Tag: pets

Cricket The Cat Poet – From Beyond the Lap (poem)

by Stephen J Frankenberry3 Comments on Cricket The Cat Poet – From Beyond the Lap (poem)

CRICKET’S CAT CONDO

A Cricket Blog

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Hi and welcome to the Condo, I’m Cricket of said blog title and I write of just my everyday cat here, sometimes funny, sometimes scratchfelt, sometimes angry where I meowl to the cat heavens like I’m at a cat funeral, thoughts on getting older and sometimes stuff that just needs to be buried in the box … like really buried, like spend some real quality catman-like time scratching and swiping and spinning and dancing small circles and dragging and burying them.

Mostly though I write about napping and eating and litter boxing and napping and eating and litter boxing some more and splashing water out of water bowls onto the pee pads underneath them because, well, I do that, a lot. Hey, every cat’s got “a thing” right? Sometimes, I even feel a little poetic like that guy of mine and through osmosis, or lapmosis, I have come to write some pieces of my own.  

I am blind too, just to let you know, though there was a time many cat lives ago where I wasn’t but I don’t let that hinder me from my catversing keyboard scribbling/stepping as I write in a stream of cat free step style. I am mostly deaf as well though that does help to not hear the things no one wants to hear from the world these days and to temper the reactions from aforementioned guy who I surely annoy with my water bowling and his constant need changing of pee pads and the stepping across a face with wet paws in the middle of the night.

If you’re joining me here, I thank you but just mind your feet for me and that other one, Bella (I love her, but she only just bears with me I think) and for my guy (he can be quite adept at dancing after years of cat my counterclockwise circles underfoot practice so don’t you worry). And don’t step on his face with those wet paws in the middle of that night by the way, that’s mine, ’cause then I might just have to startle the cat poop out of you with an unexpected meowl right in your left ear.

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Latest prompt at the dCats Sitting Fence website was to write of something that just struck you, in the moment, something in the stream of cat free step style, right in my Cricket wheelhouse I thought, though, as I think about it some more, that’s pretty much every prompt at dCats Sitting Fence “something that struck you right in the moment” … the occasional write about your love/hate with a stuffed mouse or about things that only the cat saw from the end of the bed or banished to the nightstand sure, or bouncing plastic bell balls but, no, mostly that immediate stream of cat free step.

So my latest then in the Condo with an assist from my guy.

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From Beyond the Lap

The often too many friends in my head said112222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222220222222222222222222222222222222222222222’;[




    Vnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkwe know

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7 thoughts on “From Beyond the Lap”

Catty McCatterson says:

September 18, 2025

You know, what you did there Cricket, with the couple of 1’s followed by the 2’s really hit home. Such a lovely thought that you are your 1’s 2.

Powers says:

September 18, 2025

Hold on … (cough cough choke cough … spit) … sorry, someone REALLY needs to vacuum this f’in place … Wow, that space there Cricket, in the middle? I have no idea what it means. Deep.

Ms Cat says:

September 18, 2025

I love the line “Vnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkmkwe know”

Yeah, we know.

Pixie says:

September 18, 2025

How cute am I? Oh, and great cat poem.

Martin says:

September 19, 2025

Well done Cricket!! But, and I hope I’m not being insensitive here, but how do you find the litter box? I’m guessing it’s all through an overly sensitive sense of smell but well, and I know me, the whole house knows me, I have issues there, I hear the screams, “Dammit Martin!”, is it ever too overwhelming?

Stock Image

September 19, 2025

I know it’s a pretty bad name though AI finds it cool but doesn’t understand what it is that you wrote. I think you may have broken it.

Tish

September 19, 2025

You know Cricket I was breaking this down and at first I thought this just might be nonsense but then I looked further and? It is still nonsense, cat nonsense. Nicely done. Though who is MKM or KMK? I have a catcast, “Tish Cat, Dishes”, would love for you to join in and talk to us about it!

Same Stuff, Different Birthday

by Stephen J Frankenberry9 Comments on Same Stuff, Different Birthday

Well the fourth … hold on … no, fuck you ad (freakin’ calendar phone apps) keep holding … you know what, let me just turn this over old school instead on a wall with a tack, oh hello July, you look like a younger Grayson (he was a cat, a very special cat) …

… the fourth is supposed to be this Friday if these annoying ad inundated apps and cat calendars have anything to say about it and that is the deadline Trump has imposed on his Big, Ugly Ass Evil Bill reconciliation package so he can take a victory lap right before the holiday while grilling immigrants and hot dogs and passing out brown shirts and small flags on small sticks made in China while laying claim to yet another amazingly destructive measure that he seems to gain so much pleasure from, he’s probably even considering subtly implying necessary kickbacks from his oligarchs and thinking of hugging another poor unsuspecting flag again for emphasis … I know, who would do that right?

But, well, I’m going to try my best to not lose any more sleep over it for the moment (though that’s probably an empty desire) and instead just enjoy a short week for my birthday as I have taken it, the 1st and then the 2nd off, back in on Thursday and then off on Friday and into the weekend.

Now I have no plans for this, don’t wish to have any plans for it other than doing what I’m doing right now, keyboard scribbling and hanging out with the girls (Bella & Cricket) for a little extra time. And, well “no plans” is still a plan, at least in my book and I am REALLY good at such.

Hey? You need someone to assist you in planning no plans? I’m your guy. And it’s pretty simple really, I just tell people NOT to ask for my help and then just do nothing. I don’t know if they take this advice that I don’t give on helping to plan no plans but it works for me and I’m happily left in the dark as to their successes or failures.

But with my birthday rolling around for yet another year, timely precise bastard that it is (you know, you could miss a year or two, I’d be alright with that) but with it returning with reminders of more gray hair and shorter breath and larger waistlines and creakier, cracking backs I am reminded, as with a conversation with Beck earlier, that well, I, we still got ones, these birthdays and not ones that someone else is remembering for us with flowers and maybe a knelt tear or two.

No, we’re still kicking it, Beck and I reminded ourselves, while she practiced some guitar and I caught up with her on her recent past weekend away to the Burgh (Pittsburgh) with her guy, Buck.

She went out that way with him this past Thursday, something she and he do every summer, maybe a couple of times, to take the Burgh back in and catch a Bucco game on a Saturday.

And in their yinzing they visited the Iron City Beer Brewery for a tour and eventually the gift shop and picked me up a couple of things … much appreciated.

Now while she was gone I was the cattaker, as always, as I mentioned in my 5:39am post from last week, and others as well making sure to take care of her three along with my two of course, keep everyone in good furry sorts of stinky food and company, including Arthur, who I think broke a little earlier this morning at 5am in his missing of Mom (Monday the 30th) as I heard him at the top of the stairs, meowing his pained, lonely cries down into my basement room (a nice one by the way, this basement room, not some dark and dank place with only food and water provided by someone throwing it down the stairs just within reach of the chains, but a really comfortable spot with a bed and pillows and litter boxes and stuff collected and a TV and an air fryer and a fridge and a microwave and bookcases with clothes to read on the shelves.

But he was just looking for company and, as I have done in other recent posts, a couple of quick videos then, simply because they are always Arthur cute and endearing.

Timeline:

5am: Arthur plaintively meowing at the top of the basement stairs  

8am: Groggily make my way upstairs for a shower

830am: In the final moments of getting dressed for the day

845am: Make my way back upstairs with Arthur following to feed he and Saphira and Rikki, who, raspily reminds me that I’m fucking late for her breakfast, that she has been simply wasting away waiting for me at this late time and where she just glares at me in her chunkiness when I say that she should really start an exercise routine and eat a bit of lettuce or something.

Well, another birthday, one that has me turning 61 and officially being in my 60’s now (yes, can’t fudge this shit any longer when I could still say that I was in my 50’s last year) and my first one at Beck’s place, in a nice  basement like its own apartment, with she and Matt and extra cats.

Still kickin’ it we are Beck, and happily and thankfully so.

Holding off on flowers and tears from others just yet …

Oh, and a favorite birthday post from a few years ago where it was all about Victor stories and gifts of fancy hot dogs and ice cream cakes (he is a number of years older now and would surely hate me for this re-post)

Something of a Cat Named Arthur And of Backups (post post)

by Stephen J Frankenberry5 Comments on Something of a Cat Named Arthur And of Backups (post post)

My Sis, Beck, at the end of last week was down in Wallkill, a few hours south of us here, for a couple of days and when she is gone for day or two, or possibly more, I will happily be tasked with being the caretaker (or cattaker if you will) of her three, Sephira, Arthur and Rikki (Rikki the oversized Cat Weeble who wobbles, wobbles, wobbles and wobbles with a bit of a jiggle, jiggle, jiggle wobbled in there for good measure, but doesn’t fall down …

… unless she’s tired and just plops, but that is NOT a Weeble wobbling AND falling down thing as, well, they just DON’T, as clearly evidenced above here in this piece of Weeble commercial history. No, that would be just entirely of a cat’s own free will and something cats are wont to do which Rikki will surely remind with a raspy cigarette “been hard times Man” sounding meow and a side-eyed glance if you even raise the question.

Nephew Matt can also be tasked for the assist here but he works nights and isn’t up in the mornings because of that, unlike me, so I can easily get both ends of the feeding schedule and gladly slave tirelessly over a hot cracked can of fancy feast stove and help keep them in meowing good fed health and spirits too as I will also throw some petting and conversation in the mix and, though, I am surely a poor backup for “Mom”, they muddle meow through with me anyway (the whole selfless hot can stove cracking food thing helps a great deal in this regard).

I’d like to think, though, that after 8 months or so of me being around, of me being simply an “extra guy”, a one from up the basement like some sort of troll, that maybe it is less of just a muddle, meowing around but maybe a welcome change of feeding pace and welcome extra company.

Cats do love themselves some extra company after all. “Who you? … well, got a forehead and a belly for a scratch here if you are so inclined, oh, this is a test by the way”.

Arthur is fine example as when Mom is away, and his backup human, Matt, is at work, I become the backup, backup human, and I will often find him at my feet, damning the dire world of possible trolls and possible stories of them eating cats, maybe in a Grimm Tale somewhere and, instead, find him trolling, lolling, lounging around behind me at my feet while I’m doing a bit of laundry.

I have mentioned before, in a number of posts, that I am the stereotypical pathetic single dude with a couple of cats who lives in his Mom’s basement, but the not quite stereotypical pathetic single older brother and uncle dude with a couple of cats who lives in his SISTER’S basement and that I just weather the similarities to cliche. But I got to change my short-lived roommate attempt at saving a few dollars situation from 8 months or so ago, to instead reconnect with family in an immediate daily way and my Sis and Nephew have been afforded the glorious opportunity to live with me, surely throwing parties in their heads every day at their good fortune but where I never ask of either of them their definitions of glorious or what they may find to be good fortune.

This though, really, has been a Godsend if whoever he is, is actually in the business of sending sendings. I have been able to give my Bella and my Cricket some much needed space in this troll’s new spacious basement place, away from the tiny bedroom in that aforementioned short-lived roommate dollar save attempt while giving my Sis a backup human to be able to turn to for some cat assistance and maybe some welcome long lost conversation between us at a dining room table or a living room over some greenish, English accented reality show and also give her a few extra dollars while saving me quite a few at the same time, something that is most welcome believe me (I may love what I do to death but I ain’t now nor ever have been flush).

I’d also like to think, just as with Beck’s cats, (it’s sill just a test but you are passing) that maybe my company is alright, I mean I am not an unlikable fella, I can be pretty entertaining, sometimes unintentionally in a slapstick or dad, dog joke kinda way, pretty entertaining even intentionally on occasion, I sometimes even say things that can be considered to be quite smart and prescient and Bella and Cricket get some extra hello’s and attention that they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise, living alone minus me during the day, without this new situation, especially Cricket.

She is blind and deaf and a bit older and where, in the past she may have meowled to the cat heavens in her heartbreaking sounding way, during the day, maybe feeling lonely and afraid she now has some of her own backup humans if they are around to hear her pleas, to come downstairs to give her a pickup and a hug and some warm assurance.

Matt even took her out front of the house recently on his shoulder just to feel some breeze and some life.

Something I myself can do as well with her on a little back porch.

And Bella? She comes upstairs to just say what the fuck while also knowing this is Ok.

Plus, as a landlady, which Beck is when ya get to the nuts and bolts of it (hey, what of that water pressure by the way lady?! hehe) what better troll of a tenant can you ask for than one who will never be bringing any girlfriend relationship drama around and poundings on the wall or ceiling or floors (that kind of need has flown and really isn’t even understood anymore which I find quite strange and yet makes so much sense) but a tenant that wants just a cool place, with family for company, some extra cats to mind and a spot to sit in, in a comfy troll’s basement stringing together some words while also having and being some backups.

And, oh, before I forget, back to Arthur, of said post title.

He and Sephira are inside/outside cats so when the wrangling has you having Arthur being an in? The one who is usually the much harder grab?

Apologies my little Orange friend … now how about we wrangles that sister of yours and be done for the night?

Loud or Not

by Stephen J FrankenberryLeave a Comment on Loud or Not

Been a bit of a, I won’t say weird, but weird week (Jesus, those pipes doing pipe things in old houses sound like someone was just finishing up a shower upstairs) though I’ve surely heard weirder in other times, the usual solitary ones, in other old houses, but I have been in this one alone since Tuesday (and who the fuck is in the shower? Beck didn’t warn me of any old haunts like someone died in this place but just wants to stay clean in the limbo life and thus the great deal she got) just me and the cats, mine and hers “No Arthur you are not going out, I don’t care which door you sit at, that shit is not happenin’. You ain’t goin’ out. I will NOT be accomplice to you being an Arthur that is no longer an Arthur before Beck comes home! I already announced to you, days ago, that while I’m the new Momma cat guy ’round here you are a house cat!”

My sis, Beck, took off on Tuesday earlier this week, along with nephew Matt and Beck’s guy Buck whose last name is Rogers, he was a pilot, and they called him “Buck”, Buck Rogers, get it? that’s just cool, to see my other nephew, Jake, graduate from basic in the Navy and be all Mom proud amid coughs and sniffles and frog throats like the devil had found a voice and trips to the Walgreens cold and flu aisle before she left, damned if she wasn’t going to be allowed to cough anything up on him other than tears of that said pride. “No Jake, my tears of joy are just a little gloopy, sticky green is the color of love, you’ve made me so proud!”

And he did and he does.

But the weird was the silence. I’ve grown so accustomed now, new, over the last six months or so, to the loud of the garage door announcing me when I come home to Beck in the kitchen doing a Beck kitchen with pots and pans and loud smells, to the loud of Ricki, aka chunky pants, if a bowling ball were covered in tortoise cat fur and had a head, meowing at me in her smoker sounding kinda way when I open the door to the house from out the garage hoping for a treat from this guy, while Beck reminds that Cricket the Blind was doing her loud Cricket meowls from downstairs earlier, calling for me, to the loud jingle of collars of Sephira running away from me and Arthur just staring at the interloper, who might or might not let him out whatever door he keeps sitting at with an equally loud jingly collar, but there was a kind of silence the last few days and it was a bit jarring.

I mean, the loud of jingly collars and smoker cats was still loud around the place but it was a bit muted, subdued, minus that Momma human cat or a nephew to hold Arthur like a sack of beans until a squirm’s gleeful angry meow says “enough”

There is also that this coming week is the one where we lay my mom to rest “Oh, bloody hell Stephen will you all just get on with it already!” after she passed away a couple of weeks ago now with us on hand, almost, Matt, Buck and I, but Beck? She was the true witness of time passed with an Ok allowed thankful exhale.

And I don’t even know what to wear, well, I do, but I really need to bring that suit out of a storage bin and air it out or maybe even buy something new, fresh. Now that is a daunting thought as I don’t really do clothes, not well anyway.

But Jake looked fantastic and picture proud in a text from Beck of him having survived to get to shiny shoes and a tie perfect Navy collar and hat you could roll a cat ball around for some fun. I sent a dearest of friend a pic of him in the midst of our radio show prep together in his blues … is that what they call them in the Navy, blues? I’m just guessing as I have no clue, but she said it made her want to cry as she saw that he was the “IT” in his proud and his shiny shoe’s cat ball spin hat stance.

But this silence of a Beck home, it is hers, I just live here at her pleasure, with of course some managed litter boxes and feedings of her gang in her absence, cracked cans under cat noses, a thing I do with Bella and Cricket, that seems to have ingratiated me a bit as a new, to assure that they are cat seafood stinky enough to pass muster for cat consumption and also a couple of bucks to pay my way, but this silence? This particular silence? It was new and I didn’t like it.

I have spent so many recent years receding from sight and sound and something about furies that I forgot how much I like loud, even though I did do loud at my most recent spot before here, sometimes even a howling combine of multiple dogs that would just make me laugh at their off key song to the hills and perk a Bella ear but I played that off with headphones or just a bit of volume on the tube, but this loud that has been lacking here? It’s different. Even Arthur agrees as he has found himself at my feet while Mom is away to grab a belly at the washer/dryer for fresh sundries and even brave a Bella nose while just wanting to hear me talk to him.  

Beck will be home tomorrow, Arthur will forget that he looked for me, though I hope not, Sephira will skitter and zoom under or on top of beds away (though she does mind me and gladly’ll take a quick pet when she is not zooming if she wishes … she is a bit of a Diva) Ricki will always sound like she wants me to run to the convenience store for a pack of Reds and I will get back to true loud silence. With company. I WILL like that.

Mom will get laid to earth for that true silence and I will cry quietly, again “Oh Hell’s Bells Stephen, enough with the drama. We had a good run, this Mom and Son thing right?”

“Now, just go tend to those cats of yours, yours and Becks, and grandsons, just get back to being loud in your quiet way along with your sister”

“Gotcha Ma”