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.
For a prompt of “Snow” from Kim at dVerse Poets and a now new poem version of a little remembrance I wrote a number of years ago of when I was a kid, after a big snow, and got my first scars, and a piece that I just recently re-posted.
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The Snow Was 17 Feet
The snow was tall
taller still in my small
17 feet
maybe
it had to be
at least
but I would climb it
cross it
on top to its peak
reach for now shorter trees to climb, view from above
with determined scarved stare
and new purpose swim goggles
in imagined funny tennis racket shoes (regular boots)
just like in TV shows of winter
with penguins
and white bears
and whiter blank horizons
and shout to other snow still falling that I was their King
each and every flake
joining brothers and sisters that had played pile on
Well, we’re all good for another holiday season, we’ve celebrated surviving 2025 (definitely considered “survival” of a year that will not be remembered well in the annals of history, actual history – hopefully we’ve been charitable and compassionate and thoughtful and truthful and dare I say, human, to counteract that … so far) we’ve added a few things to our stash of things while adding some things to other people’s stash of things, some things probably already forgotten until months from now when we will discover them as surprise brand new things and we are getting ready to return to our regulars where we will surely miss the anticipation of short weeks and probably REALLY quickly … like Monday at around 9:02am, or maybe 9:15am after you’ve toasted your bagel and hopefully haven’t had to curse at forgetting to bring in the cream cheese you bought on Friday on the way home (leave a note now dude!).
But on this Sunday morning at the end of the season I thought to just sit for a little, read a few bits of mine and also check my WordPress Stats just to see what posts have been viewed or even “liked” recently as I have mentioned and done in the past. Now, obviously, there are recent ones that will have gotten some attention but I will also often find, when I do this, at least a couple of older pieces that someone or someone’s have somehow found to view.
I don’t really know how people come about some of these older posts other than maybe randomly searching the Attic, which is great if so, though certainly not through tags as I am no good at remembering to keyword hashtag anything, for the most part, but I am also not really going to question as, well, it’s just cool and I’ll leave it at that, plus it reminds me of where my head and I were at depending on the time or place of the post.
So, that’s what I have today, a revisit of a post from around this time of year in 2020. A pretty good post too, as I re-read it this morning, and one that has some moments still pertinent to today as well.
Plus, I also didn’t really have anything new so …
Oh, and Happy Happies all.
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The Snow Was 17 Feet
December 12, 2020
The snow was tall, just tall enough tall it needed to be against the front door to keep it from opening as I remember now, though 17 feet at least it seemed in my kid head then, though bear in mind that my tall was small (but with hope of a big someday). I was only six or seven or so and I was mad. My parents had just bought their first house, a something numbered address on Archer road in Mahopac NY with me in tow. But I was mad, not the mad that some might attribute to me and my now of cats, a crazy cat lady guy and a need for solitude away from a mad, mad, mad, mad world, that kind of mad, but with a just being mad … why the fuck can’t I open the front door to the glories of snow?
I hate snow, or at least I hate it now, the cold that it is and the down of that cold, the darkness of a light’s short days that come with it. But, again, I was six or seven or so. Snow was a wonder then, something just waiting for the play.
It certainly, the snow, wasn’t 17 feet tall but, it feeling taller than me, it could have been 30 feet, or a hundred feet, or a however many feet that were necessary to dwarf me. It was as far away as just a glass door, that extra door that you doored along with an already perfectly good door, one that could become a screen though, in the summer months, for a bit of air and I pushed, pushed against not 17 feet of snow, but enough, against the door, a silly angry kid pushing against a door. And I even had my snow boots on. Ready. Go. Snow.
Man, that shit could bleed, knuckles, after the mad and its push to open a door that didn’t want to be opened, a door that just said “leave me be son”, “I’ve been holding this off all night”, “have ya seen the snow? It’s almost 17 feet.”
That was my first scar, a one atop my right hand. A fist knuckle and a hard push. The only thing missing was the adult exclamations that would come years later for all of the times snow or anything of the sort would be 17 feet tall.
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Jonna and Keryl give me a pass, I think, as to our guests. It’s a show, “Happy Hour”, that we’ve been doing since dinosaurs searched out self help gurus to ask of what to do for their inadequacies, “I’m too big with short arms”, “Mom wasn’t around for the long names that would come based on my bones”, “I was a vegetarian though three stories tall and a bit ungainly”. They know I’ll never read the books from these guests, I can’t, I don’t read anything that isn’t filled with the wonder of places imagined, some of swords and kings, some of spaceships and distant planets, all of a simply not here, instead of just “self help” vagaries that tell you of who you could be if only you could be someone else just like you, but different (especially after buying a book). But surprisingly, some things, even in my cynicism seep through, our guests, all, have their moments for me. I Just patch them together, grab bits and pieces that may mean something and move forward. A lot of them are the same, some just a more well known, more established name “same” than others but, really, the same. But I grab that patchwork, a workable patchwork mind you, and roll. No need more.
Recently in one of our shows Jonna talked of finally wanting to write her own book. A something she has in her, like Keryl who has two now, Jonna’s Facebook posts evidence of the writer.
Jonna, if you’re going to write a book please don’t think of it as the topic of a future interview for a podcast with a couple of cool ladies and some dude interviewing for advice within a small world of such. Just write your book and a just you book. Write too much, exaggerate often with sly smirk, but just be a book that books as a Jonna book would book.
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Bella has one PC chair while I sit in the other. I have two. I know, Mr. Fancy pants huh? One is the “Shoes” chair the spot he owned from the moment I took it out of the box years ago and laid my thin Steelers blanket on it after trying not to have any pieces left over in my assembly. Then there’s the one slowly becoming the “Bella” chair as I sit on all nights and she sits with me after a dinner shared with Cricket the Blind on her foot recognized paper towel for the small fork cuts of extra dinner to come and an attempt at the same with Mimi the Quirky (successful if it’s chicken).
Bella is the most patient of cats, there’s not a of one of us who couldn’t be better off with the kind of patience she shows, not being terribly fond of Cricket the Blind and only minding Mimi the Quirky, she exhibits her patience just for me, holds back any anger she may have at these “others” who have invaded our space taking attention away from her belly rubs on her dot of a small bit of circle carpet in the living room I never use in this two room place or another rubbed belly on her chair or even on her crunchy paper (my Sister sends powdered vitamins once a month worrying of my poor diet and possible vitamin deficiencies in a box that doesn’t really need any packing but she still does with that hard edged brown paper stuffed to the left or right of that packing box, depending on how you opened it – I think she’s fully aware it’s not needed but packs it just the same – she knows cats). It’s Christmas day every month for Bella when I get my vitamins and she gets a new lay on fresh crunchy paper splayed out next to last month’s flattened such.
I know this is a little disjointed, but it’s one of the ways I think, in short blurbs of thoughts but strung together in pieces and with many run-ons of current things or memories that may not be connected or just might be (usually are). This one is the latter but it’s where my thoughts were this weekend, as some of you might be able to relate to disjointed thoughts, the brain being a bit of jumble during the upside down we live in. But it is a weekend where I’ve taken Monday off to give me 3 days, to at least breathe a bit (though apparently not to get my thoughts into any coherent form). I get 3 weeks a year of vacation time, or PTO for those technical. 15 days to do with as I will. I do this once a month and this month is a bonus with the holidays to come giving me a couple of others. I almost feel guilty knowing that the holidays will afford me my once a month two extra times without paperwork but I’m not going to let that deter. A once a month Monday is a once a month Monday, the holidays are just gravy. Could I take a week at some point, call it a vacation, sure. But I’m a single dude always strapped for $$ and I have my charges. Plus, where am I going to go, especially now?
Some of you might be alright with believing a normal exists but I’m not a one and it doesn’t.
There’s so much that is 17 feet tall, hell, most of our lives are spent trying to deal with stuff that is 17 feet tall, a seemingly insurmountable task of too tall walls, placed there daring us to scale maybe even bloodied knuckles to come from the attempts.
But I’m in no mood to scale today. This is simply my acknowledgement of such. 17 feet? I gotcha. Tall you are. But I’m just gonna take an extra day and sit and surveil a tall wall for no reason other than no reason, and hunker a bit away, just me and the girls.
The mini prompt for this night was for the image below, “Extinction of Useless Lights” by Yves Tanguy (1927) …
Use the image as a muse for your poem. Write an ekphrastic poem (a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art).
Or use the title of the image as a title or part of your poem: Extinction of Useless Lights.
But I’m just coming about the prompt now as I knew dVerse was taking a break for the holidays so I hadn’t checked in and, though I obviously missed the deadline for submitting with all the others, I still wanted to do something with it.
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(extinction of useless lights) … Night Approaches Then
The sun cast shadows
in its decline
stretched to the east as if calling
to the shapes of souls
he helped to exist
while he could
to not linger long
in the waste
or try hide in the bramble
as it would offer no haven
from the heaven’s judgement
or angry devils from the depths
reeling in the sky like a kite forced back to earth
So on a recent Monday I got up with a reluctant sigh, a more reluctant sigh than the usual as I hadn’t slept all that well all weekend, more not “all that well” than said usual, whispered (grunted) my normals to Cricket and Bella and stood up (yay, I did it again, and still above ground too … bonus!!) and went about my morning business. Trudge upstairs with a towel, wave to my Sister’s gang, Arthur, Saphira and Rikki the Raspy, grab a shower and then trudge back downstairs though a bit more pleasant for the smells now for any possible downwind passerby.
Then …
finish drying
put underwear on while standing, something I am very proud these days that I am still able to accomplish without losing my balance and almost toppling over, though that doesn’t include the occasional getting your first foot stuck in them as that’s an any days, any age possibility and well, slapstick of new one legged dance moves can be funny (somebody call the Tik Tok, just speak Billionair-ese and add a Chinese accent – I’ve hit on a possible craze) sweatpants and sneakers next that I have already thrown on the bed to wait for me which are then applied in an appropriate manner that won’t garner any strange looks at the convenience store or phone calls to HR after I get to work.
rinsing cat bowls at the utility sink in the laundry room then (don’t judge … the paint stains are pretty old) and picking a food choice from atop my small fridge cache of cat food cans for the girls, eventually tapping one and then opening it under Bella’s nose to make sure it passes the appropriately stinky enough for cats cat approval test which is usually a once quick lip smacking Bella tongue which will never cease to make me smile, even on rough mornings, and then it’s cat noses down.
almost done, dressed, heavy hoodie on and then grab my phone for one of two things, neither of which, by the way, are to check for texts or emails or social media posts or anything of the sort that may have come from the outside world while I was sleeping poorly or maybe something I had missed (though, believe me, whatever it may be, if so, it definitely wasn’t “missed”).
There isn’t really any single thing that I care enough about, other than my Sis and the gang, that I will find it necessary to start my day by checking to see if it reached out or just to see what it was doing in its little corner of the world. Hell, it could even actually be something that I may need to be concerned with and needs to be addressed but no one needs THAT to start the day right? Waaaay too many possibilities. Let me at least get to the car so I can start cursing at people, you know, warm up a bit to the day before I need to begin “dealing” with shit, maybe even its (yours).
No, I grab my phone for two things. One, to re-turn on the strips of LED lights that outline this basement room of mine, something nephew Matt put up when he and Jake were younger and this basement was their game room. It’s pretty cool, to tell ya the truth, with so many color choices and brightness settings, that I wonder how I ever lived without them before, like I could have perpetually been the twelve or so year old Matt when he first strung them about.
Two, hit the little microphone and ask Google lady to tell me what the forecast is going to be for today, on this morning, but I was totally unprepared for the voice that would fall out of my face to ask the question. There almost seemed to be a hesitation to google ladies response and then an almost wary “the forecast today is calling for skin melting temps in the mid millions, and rivers of fire and rains of molten lava … Sir”
Whoa!!! What the fuck? I could almost swear I wasn’t possessed when I turned off Matt’s cool LED lights last night before I hit the rack as the voice I had, or didn’t have, didn’t even sound human.
Now, I have had some interesting voices over the years that usually come with being the result of vice or are an indicator of a soon to be sick that have sounded pretty rough, there have even been times where I actually was possessed and the voice could be a bit otherworldly and menacing but things were always worked out, trades were made, but nothing like this. No, this was unlike any other sound that had ever fallen out of my face and probably explains why the wary sounding Google lady gave me a forecast for Hell and even called me “Sir”. If for nothing else, I have a new AI acolyte (and one not regulated at the state level) but this was even worse than when Peter Frampton and other bands discovered the vocoder back in the 70’s.
Then the phone call came to tell me to expect a letter.
A cease and desist phone call telling me to expect a cease and desist letter, and a one trying to sound very legal-like but really just sounded like a guy named Vinny, warning me that if I continued to use the voice that I only now just discovered I possessed, was seemingly possessed by, that the legal ramifications would be harsh and that the somewhat equitable trades, like those in the past just wouldn’t be enough this time. No, there would be no swaps now. No future children would be accepted, no souls would be saved even at the expense of my own (though we did have a spirted, however brief, discussion as to this whole “soul” concept, though his hard cut definition definitely topped my more existential one).
Oh, and my kneecaps would probably find themselves to be of issue.
(Cricket!! Not now kid!! Bad timing … talking to the Devil’s people at the moment!)
… deferred, apologized and promised that I had no real intention of impersonating the devil himself. It did though make me rather useless for the day in my job as a radio guy as using my voice is kind of a prerequisite for the job.
Eventually my actual voice started to return a few days later and I was able to get back to things, though with lesser voice in hand and record, though quite raspilly, a radio show that I do with a couple of dear friend co-hosts and have for years now, the early portion of which did revolve around my suspected possessed voice and possibly just attributing it to being part of the winter season and the sniffles and colds that can come, though a bit extreme.
“Frankenberry” said one co-host “The Devil falling out of your mouth, that voice?”
… and here it came
“It’s been goin’ around”
Oh, son of a bitch!
Seems no matter the situation, no matter the ailment, no matter the no matter …
“Hey, you sound a little rough”
“Yeah, a bit of a cold thing maybe”
“Its been goin’ around”
“Seems my allergies are acting up”
“Yeah, pollen, it’s Spring, it’s been goin’ around”
“Hey did you hear Bill lost his leg in a car accident?
“Yeah, lost limbs, it’s been goin’ around”
“It was a Big Bang and shit collided in just the right way and there was a primordial thing with bellies and tails onto a shore on a new planet in its new cosmos”
“Yeah, that’s been goin’ around”
“Been channeling the devil’s voice lately”
“Yeah, it’s been goin’ around”
… and then suddenly I had the measles and small pox and polio all of which were “goin’ around” and RFK Jr laughed creepily and raspy-like wile noting that we could be friends in voice and also just because I wanted to get a dig in at RFK Jr and, by extension, this whole dumb ass world we live in right now.
In a recent Facebook post of a bit of good news on my front and amid a number of replies I got one from an old friend, Linda, who, after commenting on said post, added that her husband has been singing “one of my greatest hits” recently and I immediately realized that, shit, I’m a bit late on reposting this “one of my greatest hits” that Linda’s husband has been singing.
Now, the one of my greatest hits? It’s a Christmas tune about their cat Patrick that I will be posting now, all holiday tradition-like, for the fourth year in a row.
Quick history:
Linda posts picture of cat Patrick next to Christmas ornaments four Christmas’s ago with the caption “It’s beginning to look a lot like Patrick”
I see post and immediately start singing, in my head, the beginning of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” except with cat Patrick instead and then can’t stop until I’ve written new, Patrick-centric, cat-centric lyrics for the whole thing. I then respond to Linda with “Ok, so you do know that dropping “It’s beginning to look a lot like Patrick” is like dropping a gauntlet full of beer and cat nip to a to a crazy cat lady guy who likes to do this sort of thing right?” followed by posting the new lyrics and Bing Crosby’s video of the actual song for her to follow along with
Linda is happy. Responds with a “Wow”, an “AWESOME”, a number of exclamation points and even a Wayne and Garth “We are not worthy!” GIF
I am happy … but only for like 5 minutes as I know I’m not done, can’t be done. I search out an instrumental of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” and take that with me into my studio at work and then send home the pieces to mix with maybe a little Christmas production magic involved
Four years later Linda’s husband is singing the tune during the season in anticipation, Linda tells me that Patrick (and his tail Sebastian – apparently it is its own being entirely) are also waiting and I get to enjoy, again, one of the best unintentional gifts I have ever unintentionally gotten someone. Yay! Go me!! hehehehe
It’s fun, it’s catly and it’s Christmassy.
’nuff said.
Cheers to you Linda and your fella and to you Patrick (and Sebastian) as always, you damn good looking Christmas cat … and tail.
‘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.
Her prompt then, in relation to that (in the above link), was to ask folks to write a poem that incorporates one or more of the sewing terms she listed in said link.
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Sweat Pants
Years have longed me
to try and seem even a glimpse of
pant seams unstretched
back to
younger ones
before I longed
older years to be more like those
maybe if I start walking
with intent
sit up more than just sitting up
being victory enough
of still breathing we talk
joke
but so buttonholes on jeans won’t mock
my pinch-skin attempts
tell me they won’t tell if I don’t of an open ease hid with a belt
Once a month comes once a month, it’s pretty regular as once a months go, as long as calendars don’t try to fuck with me and suddenly change cats out of time on my wall … (hey wait, when the hell did that meowing tabby suddenly turn into a yawning gray long hair?) but once a month means that I am takin’ Monday off. And when I do, take this once monthly, it can sometimes involve a new “tune” …
(sorry, that was Cricket in case you were curious, always reminding that she is a part of this process, blind keyboard stepping right through, though her singing voice definitely can leave a bit to be desired … but so with ya on the solitary 7 my friend … I know huh? Nope, don’t get me started)
… and when that is the case, a new tune, I will take my time that often then involves me working said tune, though it has been a little while for this as we live in dire times, free thought not really being all that much of a thing these days so you must be careful, but I will work it.
Well I did work a new thing this Friday and with that, that new tune I thought, as I have done before, to put a few things into one easy, convenient post as once I am in song mode I am just there.
So, with links to their posts, I boogie woogie here, I channel Bob Dylan, there’s a new one with a big top soundtrack, I lament the white supremacy that seems to, so sadly, be a thing these days, from the top on down, I Cheap trick some need to conform, I rail on tax cuts ala the Beatles, and the always GOP minority rule via Tears for Fears.
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.
Sundarbans,The sunderbans, Sundarban Tour, Sundarban Travel Guide, Mangrove Forest, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Royal Bengal Tiger, Tiger Sighting, Wildlife Photography, Bird Watching, Sundarban Safari, Houseboat Tour, Ecotourism, Adventure Travel, West Bengal Tourism, Bangladesh Tourism, People of Sundarbans, Local Culture, Bonbibi, Mowal, Honey Collector, Sundarban Legends, Mangrove Ecosystem, Conservation, Climate Change, Biodiversity, Sundari Tree, Sundarban Itinerary, Travel to Sundarbans, Kolkata to Sundarbans, Sundarban Boat Trip, Wildlife in Sundarbans, Saltwater Crocodile, Spotted Deer, Indian Python, King Cobra, Sundarban National Park, Sundarban Tiger Reserve, Bay of Bengal, River Cruise, Nature Photography, Forest Life.
A personal exploration of autism from a brother’s perspective, including family relationships, philosophy, neuroscience, mental health history and ethics
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