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.
As I was working on the beginnings of this with an eventual thought coming to mind of current everyday nightmarish “Boo’s”, Cricket, my cat, who you have met here in the Attic before(one of my two, along with Bella, though obviously Cricket the more creative one) thought to get up out of my lap and involve herself in the writing process again with her own stepped thoughts which really are as they look in the first half of this.
All I did was finish it up for her (I think she may have even been offering to help cleanse this a bit with the 8’s after reading a little on the possible significance of 8’s ) and it is still 44 “words”.
Then I got to mine.
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Cricket the Cat poet
Stepping in tongues and Boo Moons
“Boo////////////////////////////////////////////////////8/8/8/8/8/8/8/8/8’” said the season
Well, with it being that time of year for these types of stories I thought to revisit a short bit from last year, one I have posted before in a couple of spots and one that started with a dVerse Poets “prosery” prompt from June of 2024 and also to liberally revise the second part to it that, truthfully, I had forgotten I had written …
A very short piece of poetry or flash fiction that tells a story, just one with a limit of 144 words, but, somewhere within your story, includes a line from a poem
Here?
From Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Sleeper”
I pray to God that she may lie Forever with unopened eye
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Headstone
In a graveyard nearing dusk the groundskeeper came upon Death, leaning heavily upon his knot gnarl anguish handled scythe as he knelt at an almost hidden, fallen stone, shunned, just outside the cemetery, alone, at the edge of a large forest. He wept quietly.
“Are you alright old man?”
Death was startled
“What?!” as he tried to stand
“No need. Pay your respects”
“Why don’t you shudder, cold, at the sight of me, cringe, run to escape who I am, maybe to you?”
“I know death. I have been here as long as you have searched … for your mother right? How did you know?”
“I had this inscribed in her stone, I pray to God that she may lie forever with unopened eye hoping she would never see my shame and what I had become and wrought”
The groundskeeper said “Let’s walk my friend” …
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Then I thought to continue the story …
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October 19, 2024 (revised) October 3, 2025
The Walk
The groundskeeper walked his headstone common with Death alongside.
“I knew her, I was there, she begged me not to, not just yet
I knew him too, he was an ass, he was having an affair and was found out with a jealous bullet … I assisted the trigger
This one wanted to experience the sadness of flying, I gave her a bit of a nudge while the crowd scattered below
He here? He was a case of life unexpectedly cut short … on a Tuesday I think, an unusually busy Tuesday if I remember too
Pointing “That one over there was an unfortunate result of small minds but …
This one was a way back where they marked doors and wore masks… some of those scared even me, I really had my bones full then
And whole sections in the distance there the result of religious fervor …”
“STOP!” as the groundskeeper came to a halt looking directly at and through Death with a chill
“What?” Death paused, shrunk a little, actually, finally frightened
“We’re just walking here, so stop.”
“But? …”
“You know all of them, of course, I, we all are well aware of that. Jobs are jobs. You have yours, though your glibness is wearing me very thin, and you don’t want that, you REALLY do not want that, but I have mine … look to the distance, the Lily fields that surround us here? This is my keep and all that lay in it away from you, at last, but also for all those who come now or have in the past, their memories just wisps scattered to the Lilies, to pay respects or seek absolution, to mourn or even rejoice in some cases, to just be seen or wish to only blend into and under the grass as well or to apologize for being late for someone’s birthday.
To come here, for most of them, is just to sit and wonder and talk to the wind as if their words can be carried, wisped away to other places by it to be heard somewhere in it
That is Angie, talking to her dad
Those are flowers left by Peter who feels better now even though he was an awful son and knows he hastened his father’s death
That is Bart, off to the left, who comes here only because he feels if he doesn’t he will lose whatever semblance of sanity he has left
That’s Michelle, after years away, who feels that wiping off the dust and grime and dirt of time will somehow make everything alright
Then there is Thomas, who I truly feel for, his loss that just destroyed him as that headstone is the last, only, thing he has left in whatever it was that tied him in this, his world. She was, under that stone, the only person that kept him safe in his differences.
Know that your job has consequences”
“But what are we to do?”
“Nothing, we can do nothing, but we can have a little respect. I take comfort in some genuine words spoke at knelt stone, when there are some, when loss is so profound that it brings a tear to even this old groundskeeper’s eye”
“This is what you do?”
“It is, but I don’t fault you for doing what YOU do. Now stand …”
“But I don’t even remember having knelt”
“… use that scythe for balance and stand up from your creaky knees and bony fingers and let’s go over to that corner and to Maribel”
“Maribel? Who … Maribel … is she?”
“No, leave her be, she has time, still has a daughter to come, but she sings, she even extols YOUR virtues”
“Me? MY virtues?”
“She sings of what is done and understands, as do I, though in a lesser chord, as I am no singer, and in such a glorious voice”
“Her loss?”
“It is of no matter, she just comes here, twice a week, sometimes more, to sing of all our losses, just sings along with the trees and the breezes and wisps of what was once of seas and suns and moons that drown and pass and of short lived birds sung in pretty flights above us all through the stones underneath her feet that look out over the hills at this place, all of these places, that are as one as they always have been, are here as intended to be stretching to the Lily’s”
“Oh my, is that heaven?’
“Could be, I don’t know, not sure”
“You said she still has a daughter to come?” Death remarked with a glint.
“STOP!! Were tears for your Mother back there even real?
“Moment of weakness I guess”
“ENOUGH!! You know, my expanse can include you, death can die, if I will it and then cover it in grass and Lily fields in the all encompassing distance, but for you? the Lily’s will wilt. There will be another to fill your shoes, if need be, it just won’t be you, gone at your own bones arrogance”.
Note: revisiting this one from last year, my first Fall here in my role as the Brother Uncle Troll under the stairs, one who doesn’t eat cats by the way (sorry, I know that’s kind of random) as some tails might go, but looks to them, instead, as friends and for emotional support and as somefur’s to defer to and claim to be talking with so as not to completely appear like just someone slowly becoming a batshitting nutter talking to the wind or chemtrails or RFK Jr or ghosts or Nelson (one of the extra folks in his head) … again.
Oh, Nelson? He’s quite nice in case you were curious.
Bella: (stretching) Hey dude. Did you say something?
Me: Just go along with it Bell, for appearances sake, Ok?
Bella: Sure, whatever. I’ve always been a bit iffy on this Neslon fella by the way, just to let you know..
My first Fall it was then, with my Sis and Nephew(s) and extra cats (see? I wasn’t going totally nowhere with that) and because, now, truthfully, I’ve just really been looking forward to calendars turning and to re-posting it for some fun as it’s one of my favorite posts. It is, though, a bit long so if do you take the time (much appreciated) I recommend a stand up and stretch in the middle and a stroll to the concession stand and maybe a pillow behind your back for when you sit back down.
It’s that time of year where we see our name displayed in all its sugary, questionably healthy, comically scary strawberry Frankenstein Monster goodness, any number of “essential” vitamins just an added bonus (See?! I told you Ma! essential freakin’ vitamins!! It IS good for us!!) on grocery store shelves and make sure to text each other pictures of our first sighting.
From Beck this past Friday “‘Tis the season!” and even with a new Jim Henson Muppet character design, well how ’bout’s that!?, though we need to find a store manager to discuss shelving priorities. On the bottom?! Really?!And Boo on top? Love him like a brother but there has never been a day where I didn’t have to open some windows and air out the smoke with this guy.
Anyway, from last year, one that also includes a post from a couple of years ago within it about the newest member of the Frankenfamily then, Carmella Creeper, Caramel Apple, nice change of pace and so much better looking than the rest of us, well in an undead, sweet Caramel Apple but eat your brain zombie-like kinda way.
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October 20th, 2024
When I got home earlier last week I said to my Sis (Beck) and Nephew Matt “So, how do you know when it’s October?” Pretty simple, the pumpkins adorning front steps, the Halloween decorations filling up lawns, sometimes to the extreme (oversaturation people!! Fun, but oversaturation!! And inflatable evil doesn’t really come across) football season already more than a quarter way through, the cool crisp nip to the air and the proliferation of hoodies and sweaters and the nagging sense of dread at the back of your head and taste buds of pumpkin spice (Pumpkin Spice is people!!!)”
I know, I said that last year, and probably the year or years before that too just because it’s funny (Ok, even if only I think so) but still, I didn’t yell that part all madly Charlton Heston-like as not to frighten the children so we’re good, but then I asked “How do you know when it’s October in this family though? When you see this particular display in the grocery store” … and I then showed the both of them the picture on my phone from my trip to Market Bistro (my new favorite grocery store by the way and I absolutely LOVE a good grocery store as any any old man should) in Latham earlier to grab something for my lunch (and no, I wasn’t grabbing Halloween time perfect cereal, Mom would not approve of such a meal, not now anyway) to which Beck said “Hell yeah!!!”
Though Beck immediately noted the lack of Fruit Brute or Yummy Mummy in the display … then it was a quick lesson of family history for Matt who had also chimed in with his Mom’s “Hell Yeah!!” but didn’t really know why.
“Yah see Matt … why don’t you sit down son. Way back in ’71, the Monster Family of cereals was born into a cereal age where sugar coated treats could be sold as a healthy breakfast option replete with whole grain and a varying number of essential vitamins and minerals and calcium (add milk) but also a laundry list of other ingredients you couldn’t pronounce that would cause pause years later according to science and could probably explain some things, but claimed with cartoon character spokestoons for legitimacy in a kid’s world and Frankenberry, Count Cholula and Boo-Berry were welcomed into the greater family fold of these cartoony sweet characters with hyperactive kids Mom sleeve tugging in the grocery store to buy “Please, Please, Please!”, Ok’d by Moms only because of the “essential vitamins and minerals” labeling bit and the need to get you to just shut the hell up and stop stretching her blouse.
Your uncle here was only 7 back in that day, Matt, a day where the internet was Saturday morning commercials of cereals and candies and toys that just happened to have cartoon vignettes placed between them of anvils and beep beeps and a wondrous company called “Acme” that provided myriad ways to blow shit up, Wacky Racers Wacky Racing, cat and mouse best friends trying to kill each other, a snarky rabbit in a rabbit hole “What’s up Doc-ing?” with a sarcastic smirk and a carrot, a That’s All Folks’ and before, shudder, the actual internet, where you had to walk uphill both ways in your bare feet over broken glass (Yes, a lotta broken glass back then Matt and folks without shoes … oh, and it snowed a lot, No, I don’t know why, it just was) to get information from a library or a newspaper and where you communicated with your friends through an ancient tradition of talking face to face or on a telephone attached to a wall in a kitchen that was only as smart as the conversation happening on it (which was often decidedly NOT, no matter who was on it, Moms and Dads included) but one that came with a timer as, back in that day Matt, the whole family shared just one phone, or more to the point, just one phone line even if there were other phones in bedrooms, maybe, for the hoity-toity wannabe’s who just wished to show off to friends and neighbors but which could get uncomfortable with your mother showing them into her and Dad’s bedroom for a “glance” at a new bedspread or curtains or something … “Oh that little extra phone thing on my nightstand?” but still just one line, so that if you picked up another phone you could hear someone else’s conversation.
So you had to learn patience and a respect for privacy (unless you thought your Mom had some juicy shit to share with her friend Marina or there was something you could hold over your brother and his friend’s heads to blackmail them with so you quietly snuck into Mom and Dad’s room and picked up the hoity-toity phone) or if it was a real far away friend you might actually have to send a letter as those long distance calls could be a cost so you sat down in your room and wrote a letter with words on paper, or parchment as you might think of it now, and then put it in an envelope with a stamp … what you might ask? … a stamp? … oh, a small square sticky paper thing with fancy edges that represented mail money with presidents on them or flags or flowers or whatever was the latest “this deserves to be on a stamp!” picture that you licked a gluey bit to stick them … yes licked … a gluey bit … with your tongue … and after some person at the Post Office had rolled or layed out however many you were looking for with their bare, possibly filthy fists across the sticky bit that you were going to lick … I know … how did we all survive and that stamp went on that envelope that you wrote an address on and put in the mailbox to then wait patiently for a reply until you died of old young age. And you can’t even imagine what a breakthrough stamps you could peel off of a sheet were!! Think of the DVR or the toaster oven or the wheel just in a stamp kinda way … and the public health implications? It was HUGE!
Anyway, I won’t belabor this as I’ve written something to this effect at this season for years, just know Matt, that I don’t change, nothing in the air at this time has me suddenly looking any scarier or sickly sweet as I do on a Sunday morning, after a sleepless Saturday night doing just this sort of overly wordy thing only with beer, for a pee replete with “Aaaaaarrrgggghhhhs!!” at a damp bath mat soaking my socks (dammit fella’s!! can ya dry off in the shower a bit more when you’re done please?! And I was gonna keep wearing these dirty socks I’ve had on since Friday!! They were practically, and comfortably mind you, pasted to my feet”) full moons don’t have me suddenly transform, that is a Fruit (Frute) Brute gig in his warewolfyness, I don’t float around all dreary eyed high-like wondering who I might be the blueberry spirit of (probably of some marketing guy who reveled the late 60’s too much), I don’t have a sarcophagus in the basement where all that overbought emergency toilet paper of recent years can come in handy, I don’t have to run from villagers chasing me with torches and pitchforks and poorly misspelled signs just at the mere sight of my pink self for sale on a grocery store shelf, like some sort of monster nightmare commodity replete with steam vent horns and temperature gages, clunky boots, knobs in my neck and sleepless night residual sugar highs (I swear some of that sugary stuff could sit in the system Matt … like all freakin’ day! … at least that was what could have been my excuse for a who me was then if I hadn’t been too young to think of it).
But do know, as you grab at crucifixes and lunge for holy water that that ain’t my monster domain either, plus poking me with said crucifixes while making a nice lemon butter and garlic pasta just makes me giggle, it tickles, and that is the Count’s purview anyway, plus he takes a pill now that helps him “Wow, I never knew how tasty garlic was!” which he says EVERY FUCKIN’ TIME WE TRY TO ENJOY ANYTHING WITH GARLIC AND IN HIS ANNOYINGLY OVERDONE ACCENT (he always wanted to be an actor). Yeah, we get it … you can have garlic now … sigh
But I should also let you know Matt that your Mom was remiss in her noting the lack of inclusion of some family members in the “family picture” display at Market Bistro as last year we Monster’s were introduced to a long lost cousin, and a pretty cute one too, well, as cute as an undead zombie that only wants to eat your brain can be cute, Carmella Creeper, but certainly a hell of a lot cuter than we ugly mugs, that’s for sure. Yes, that includes you Count. No, shut up, you ain’t “distinguished lookin'”
Carmella has fit in quite nicely and to tell you the truth it is nice to have a woman around, she freshen’s up our old guy monsters perspective and in Caramel Apple, such a tasty new addition to our old, tired flavors.
Anyway Matt, that is the story and where we stand right now in another Frankenberry Monster Family cereal season.
Matt: (looking up suddenly at the stares from his Mom and myself) “What … were you talking to me?”
Me: “You put your earbuds in didn’t you? Had them in almost the whole time?”
Well, anyway, next October will come around sooner than you think for more story time.
Before that though, this was the Attic introduction of Carmella to House Frankenberry Monster Cereal Haunted House of the Monster Cereal Family House.
Ok, I can work on that.
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June 10, 2023
A Welcome To A New Monster Cereal Family Member
A good friend of mine recently posted to me at Facebook of the arrival of a new member of the family of Monster Cereals, Carmella Creeper. (thanks Patty, I didn’t get the cereal text alert for some reason … thought for sure I was on the list).
Fixing up her room here in the haunted house as we speak.
For those that may not know my name is actually Frankenberry. It’s not a radio handle I invented somehow as some have thought on occasion over the years, that I may have decided, maybe drunkenly they surely had to have thought, that a pink strawberry flavored Frankenstein looking monster cereal character would be the perfect name to attach to a radio persona or to a Blog from an Attic.
No, Stephen J Frankenberry to be exact as my English mother would surely and adamantly have you note. And Stephen with a proper “PH” she would also add. Not some Americanized “V” as she always viewed it. Not that she thought less of anyone with that “V” mind you, though maybe silently thinking such of the parents, “It’s not their kids fault” she surely thought.
“I’m sure they are all very fine Stephens but just with a “V” … Oh, Bloody Hell!”
The cereal came out when I was 7, in 1971 (yes, I’m old) and inspired many the jokes then and ribbings on long school bus rides and also prank phone calls on the weekends that would drive my mother mad, in a “mad” monstery kind of way though.
“Hello, is Count Chocula there? (click)
“Hello, is Boo Berry there?” (click)
A few years later
“Hello, is Fruit Brute there? (click)
She, in her very English just off the plane only 8 years earlier, had no idea what prank phone calls were.
“Joseph Frankenberry!! You and this bloody name!!” followed with a “Hell’s Bells” and many other very English expletives that she would eventually get a bit more explicit with but in an English accent which just made them sound really cool and cute so you forgave.
Whatever and well, I have always been inextricably connected to a pink strawberry flavored Frankenstein monster cereal character and am quite fond of it, even have a tattoo on my forearm to proclaim Monster Family solidarity.
So, to find out that I have a cousin?
Well now, that was pretty exciting.
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Nice to make your acquaintance Carmella, and welcome to the family.
So, a couple of things. I tend to walk around the haunted house here in only my boxers, neck bolts and my big ass scarred head and head accessories clutching a one eyed teddy bear, the Count can be a little arrogant and is something of a night bat with his late night TV viewing of horror and Hallmark flicks (he finds it very amusing that somehow the two aren’t really all that distinguishable from one another), Boo is a sweetheart though a little flighty, and Fruit Brute is a bit unpredictable and will most certainly leer at you. Just remind him that we are family and that this isn’t the South … oh, and that you will kick his ass (he’s all talk). Yummy Mummy visits from Egypt on the holidays and has his own room with a sarcophagus in the basement.
Oh, I’m also historically, according to the TV commercials, a bit of a scaredy cat, so if you can keep the “Creeper” part of “Carmella Creeper” to a minimum I would appreciate it. Your room is all the way up at the top of the stairs in the attic loft bedroom with a great crow’s eye view of the graveyard in the front lawn. It’s a pain in the ass to mow and weed whack around all the headstones but is still quite eye catching (though the HOA are NOT fans and don’t find the same aesthetic in it that we do).
But again, welcome to the Monster Cereal Fam Carmella!! Lookin’ forward to October!!
Brute, seriously? What did I tell you about her being family?! Really Carmella, feel free to kick his ass!!!
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’;[
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!
“Björn here, trying to inspire you to write prose. It is always hard to find a good line to embed in a piece of prose, but after looking around this line caught my attention:
To write a contribution you will have to incorporate the given line into a piece of prose of no longer than 144 words (including the given line but excluding the title). You may punctuate and divide the line as you want, but you cannot insert any words into the line“
So to it then, and keeping in place and spirit with a couple of recent things of mine.
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Kenny, The Yellow Fog
“Kenny, why you scratchin’ up window panes like Bear on a tree?”
“Hey Barry” he said to Fox “just checking I haven’t been followed”
“By who?”
“By Witch, making sure she doesn’t find me messing with these new weekenders, trying to frighten them off”
“Oh, that’s Ok, but old days new ways my friend. See, you’re just The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes … nothing personal Kenny, but the smell of sulfur and farts isn’t all that scary, just stinky … but turning that old cottage into a B&B for some hipsters from the village for “Nether Wood Tours”?
Genius!
They come willingly now, no need for abduction which always brought unneeded attention from the Constable, and they even sign “gone missing” waivers now, about not leaving at night”
“Really?”
“Just add glowing eyeballs or something to your smelly fogginess”
I just posted, here in the Attic, an end of Summer reflection, a post that is pretty alright I think, but in that posting it reminded me at the bottom of it one from last Summer and well, maybe one more grasp at it before Fall.
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August 5, 2024.
The other day my production boss, Randy and I went to a local waterpark, Splashdown Beach, “America’s Biggest Little Waterpark” in Fishkill, NY at the invite of the Splashdown boss guy, Steve, to grab some lunch as a thank you for the production work we do for them (well, Randy … Steve and Splashdown are “his” in our divvied up client work).
While waiting in the main lobby area I got a chance to be fascinated again, as I always am, at some of the oversized photos of old time beach and summertime fun, as well as other Splashdown pics that adorn the walls here and around the rest of the park.
Some of the older ones, of classic, happy, boardwalk and beach days made me think of postcards that might have featured the same back when postcards were still sent.
.
Postcard
You were beach and boardwalks
pictures of imagined
haughty days only others could afford
to ride Ferris Wheels and wave tall round smiles at excitedly milling insects below
or chance games of chance perchance
when you returned to earth
.
You were untold story in vistas in the long
that stretched toward far off worlds over waves that sung
songs
with rum
fell curved into dreams
and I curved with them
.
You were hand in almost
hand
pinkies
young
could I kiss her
if I were there, in a postcard
not be awkward in words
saladed with ummms and ahhhhhs
would that be too forward an ask?
.
My feet lift happy
as I go nowhere with purpose
stilled
in my postcard
that one curly mustached swimmer who looks me in the eye
from the beach in striped one piece time
long dead
tells me the sky was perfect for postcard dreams
that day
sent for smiling envy
.
Your magic
your wonder
has been lost
but your bright pastels and pictured smells
were all the tells of where I wanted be
stammering in possible young love in the sun
found history past
in a box
of memory
postcards I collected
when I was young
.
Could I send you to a new found love?
Now?
Maybe?
Imploring “Wish you were here”
with colored pinks and blues and yellows and reds
that taste of stretchy taffy
smell of sticky cotton candy
feel of crispy skin sea salted
sound of creaky old wood beneath my feet
.
Could I step back?
For just a moment
recapture the wistful wish
of a card pictured boardwalk sun shown day sent in the mail?
Man, it was such a nice afternoon drive on my way home Friday, especially with a boss guy emailed “go home early, you’re appreciated” most welcome missive, that weather that you wish would just stay year round, an almost perfect perfect where I had my windows and sunroof open wide, the slow fade of another summer alright I guess, right here in this moment, but then THAT guy caught up and passed me, the one in the pickup truck so tall that it could block out the sun, if you were maybe sitting in a Stewart’s parking lot after grabbing their 2 hot dogs for 6 bucks daily special for dinner as it pulled up or driving too close on your ride and the sun would be pissed, “Hey! Don’t be fuckin’ with my gig!”.
The truck that needs an extension ladder to climb into, the driver surely hoping every day that he didn’t forget anything he needed, like his wallet or his crushed hat or his man card or his apologies to his better half for everything he did or didn’t say, or his oversized flag that he stole from the front lawn of an elementary school, otherwise he would have to jump down with a leap of faith, grab and repeat the extension ladder process and that could definitely become tiresome. I mean there is only so much your knees can take right? And (sigh) … then I got stuck behind him for my 7 mile or so stretch on this roadway for the ride home.
He had tires to rival a semi, an exhaust pipe about the circumference of a 50 gallon drum that I think probably began the process of numerous future doctor’s visits to try and discover the cause of the four different forms of cancer that came from me just driving behind him with open windows and sunroofs while trees just got dang plum tired and fell over dead in his wake.
I was, though, able to finally pass him only to have some little fast and furious gnat of a car, the one with that fancy blueish green paintjob that seems like an illusion, pass the both of us, with dual, though, thankfully, only about 25 gallon drum exhaust pipes, a little Vin Diesel slider that sounded like an angry dirt bike on angrier steroids and I just about gave up.
I hate all of you by the way.
But I did eventually make my way home where I practically ran to the flowers in my sister’s front yard and the bushes that surround them, dropped to my knees and took a deep breath, probably something that worried the neighbors … the nosy ones who are surely always watching … “You see Walter?! I told you that one was on the drugs!!”
… and then there was Arthur, my sister’s orange fella guarding the gate to the hold, the great beast, but he didn’t even bother me a glance, no, this was his spot, his domain to survey like some sort of lazy cat land baron “You finally arrived I see? (looking aside in utter disdain) grand, now go and fetch me some treats if you will and then be gone with you. Tithes backup human, tithes, gotta pay the tithes before I allow you to pass”.
I ruined his Baron treat plans and went in through the garage.
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So, it’s a holiday weekend, and my Sis and nephew Matt have headed down the state to hang with Beck’s guy, Buck and the gang at his place and I am the cattaker again, and it’s not a gig I take lightly.
It’s a one where I lay down the law and tell these here cats, Saphira and Rikki and Arthur that I’m not fucking around, and Bella and Cricket too, then I ask them what flavor food would they like now at breakfast or dinner, opening cat cans under cat noses, the beef one or the salmon one or the beef and salmon one combined in one can like magic, all deliciously cat stinky, sometimes pate or sometimes grilled or sometimes even chunked and then I just wait for cat approval while scratching their foreheads.
Now take that!!
And Arthur?
He keeps Mom informed.
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Letter from the orange land baron’s sun spot:
Hey Mom,
No worries while you’re away though I miss you and Matt already but I’m keeping an eye on my backup human, he can be a little sketchy and talks a lot, to no one it seems, maybe imaginary friends? I don’t know and he talks too much I think, what is he hiding in his talk, talk, talk? But I’m offering moral support to his loud warm post noisy machine clothes stuff and I don’t do this without personal risk by the way, as I lay up against a random pair of underwear.
Clean? Stinky? Not sure, it’s a crap shoot (Ha! see what I did there Mom?) but I am here for him should he need me and also to keep an eye … I did mention him being a little sketchy right?
Holding the fort Mom.
Love,
Arthur
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But we’ve reached the end of another Summer, sadly so as Summer has always been the carrot for me and not just for the obviousness of it as it is bright and welcoming and warm and plays days old sport and allows time to really enjoy time, vacations are allowed and expected, your workplace turns into a ghost town while you trip over Summer tumbleweeds if you are still around. There is a laissez-faire nature to it before you have to hunker down again for the impending doom of Winter, because there is always a hunkering down and the impending doom of Winter.
Though the Fall may turn pretty as colors change and there will be those who extoll the virtues of it, it just ain’t summer any longer but anyway, I think in the long run, those are just the folks trying to justify the end of Summer, the time they will surely, sorely miss as much as me.
So I muddle through another end of Summer days, move my snow brush window scrape thingy from the back seat to the front (a bit early I know but it’s important to be prepared) and thank the please bring flat tires to monster pickup trucks just for the sake of humanity’s breath heavens and hunker down awaiting another Summer though it seems as if the clock is disproportionate now. Being old’ll do that. It gets faster and slower all at the same time.
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Letter to my Sis from the basement:
Hey Beck,
No worries while you’re away though I miss you and Matt already but I’m keeping an eye on the cats, Arthur specifically, who just talks, talks, talks, bit of a sketchy little fella who has secrets I’m sure, what only the cat saw, but he has been a nice backup cat while Bella and Cricket are asleep, he even hung with me while I folded my laundry
But I’ll give him credit, he layed up against a random pair of underwear without even batting an Arthur eye and surely at his own personal risk.
Clean? Stinky? Not sure, it’s a crap shoot (Ha! see what I did there Beck?) but I am here for him should he need me and also to keep an eye … I did mention what only the cat saw right?
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
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