Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

Today, August 27, marks three of the worst days of my life.

August 1992

In August 1992, I had just moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for graduate school. A Hurricane named Andrew was coming our way. I was terrified.

My roommate, a lifelong Louisiana resident, left me to go to her sister’s apartment, saying there wasn’t room for me.

I was in a third floor apartment frantically making duct tapes x’s on the large windows while eating ice cream bound to melt. I called my Dad in Pittsburgh who had very little (no) experience with hurricanes. He was watching the Weather Channel intently. Should I jump in my car and drive north, then make a right turn to Pittsburgh? How do you outrun a hurricane? I was very afraid, felt very alone. It was a deeply helpless moment wrapped around fear.

My college friend Phil, also lifelong resident, called me and I abandoned the tape/ice cream for the apartment he shared with his brother. They made room for me on their couch, we listened to the news. When the power went out, we went to bed. By bed, I mean I watched a very large tree bend nearly perpendicular for hours, glad I was going to die with friends.

August 2020

In August 2020, my sweet little dog, Ana, had many seizures. I could not afford an ER vet on my own. After awhile, we raced her to the ER vet. Quarantine meant I handed her over and we waited.

They let us in to a little room to watch her die. The staff sedated her already to ease her suffering. I held her while the final injection stilled her heart.

Ana was probably 14. We knew she had a neurological condition that took her hearing and even her ability to recognize us. This was not out of the blue.

I felt my heart tearing away from my chest as I handed her over. There was no coming back. I didn’t get to say goodbye. One minute she was sleeping in the bed, the next she was convulsing. I don’t think she ever regained consciousness. I tell myself she died squeezed between her humans as her last conscious thought. But was it?

I didn’t get to whisper good-bye, to kiss her little face, or thank her for being the best of dogs. I didn’t tell her to look for Xander, Deus, and Mona on the Rainbow Bridge. I just sobbed until my COVID mask was drenched.

I will never forgive myself for not running out of the door at the first convulsion regardless of money. Maybe some minutes would have lessened her agony. Not saved her, but spared her some suffering.

I should have tried. I will never get over this, it haunts me every day not just August 27.

August 2023

The third event was a Saturday in August 2023. I woke up from an illness to realize a local cat rescue and my spouse (and her friend, Sneaky Sue) had taken advantage of my illness to steal my cats. They turned off Ring cameras, put cardboard down, closed me in my room and then trapped my cats in the attic of my home.

They knew I was some kind of sick, so saw an opportunity, perhaps?

*note. removing cats from my home without my informed consent and being sneaky about it is why I believe it was theft. cats are property. i did not file formal charges of theft.

Four of our cats were lacking socialization, not feral. This rescue decided to test them for a barn placement. And my being sick was a great opportunity to avoid my resistance. They were not feral. Not being able to touch a cat is not the definition of feral. I actually had the veterinarian confirm that fact. There are lots of nuance when it comes to cat socialization.

Even the outside cats, the community cats, are varying degrees of social. Regular contact, reliable food, and re-freshened water helps.

The rescue should know not to take cats from a home under those conditions. In 2020 a ruling found a local rescue was legally responsible in federal court for a 2017 removal of cats from a Hazelwood home occupied by a man with a MH disability. Their insurance company probably made a payout. There are bigger things to worry about.

Allegedly, they told the man they had a warrant and he allowed the rescuer in, who took photos of the conditions that the police used to obtain a warrant. That’s deceptive and apparently, costly. I may not be summarizing accurately because it is so appalling that anyone would do this, would take advantage of a disability – you should go read the court ruling yourself.

Six years later a rescue made these decisions about me. I hope they didn’t take pictures of my sleeping.

That particular August 26, I woke up at one point, questioning if I heard additional voices – was someone else in our house? No, no. You are imagining it. Go back to sleep, I was told. This is gas-lighting.

Because I wasn’t imagining it. When they returned to the house with empty cat traps, I was sitting on the sofa – momentarily feeling better from my illness. Until I saw the empty traps.

I didn’t think anything could feel worse than Ana’s death, I wasn’t sure I had a heart left to break.

I was so wrong. The realization that you’ve been betrayed by the person you trusted most in the world, that your mental health was manipulated and used against you, and wondering desperately where your beloved pets were. That’s worse. I refer to it as the decommitment.

Then, I was literally shoved. Hard enough to send me to the ER. Everything ended that day, but it took 24 hours to implode. Police, MH discrimination, abandonment, lies.

The implosion has lasted three years. I was homeless for 196 days. As of now, I have zero housing options on the other side of October 23, 2026 when the divorce trial wraps up. The decree could come that day or six months later – there’s no way to know. The decree will tell me how long I have to remain in my home of 20+ years.

I did not know if all the kidnapped cats had been returned until Day 197. I never got the story, learned who was actually removed and who hid in terror after the first trap snap. The rescue never apologized. Or compensated me for their part in this atrocity. There’s no remorse which means other people with mental health disabilities are at risk.

They took advantage of my illness to remove my cats, took umbrage when I pushed back. Why couldn’t they wait another week until I was recovered? It wasn’t the condition of the house or they would have removed all the pets. This wasn’t a targeted extraction of four cats without my informed consent. Perhaps it was legal, but it was unethical and a strange post-2020 lawsuit choice.

2026

In spite of being homeless, I has therapy three days a week to process these events. I work hard in therapy, I have a support system, and I am doing everything possible to avoid being homeless after my divorce. There are enough marital assets for us both to live decently. This wasn’t my choice.

I fought for cat visitation, then my return to them. With my supporters help, we got the entire cat spaces cleaned, the vet appointments caught up, and the behavioral plan in place to make up for six months. Now the cats live in relative harmony across four floors with pheromone dispensers, many litter boxes, and six feeding stations to reduce stress. Like the vet recommended. I paid for very expensive vet care, nearly $5000 and had to battle to get repaid. Painful teeth have been extracted, long acting flea meds applied to soothe skin, interactive toys strategically placed around the house. Prozac is dispensed daily. And I regularly communicate with the vet.

I could fill an entire blog with cat details. August and beyond. We both do our part.

The rescue shuns me. I am positive I’ll be removed from their Facebook group after I publish this post. That will be a loss for everyone, but someone should ask them questions. Maybe everything they did was legitimate and ethical. How will anyone know if we don’t ask questions?

Would you be okay having someone come into your home while you were sick and sneaking your pets away for any reason? Would you do that to someone?

My attorneys will handle any retaliation, big or small. I’m not playing any longer. I’m not enabling violence against pet owners with disabilities.

After the October 23 divorce trial, I will lose all of my cats because they are property in need of a home. I won’t even have a home for myself so I have no claim. There is no visitation. Sneaky Sue can spend time with my cats so can the new girlfriend. The ex-laws. The other leaders of the Indivisible Chapter. It will be fair game.

Every person in that rescue. The cops who marched me across the street in a perverted perp walk. The list of who can visit my cats is endless.

With one exception. Me.

Even if I could take some cats – how would I choose? The ones most bonded to me? The ones most likely to be put in a barn by a cruel cat rescue? The best behaved? The ones who remembered Ana or the aloof ones?

August Recovery

So August 26 swept in as a hurricane, ripping my beloved ones and my peace of mind into the atmosphere three times. This is a traumatic day.

Going back to 1992. I was curled up on the couch, scared, watching that tree bend. I fell asleep in the dark. In the morning, debris was everywhere. My car was spared.

And so was that tree, stretching defiantly upward with a will to survive and thrive that defied the storm.

In 2020, Ana did not survive but I had my cats to distract me. They needed both of us. And I now have an emergency credit card with a zero balance so I’ll never have to rely on anyone for ER trips again.

In 2023, I survived and leaned into friendships. I fought my way home.

In 2026, I don’t know how I’m going to survive without stable decent housing or adequate health insurance, much less my lovelies. My social work friends and I have gone over this many times. I have some expensive health insurance options to the tune of $500+ per month, but no housing options at all. There are certainly none that allow pets.

We don’t expect a fair settlement in Family Court because the argument that domestic partnerships should be considered part of the length of marriage is new law. So we will file an appeal to the Superior Court. Hopefully, that Court finds in our favor and the final settlement will be fair so I can get a decent little apartment. The only housing option to keep my cats would be a house and that’s highly improbable. No one is going to give me a house.

I’m not blaming the Family Court judge who has limited scope of powers. It is the system that does not demand all parties in a divorce be housed, have healthcare, and joint responsibility for their cats. Many married couples use creative divorce settlements to meet everyone’s basic needs.

So until that’s settled, I am going to wake up one day, grab my purse, walk outside after handing over my key and … nobody will tell me what happens. Do I bounce from sofa to sofa for 30 months? I don’t know 30 people with available sofas. At what point do I gather my blue tarp and roll down to the encampments? That sentence is a social critique, not a jab at homeless neighbors. I’ll be among them soon and hope to find kindness.

How do I manage a possible appeal, maintain my blog, and mobilize people to address all the things that went wrong? I have five lawyers, formed a grassroots working group, and shared my story. A neighbor will feed my cat colonies.

It may not be enough.

My higher profile/macro influencer status (nearly 300,000 across platforms) has been somewhat helpful in sharing my story. But it has exposed my vulnerabilities. I have four identified stalkers, three have resurfaced these past three years. I’m regularly threatened and harassed online because of my content. Death threats. It has all escalated since 2023. What happens if I’m forced to live in a community without nondiscrimination protections? Or a community I’ve blogged about? Or a MAGA landlord? Or no walls or locks? I will be at risk.

People expect my most affluent friends to save me and that’s unfair. You have no idea how people have been helping me all along in many ways.

The solution here is for the Family Court judge to grant me a stay on the divorce so I can remain in my home with my cats while the appeals play out. That means I still pay a share of the bills, my housekeeper comes every other week, I still pay my share of the vet bills. I can’t keep health insurance under state law, but I can ask people to help me find $500 a month to pay for private insurance. I hope.

And hopefully get that fair division of assets so I can have a decent life. Before August 27, 2027.

coda ad agosto

In August 1992, my roommate abandoned me as if squeezing one extra body to sleep on the floor was an absolute no-go. My friend Phil put me on his couch and then took me to his mother’s house for a few days. He did it because he was a nice guy and he understood I was probably terrified. We didn’t become besties although we are still in touch.

But that was on August 27.

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If you’d like to read the backstory, click here.

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