Weekly Stories

Cinzella

One of the last of the old ones folds herself into the earth today, a deep bow, a great exhale, she inhales a new impossibly lightsome life. Zia Cinzella, run your tiny feet and your nimble knees through the cool stream that separates this life from the next. Run to the ones you love. I will miss you. I loved you. Your kind brown eyes and your little kittenish way of tossing off the sorrows of life with a simple, “Ma-“. The great ladies of my family are gone, save one, the youngest, Ninetta, burying far too many dear ones….

Easter and the Ass

We tend to skip over the part that despair plays in the passion. My ponderings started with a donkey. A donkey meandered into town, carrying a man on her sturdy wide back. I imagine she would stop and bray and sniff the air for food. She was not pretentious. She didn’t mind accepting the generosity of others. She was an ass after all. But nobody, not anybody, could tell her what to do. She would walk at her own pace. Today, she didn’t mind sashaying into town. She swayed her hips comfortably, carrying such a lightweight of a dude. This…

painting the walls light blue

I cycle along the seawall between Cambie and Granville island, past the tiny woman taking a photo of her tiny dog with her tiny camera. Past the poodle peeing on the jelly bean (art installation). Past a grizzled cart pusher who has turned his face upwards to the sky with a kind of rapture that makes me put my brakes on. I fly under a wedding of cherry blossoms and upturn all the pink skirts. I gaze at fancy boats bobbing in the bay like fat businessmen in black and white suits chuckling over their drinks. Clinkity clink clink. “aren’t…

Up on the Blocks – kind of a rambly story, more of a catch up

A tale of two cities runs through my head as my car refuses to turn over on Main and fifteenth tonight. Anita is visiting and I am so delighted to see her! But poor little Mini the Blue. I hope there isn’t much wrong with her, for her sake and for mine. I won’t be able to keep her if she costs me too much to fix. I would have a hard time justifying to my family that I wish to repair my eleven year old Mini Cooper simply because she pleases me aesthetically and I am in love with…

giving blood

I pull off the band-aid from my arm. I have given blood today, B+ being one of the rarer types. Was it too soon after my operation? Maybe I gave too much. I slid into a hot dizzy nausea when they removed the needle. It kept me sideways in a bed with a cockeyed swarthy doctor calmly ordering, “kick your legs, kick your legs” while a skittish nurse threw long wet white stripes of cloth and ice water over my neck and wrists. What-?! What is she doing?! I gasp, alarmed at the wet soggy shock of cold. I want…

girls can play hockey

A raccoon, sitting fatly on her matronly haunches, plucks tulip bulbs out of my planter with the delicacy of a fine French lady. She pops them into her mouth with succulent glee as though they were escargot tucked into a round silver server. First the white one, then the purple, then the orange. I wonder if they taste differently? “Hm, an early peach parrot imported from Holland, crisp and light. Hm, a late black swan, a hint of bitterness, satisfying crunch.” I don’t see her do this, but who else would leave the pot so tidy? Seeing the careful circular…

Lucia’s bacon apple skillet corn bread

Okay, I have to save this one before I forget it…serve in wedges so you can eat a wedge before your guests arrive and they will never know! INGREDIENTS: 3-5 rashers of bacon, 1 apple, 3 green onions with whites 1/2 cup butter 2/3 cup brown sugar 2 eggs 1 cup buttermilk 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1 cup cornmeal 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon salt Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (175 degrees C). In a 12″ skillet, saute: 3-5 slices of bacon, cut into small chunks of delight once it starts giving off some grease, add: 1 apple,…

Roof top: San Francisco

I stand in front of a Chagall in Ms G’s bedroom, “All my nudes are in here”, she says with a sincere and nearly shy smile. In the living room, she obliges me and quickly points out originals and lithos of Picasso, Matisse, Miro…an Andy Warhol litho of Mick Jagger signed by Mick Jagger…and quite a few other remarkable pieces of art I am too ill informed to understand their worth. I only know they look fantastic and their beauty moves me to tears. Of all of them, I am transfixed by the erotic Chagall and return to the bedroom…

an unexpected jig

The crescent moon smiles in the sky so giddy and wide, it must have had too much champagne. Venus twinkles like the moon’s diamond earring…she’s lost the other one. Oh, it’ll be somewhere in the galaxy. Unless the vacuum sucks it up. Yeah, this gal is kind of upside down and sideways and not really representing Islam tonight. But she fits the San Francisco skyline just fine. I pass an old Yeye on the corner of Irving and 9th. He is playing jingle bells on the Erhu over and over and over again. Does he wonder why he isn’t getting…

forgetting to eat

I was out with skinny friends tonight who simply forget to eat. So, only one meal today for Lucia. But, there were snacks at rehearsals so I ate a lot, a LOT of crackers and cheese. Now I’m home, polishing off a bag of raw arugula in an effort to create a balanced meal. I wash it down with some Gran Marnier because I’m sure to have a stomach ache anyway. I kick up my feet in my little San Fran apartment and smile: it’s been a great day. We had rehearsals tonight and it was a fun reunion with…

Lucia Frangione