eye with me. Funny, like a little kid who wants to constantly check their height on a door frame to see if they’d gotten bigger, Blink was always sizing up a new high spot, the towel cabinet in the bathroom, the counter at the kitchen sink, the living room cat tower, that afformentioned fridge. I gave her a bit of assistance with empty litter bins for her to hop on and then up, but she seemed so happy to have thought she figured it out herself, to have figured out how to be “big”. Then Tuesday morning she ignored her breakfast, then that evening her dinner and eventually it was all she could do just to grab her favorite cat bed. Monday, fridge head slaps, Sunday goodbye. And I was so looking forward to the weather breaking, like this weekend, so she could grab a window’s breeze for the first time. Well, at least she did, for a moment.
After her going down to the shelter on Wednesday for a blood test and to be looked at by the doc she came back to our best of little spots last night. Thank you Celie for that. She needed a last couple of nights in HER place, in her cat tower. Yes, one of those spots she was so proud to conquer in her quest to be big.
Blink, we were supposed to have so much more time, a so much more YOUR time and I will so miss you, miss sharing bits of my dinner, miss yelling at you to to stop treating the things on my awkward though solid nightstand like enemy combatants, miss you laying on my arm under the covers at night while you kneaded my shirtsleeve. Blink, one of my unintentionals, who brought me so much laughter, joy…peace. Hopefully you recieved the same in your short time. I’d like to think that you did.
I don’t go out much, ever actually, which I’m perfectly fine with and you want to know why? Try topping a Friday night like this, in a perfect of little spots, while computer scribbling a few words or playing with some sound.
At least yesterday was laundry day. She SO loved laundry day.
I don’t know if this has been posited yet, probably has somewhere, but I’m curious as to what arrangement was worked out between Donnie and DeVos for her to agree to look the REALLY bad guy by cutting the budget for Special Olympics so he could then White Horse-It in to save the day and give the appearance that he’s a good man who cares. Especially when the infamous neo-Nuremberg rally video of him mocking the disabled popped it’s head up again recently. I mean, obviously, no one is actually going to cut the budget for Special Olympics as the optics of such would just be awful, so this was completely manufactured, propaganda-like, in an incredibly transparent attempt to burnish his image. Plus, the budget for Special Olympics is relatively small, less so, for example, than the estimated cost of Trump throwing himself a fascist admiration baby general military parade party, so no one is buying it.
Now, to be fair, Betsy DeVos cutting said budget on her own wouldn’t be completely out of the question as she is just a shit of human being but, again, I’m curious as to the arrangement. What did DeVos get in return for falling on the sword of public outcry so that Trump could appear the hero? Or maybe this was Donnie the Don just calling in that favor, mob boss-like (it’s how he operates after all) that DeVos has owed him from the beginning, since he nominated her for this bought education post that she is astoundingly unqualified and unsuited for that then led to one of the most embarrassingly horrendous confirmation hearings in the history of this country, hearings that in any sane non-trump reality would have had her unanimously rejected with an added recommendation that she be soundly mocked 24-7 for her stupidity. Or maybe it’s just a bit of a smokescreen to throw us off the fact that Betsy has added 60 million dollars to the budget of suspect charter schools that operate with no oversight and with surely most of that earmarked for Christian indoctrinary factories.
Well, whatever the arrangement and some of the reasoning was, we know one thing for certain. #DonnieDisaster’s propaganda machine is working overtime, hell, we can see that now as they spin the Meuller report, asking us to trust the State News word of a shill AG’s hastily trotted 4 page “exoneration” of the President even though he clearly had no time to actually read the full report, even with all the Russia connected indictments, an AG who feels the President is above the law and who’s 19 page memo from a short time ago decried, in part, the constitutionality of the investigation and whether a President can be indicted in the first place and what should have had him recusing himself from the whole thing the second he was confirmed all while trying to do everything they can to keep anyone, including congress, from actually reading it in full, all 400 or 700 pages of it, or at least until they’ve redacted most of it. Maybe even destroying some.
This will only get worse (history, apparently, hasn’t taught us much or maybe it has depending on your perspective and to what lows you will go to recreate it) and even more painfully obvious as we get closer to election day, well, more painfully obvious to some of us anyway.
When I was a kid, my first girlfriend was the Beatles. Mom even approved of all the time we spent together, and it was quite a lot (no kissing by the way…I knew Cynthia Lennon was hot). I thought, in my kidness, that her approval had to have come from her, of course, knowing them personally. She had emigrated to America from their equal small England right around the same time as Ed Sullivan and just before she met “Joe Frankenberry from New York” and then there was a me. They shared accents so they must have known each other right? I mean, how could they not?
So the first album I ever bought was Live at the Hollywood Bowl…check that. The first album I ever bought was the Star Wars soundtrack, Rexall Drugs, Mahopac, New York (pronounced Mayo-Pack for anyone that might be reading a Ma-Ho-Pack into this and getting all huffy) right across from the lake and just down the street from Rodack’s, home of the finest post you made it through church nods again treat sandwiches known to man. That album cover would soon be the repository of all of the stickers I collected from the Star Wars card packs I spent way too much of my paperboy money on (yes, I lived a time of paperboys). I somehow thought that buying that album and those cards might get me a bit closer to that magical galaxy. It was a little dissapointing.
But the first REAL album (apologies Mr Williams) I ever bought was the Beatles Live at the Hollywood Bowl. He doesn’t know me but a “Speilbergian” suburbia was inspired by myself and countless other then kids as I rode my bike to Mammoth Mart, too many miles and years away today but a mere blip for us back then, with one intent. Come home with that record. I rode, one handed, all the way back to my bedroom using that extra hand, outstretched, to hold that prize away from any possible bike’s bounce handlebar/wheel damage while also cursing any car that passed endangering such. It was surely around this time when I did, eventually, get that prize to my bedroom, and because of my endless replays of “Twist and Shout”, “Ticket to Ride”, “A Hard Day’s Night” and the rest, that Mom probably wished she had discovered vodka.
I bring this up only because I’ve built a few tunes here in the Attic courtesy of the Beatles. Unintentional really…to start. Maybe it’s because I can “sing” them a bit easier knowing them so well, maybe it’s because I’d like to think the “lads” would agree with my tuned sentiments, maybe the songs sort of lend themselves or maybe it’s just because this was the time I wish I could go back to, a cliche’d innocence, when mom and dad, when all of our mom’s and dad’s trusted us, trusted us out there on our bikes, trusted us to be smart and be ourselves without worry and when the future didn’t look so dim, when our present then wasn’t as fucked up as this current now.
Language, I know…sorry Ma.
So another tune, another attempt to keep sane in an insane world.
Trump D In The Lie With Zirconia
Picture yourself in a swamp where truth quivers
With Orange tinged lies and white chocolate tries
A Senate adores you, you gloat in the glory
Of lapdog and sycophant cries
Cult like adornments white lettered on red
Witlessly cover their heads
Cast for the dumbest with blind in their eyes
And you’ve won
Trump D in the Lie with Zirconia
Trump D in the Lie with Zirconia
Trump D in the Lie with Zirconia
Ahhhhhhhhh….
Trump dumb dumb down to a negative measure
Where marshmallow people cry victim’s sad sighs
Backwards they go at behest of their master
Where white anger’s dumb it does rise
News outlets try all while ducking their heads
From Orange shouts looking for blood
But still Nielsen calls with their 30 coins pay
And they’re done
Trump D in the Lie he’s not heaven sent
Trump D in the Lie Sarah go get bent
Trump D’s GOP’s on a Hell descent
Ahhhhhhhhh….
Picture a sad orange cream sickle nightmare
Where real is accused of being the lie
Actual lies are then trotted state news style
A Fox truth democracy dies
Trump D in the Lie he’s not heaven sent
Trump D in the Lie Sarah go get bent
Trump D’s GOP’s on a Hell descent
Ahhhhhhhhh….
Trump D in the Lie with gold’s foolish
Trump D in the Lie with 49’ers
Trump D in the Lie with alchemy
Ahhhhhhhhh….
Trump D in the Lie with Zirconia
Trump D in the Lie with Zirconia
Trump D in the Lie with Zirconia
Ahhhhhhhhh…
Mother and I wanted to let you know that that wheelie you felt the need to perform alongside a gentleman’s car from one traffic light until he pulled off just before the next (maybe a quarter mile or so) where he stopped for a to-go from Popeye’s for his dinner?
It was quite impressive, as juvenile feats of stupidity go, especially as the kids may like just that sort of thing these days. We don’t know, being old an out of touch of course as you always remind us. Ahhhh, youth. But, at least, keep wearing that helmet son. We know it may soon come in handy though we pray not. We love you after all.
The gang at Popeye’s, when the gentleman relayed this quick story, while ordering his 5 piece, mild not spicy, spicy hasn’t sat well lately, all agreed that your worried manhood shouldn’t hinder you from future displays of the same such stupidity. They may even offer an extra piece of chicken for the laugh. But again though, the helmet, please, always the helmet. We’re also SOOO relieved that you didn’t fall after that tire hung in the air for such a long stretch. But at least you can sleep well knowing that that gentleman’s car was small. It might not have been that much of a bump…bump…anyway, if things had gone awry.
Don’t forget to continue to send us postcards from stupid by the way. Your mother and I treasure them. And your handwriting has gotten so much better.
XxOo
Ps. Please, in the future, try to impress someone other than an another gentleman in an unimpressive car. Your mother, and I, would love grandchildren.
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but I’m something of a cat guy. Yeh, who knew huh?
Well, while my landlady and also dear friend, Celie, has been enjoying some much needed sun and down time away from the cold and dire “tune in tonight to find out how we will all die” cold weather predictions, I’ve been minding the kit kaboodle.
Now there are, of course, mine. My Bella Girl in her (and my dearly missed Shoes’s) first of my 2 computer chairs right next to me as I type, always, kitten china shop Blink and some warm laundry’s pause, old quirky, fragile girl Mimi (Memes) finding that same warm pause and Cricket the Blind of the wailing meow quietly grabbing a cat nap on a Steve bed.
But there is also a Honey Bob Tail, or “Boo” as I like to call her, the uber cool Lebowski-like dude Bruce and his seeming lazy eye, big boy Buck in his finest of tux, Florida and her perfect orange, Handsome, perfectly named and who’s always a nose to nose swivel head nudge with me on my come homes, Lola of the silent meow, Sharky my assistant chef at dinner time and the aloof, secretive Trucker who just appears. Really, he just appears. No idea from where.
Missing for the moment? Dolly who you can sometimes find in the sink and say “Hello Dolly” with a musical nod, Millie who you can often never find and Cujo who has earned his name but is still, though be wary mere humans, a good boy. Oh, and there is the other Bella, of bird type, who decided to tap tap around on the hardwood and check out the me taking pictures. She is not one to be excluded.
Sometimes you just have a night where time it seems to slow down, where it seems to stand still. Now, obviously, that’s not possible, as time doesn’t slow down, it is, after all, time. It marches always at the same clip forward not mindful of or caring for us at all, relentless bastard that it is, but still there are those moments where it really does feel as if it gives us a pause. Like maybe those nights where you dream, vivid, colorful full blown movie-like dreams, and you wake to check the actual here and now time. 4 or so am. You get up to pee and you go back to bed/sleep, jumping right back into that movie of dreams, scene after scene playing out in all it’s down to the last detail glory and you roll over and wake again. It’s now just 4:24. And you’ve lived an entire movie or more it seems, hours upon hours i what feels like real time. You roll back over. This movie of your dreams continues, maybe even to its finale, and the next time you wake it’s only 4:42. Wonderful that way sometimes huh?
That’s the time slow I’ve enjoyed tonight (this morning), though fully awake, in the quiet of a perfect warm colored little lamp lit apartment as I tinker with words while 4 cats sleep undisturbed by my soft foot putzing around this perfect.
When I can spin and roll back in my second computer chair to take a walkaround without waking my Bella laying right next to me in the first, when I can do said soft foot putzing past sleeping cat kitten tornado Blink and she stays put on the futon on a just worn Steve sweatspant, not caring of my movements, not even raising an eye or an ear, when I can I can check an old, fragile, quirky Mimi girl (Memes) on a shelf in my computer desk or a Cricket the Blind leaned up asleep on my pillow on the bed while I do quiet? Yeh, time, it does indeed seem to stand still. I’m good with such a moment. Time? I think I just owned ya…if however briefly.
For three plus years now I’ve had this single line rattling round my noggin, bumping into shit. “A Boy And His Cat In A Cone Plastic Hat.” A Dr Seussian type line that has never let me be. I’ve written thousands of words around it in my head over these years as I remember Shoes and the walks he and I would take around the drive/roadway and parking lots that circled our apartment complex during his last month or so. It was a time for me that was as equally heartbreaking as it was wondrous. I know I’ve brought up Shoes often, so much so that it may seem tired, but he was one of those friends that needs be remembered and brought up often for what he was. A reminder of who we are. A reminder of what is/was true. I think, maybe, I’ve finally got this down now. Bear with me.
A Boy And His Cat In A Cone Plastic Hat
There was a boy and his cat in a cone plastic hat
Who found themselves walking this way and way that
In circles round home on a night by night trip
He talkin’ cat list’nin’
At a calm peaceful clip
You see
The boy’s cat in this cone plastic hat was not well
And the boy he had many long stories to tell
To his dearest of friends of 11 grand years
But trying to do so without shedding his tears
So they walked and he talked on these perfect (s) of nights
Allowing this cat in the cone plastic hat
Some flights
Footed outside
For the first time in his life
A gift from the boy to this cat’s great delight
And the cat in the cone plastic hat listened just right
Though now minus one ear from a Doctor’s need stop
The other had might
Enough to catch stories spun high in the air
By his boy who he followed with great love and great care
Along their way they passed people and pets
Both large and both small
To the cat in the cone plastic hat though
They were all tall
But he came to grow big as they petted and gushed
With attention he loved
As they marveled his gifts to walk with no rush
With his boy who just smiled some big hearty hugs
This cat in the cone plastic hat waited by day
For the sound of boy’s car
To home come from what seemed so
So far
Far away
To make
Way
Stairs
Down,
No dilly
No dally
As time for him now was no longer an ally
You see
The cat in the cone plastic hat knew he hadn’t this time
He wanted their friendship to grow and to shine
But for this shortest of moments
In the grandness of things
They would stride steady together with the greatness of kings
It was stories of boy that were of utmost import
In walks round their round he would offer support
While cat sniffing cat checking
Getting caught in the brush
His cone plastic hat it was flush
Filled with tales flung way far
That dearly so meant
So,
So so much
There was even a day
This cat in the cone plastic hat
Got chance just to play
And to lead while, of course, always knowing the way
Minus his hat
Oh glorious day
Then bringing boy back to that place they called home
Where all with the boy it was always the known
But there were things this cat in the cone plastic hat knew needed be said
Of what would become in his absence of stead
Of what boy would do after the gone
Where time it would shorten but still feel so
Long
The cat in the cone plastic hat knew just what
What knew of just such
What knew sure of be that too long
A day
To help him stay strong
To make it not much
He’d say
Goodbye
He thought
In life’s wonder of walks
This cat who was now at in his cone plastic hat
But remembering time where this wasn’t just that
When play was a shoelace tossed long and just right
For wondrous of times and of silly fun fights
Of a mouse down to chase
Or a titter hand tat
And all while wearing no such special hat
But paw forward he would
This way and way that
His best boy in the world as well as he could
To friends who he knew he should
Surely point true
To others in fur and some so in skin
But still remind them that his name was Shoes
Always Shoes
You see
He resides now in heart held so very so strong
Of a nightstand’s still perch
Sensing short winded nightmares long
So sudden jerks
To come down and so sweetly lay to boy’s left
To calm him to know that all was still well
That there would still be so many more stories to tell
That there will always be some more to be said
Now sleep just go back
“We’re hittin’ the rack”
As you always would say
Ahead of tomorrow’s a brand new grand day
Rest your boy head
The begin has its end but ends beg begin … always
Get some sleep for right now
At least
My dearest of friends
One thing I have noted over the last two years of this Presidency, besides of course the clear attempts to undermine our Democracy along with the rule of law, the obvious corruption of Trump’s Administration from the top on down and the unconstitutional practices et al is that somehow Trump, the White House, Press Secretary Hucksterbee, all his congressional sycophants and State News Propagandizing pundits have been able to maintain their unintentional sense of humor, in the face of setbacks, obvious hypocrisy and of course the ONLSAUGHT of lies fact checked on a daily basis. Must give credit where credit is due.
For instance, this morning, on my way in to work, I heard on CBS 880 that the White House says that tonight in his second State of the Union address Trump will try to convey a message of unity. Now ya gotta admit, that’s pretty unintentionally funny huh? I mean, from the campaign through the last two years, Trump has lived by the motto “Us Vs Them…and it’s really bad to be a them.” Being divisive is squarely in Trump’s wheelhouse so to think he’ll try and call for unity amid his expected barrage of lies is quite a stretch and pretty unintentionally funny, especially knowing that no one has bothered to explain to Trump that unity DOESN’T mean blind obeisance.
Earlier this week Hucksterbee said at a meeting of Christian Broadcasters “I think God calls all of us to fill different roles at different times and I think that he wanted Donald Trump to become president, and that’s why he’s there and I think he has done a tremendous job in supporting a lot of the things that people of faith really care about”.
Exactly! Like wanting to protect THEIR “religious liberty” by taking away YOUR rights and passing judgement over everyone else by legislating a cherry-picked Bible in order to send us all backwards even faster than the speed of light…the speed of stupid. Now, other than the rumble you felt under your feet as some of the drafters of the Constitution rolled over in their graves in unison you, in this case as well, gotta admit that Hucksterbee saying Trump was God’s choice is really unintentionally funny especially knowing that if there is truly a god he wouldn’t be that fucking cruel or have such a sadistic sense of humor.
Hucksterbee also went on later to try and explain, YET AGAIN, in that special dismissive & condescendingly disingenuous way of hers, as she follows the propaganda handbook repetition section to the letter, how and why Trump has done more in just two years than any other president in history, something we also hear him try to convince us of ad nauseum. Yeh, some more unintentionally funny shit right there.
And just a couple of days ago Madeleine Westerhout, who is the SAP & Director of Oval Office Operations, whatever that is – correction, we do know what a sap is, especially in this case, said in a tweet bemoaning the leaking of Presidential schedules that show just how ‘hard’ he’s really working that “This POTUS is working harder for the American people than anyone in recent history”. Damn, this whole gang is just a sure fire fucking unintentional laugh riot now wouldn’t you say?
Hannity opened his mouth again. Unintentional laugh riot.
Laura Ingraham tweeted again. Unintentional laugh riot.
Tucker Carlson was undeservedly superior again. Unintentional laugh riot.
Kellyanne exists. Unintentional laugh riot.
We’ll have to wait and see how tonight goes. My guess is that any call for unity will come as more of an accusation against the “them” than as any attempt to even pay lip service to it. It will also come somewhere within a shitload of lies and yet another call to satisfy his ego with a monument to it across the Southern border.
One thing that is guaranteed though, Donald Trump will most assuredly maintain his unintentional sense of humor.
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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A personal exploration of autism from a brother’s perspective, including family relationships, philosophy, neuroscience, mental health history and ethics