My best friend Dr. John Ruffing died 17 years ago. His legacy is now a pet food pantry.

Dr. Ruffing Pet Food Pantry

All week, I’ve been loading donations for The Dr. John P. Ruffing VMD Pet Food Pantry into my borrowed Land Rover that we’ve dubbed St. Gertrude or Gertie. She contains multitudes of cat food. Now,there’s no interior light so I bought a head lamp. I added a USB port to the cigarette light – oh […]

Guest Post by Lenore Dingus: Haudenosaunee-Seneca Perspective on Resiliency and Persistence

Indigenous peoples have come full circle from thriving to surviving, and back again. Everywhere that I turn this week I find advice, demands, and grief over the direction 73,455,333 American voters have steered us. It is a dark hour, but it is not the only dark hour. Our elders and ancestors have walked through dark times, […]

The Reason My Cats Think I’m Horrible

Our second month of pet food distribution is underway. We have 50 total colony caretakers registered and 26 are active. All feed cats, some have dogs. Our main focus is dry cat food, especially during these winter months.  We’ll need bags of food in the 10-20 pound range. Smaller bags can be combined as well. […]

Q&A with Missy Moreno about Theater, Queerness, and Farce

—— arts keep hearts open to feelings. No matter the money count or leadership or any issue facing humans, art is the only way for us to stay human through it all.  I caught the final performance of POTUS at City Theatre. It was hilarious. Writing a review after the show closes might seem odd. […]

How do we endure?

Review: The Hobbit Adventure at Pittsburgh Public Theater

I was quite young when I first met Bilbo Baggins, peaceful resident of Middle Earth and protagonist of ‘The Hobbit’ by J.R.R Tolkien.. My Dad was a aficionado of science fiction and fantasy so it was inevitable he would steer me that way, too. The novel dates to 1937 while the animated television musical (??) […]

Burned my finger on a Pop-Tart

NaBloPoMo

I can’t decide if it’s a sign of the times or simply dumb luck. Burned the index finger of my dominant hand on the icing of a Pop-Tart fresh out of the toaster. Ran cold water. Google “wtf do I do now.” And here I sit with my finger swathed in petroleum jelly and generic […]

Read This Q&A with Anna-Jayne Metcalfe #TheResearchers

The Researchers Investigating Missing, Murdered, Unclaimed, and Unidentified Trans and Queer Neighbors Around the World Hidden behind every name is a story – one that likely encompasses much joy as well as what tragically happened to them at the end. I think we have a responsibility to tell those stories where we can, and dragging […]

Winter Holiday Pet Food Drive Needs 160 Cans of Cat Food Right Now

pet food drive cat lady

Big thanks to cat food donors Danielle, Sherry, Christina, Richard and a ton of anonymous donors. And to our own Marie who dipped into her personal pantry of cat food to even out the distribution. Right now, we need 120 cans of cat food to round up November’s distribution. Can you donate toward that? Drop-off […]

I Chose Hope on Election Eve #NaBloPoMo

NaBloPoMo

I’m not an especially optimistic person by nature. I skew more toward middle of the road, fusing hope with expectation of the worst followed by sheer relief when I land somewhere in between. This election season I made a conscious choice to be hopeful. It seemed preferable to spending months in anxiety, dread, and mopping […]