Photos: Community Cats in Cold Winter Weather

The trail cameras on my deck captured stunning images of our cat colony this week. The camera is next to their heated water bowl and lined up with the two heated shelters. The gallery is here We see them at vulnerable moments, escaping the cold or readying to face it. Proximity to the water dish […]

Gallery: Community Cats in Cold Winter Weather

A little background information here

Another Blow to the Integrity of the Pine-Richland School District Athletic Department

A former athletic trainer with the Pine-Richland Middle School and High School is facing 35 different charges related to child pornography, two dozen of which are felonies, according to State Police.  34-year-old Samuel Elliot Fischer was caught by a student recording his teammates while they showered in the Owens J. Roberts School District in Pottstown, […]

Video: 1986 Short Film Focused on Three Lesbians

This brief film featuring three lesbians discussing their lives in 1986 has been one of the most well received posts on my Instagram feed. Everyone want to know what happened to these three women. I hope to find out! Lesbians (1986) has been digitally preserved by UCLA Film & Televsion Archive in conjunction with Outfest […]

The 40 Most Frequently Read Blog Posts of 2024

2024

Each year, this wrap-up post is a challenge. The sobering reality of how many people came to read about the lives and acknowledge the deaths of trans neighbors is always difficult to process. I wrote 40 memorial posts in 2024. 33 of those posts honored neighbors who died this year. The other seven died in […]

Trans Youth 25 and Under Represent nearly 50% of the Reported Violent Deaths of Trans Americans in 2024

On December 1, 2024, the body of Ra’Lasia Wright was discovered in Minneapolis. She was just 24 years old. Nearly a month later, police have not identified suspects or released information about the case. To date, media coverage has been limited mostly to local media outlets. Even the national LGBTQ media has failed to acknowledge […]

Did You Know The John P. Ruffing VMD Pet Food Pantry Has a Newsletter? Here’s How to Subscribe

pet food pantry newsletter

We call it ‘Tails From the Backyard’ – first issue went out in December. In red and green envelopes no less. Our target audience are the people who live close to the pantry and the Fort Faulsey cat colony in Manchester. But the information is useful across the Northside and beyond …. If you would […]

Hey 19! It’s hard times befallen the sole survivors or how to celebrate 19 years of blogging

‘Bleakly ironic and spent’ might be my word phrase of the year for 2025. It is so amazing to be heading into my 20th year of blogging that I have to remind myself to stop and consider 19 years of blogging first. Most blogs last 90 days, those that continue last 2-3 years, and then […]

Pet Food Pantry Registers Ten New Households

Pet Food Pantry Pittsburgh

Yesterday, we restocked the Dr. John P. Ruffing VMD Pet Food Pantry with recent donations and strategized on the January distribution. We continue to believe that inflation is impacting our pantry households and potential donors. We’ve added ten households – six members of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh who are on strike from the Pittsburgh […]

This Year, I Was Home for Christmas

Vintage radio

In case you were wondering, my solo Christmas was actually fine. I had Xmas eve dinner with friends. Then I came home and settled in. I had a sweet roll for breakfast, then heated up my chicken dinner around 2. In between, I watched ‘Call the Midwife’ most of the day. I did take a […]