silverapplequeen – herstory. poetry. recipes. rants.

March 21, 2026

Saturday Caturday

The cats are being individualists today.

Chloe is looking out the windows. She’s actually running from window to window ~ chasing the birds, the squirrels & the rabbits that she sees outside. Here, she’s sitting in the kitchen window that is now known as “Chloe’s window”.

Radar is on the study floor, rolling around being too cute. He looks like he wants his tummy rubbed, but that’s a trap. He’ll attack my hands as soon as I start rubbing his belly & I’ll end up all scratched.

Bobby is walking around with the Happy Carrot, which never seems to make him very happy. He cries the entire time it’s in his mouth. He’ll drop it & then he’ll meow at it for at least five minutes before picking it up & walking around with it & crying again.

I’m watching an episode of “Columbo” ~ from March 2, 1976 ~ which would have been my kid brother’s 10th birthday. I never get tired of “Columbo” or “Rockford Files” or the old “Perry Mason” from the 60s. & I love seeing the cars & the clothes. Everything changed when Reagan was elected & America started on its path to being the shitty place it is now.

March 18, 2026

Wordless Wednesday

March 18, 2026

I’m Going to Be There ~ Are You?

Less Than Two Weeks Til No Kings 3 on March 28th!

I ran into a friend of mine on Sunday at a St. Patty’s Day event & she brought up the NO KINGS protest happening here in Buffalo in solidarity with all the other NO KINGS protests across the country on Saturday, March 28, 2026. She’s 10 years older than me but she’s been to EVERY SINGLE PROTEST & she’s planning to go to this next protest in 10 days time. I said I’d go with her. We can watch each other’s back.

Another woman, who was seated with us, hemmed & hawed about going. “I don’t know what else is going on that day,” she said. I’m sure she’ll find a welcoming bar stool upon which to sit. She’s a secret MAGA anyway. I know a lot of them. They may be in the Democratic Party or “independent”, but they’re right on board with Trump’s immigration policy, cutting off SNAP & other benefits to people who need them ~ “they don’t benefit me”, you know the type ~ & who shit-talk the people who need them ~ “I work, why can’t they?” ~ like everyone is capable of working. Or are capable working the jobs they can find with the disabilities they may have. I know that I would love to work again but I also know that I’m not capable of holding a job & there’s no shame in admitting that. I’d rather be honest about my limitations than lie about being more than I am.

Anyway ~ I’m going to be at the McKinley Monument at the Niagara Square ~ actually a circle ~ in downtown Buffalo at 11 a.m. on Saturday, March 28. Are you going? In Buffalo or where you live?

NO KINGS. NO KING EVER.

March 15, 2026

Sunday Sonnet

References.

cummings, e.e. (untitled). American Sonnets. Edited by David Bromwich. NY: American Poets Project, 2007. poem is found on page 215.

March 14, 2026

Saturday Caturday

Chloe had her spay surgery on Tuesday. I took her to Operation Pets Veterinary Care in Lackawanna, NY ~ Lackawanna is a city right next to Buffalo, on Buffalo’s south border ~ it’s where Bethlehem Steel used to be. There was a steel plant on the shores of Lake Erie from 1857 until 1983 & Lackawanna was a thriving city, as was Buffalo. I remember those days.

I used to spend a lot of time down in Lackawanna ~ in my late teens & mid 20s ~ I had a boyfriend down there & I did a lot of partying down there. LaBella’s pizza & “red red wine”. Dropping acid & going to the Basilica of Our Lady of Victory & walking around gazing at its beauty ~ it’s a gorgeous place without hallucinogens. Going down there was a ride down memory lane.

I took a Lyft down there & back. Since I had to drop Chloe off & leave her, it cost me $84 + tip the first round trip & $72 + tip the second round trip. The vet bill was $70 & that included the surgery, rabies shot & distemper shot.

That’s a total of $235. Compare that to the $1400 that the vet that was 5 minutes away was going to charge me. For JUST the surgery.

Chloe was really groggy when she got home & had trouble walking & she went to sleep under the loveseat in the library & I didn’t see her until the next morning. It took her a few days to recover.

This morning, I managed to get a picture of the incision on her belly. She wasn’t very cooperative, of course.

It’s really tiny! When I was rubbing her belly, it felt so much bigger.

Anyway, she’s pretty much back to her old self. Back to ripping pictures off the wall & harassing the houseplants & generally being a terrorist.

March 8, 2026

Sunday Sonnet

References.

Neilson, Philip. “Vermouth”. The Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology. Edited by Edward Hirsch & Eavan Boland. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008. poem is found on page 279.

March 7, 2026

Saturday Caturday

Cats hogging up my bed. I had to curl up at the other end & try to sleep.

March 1, 2026March 1, 2026

Saturday Caturday ~ on Sunday again

after a long, exhaustive week, in which Chloe DID NOT get her spay surgery ~ she refused to get into the cat carrier ~ it was a half hour of chasing her around the house ~ moving various pieces of furniture ~ which whacked out my back ~ & finally I said FUCK IT. I called the vet & cancelled the surgery.

Since then, I have heard about three places that offer spay surgeries at a MUCH lower price than the vet I have been using these past few years ~ like an entire grand less. These places aren’t 5 minutes away like the vet I have been using but money talks ~ amirite?

I am going to call tomorrow & get a new appointment for Chloe tomorrow.

The little terrorist herself.

I have a chiropractor appointment tomorrow morning & then I am going to stop in at the vet’s & get Chloe’s blood work results, so I can take them to the new vet’s & then go & have my annual eye exam. A friend wants me to meet him for lunch & the bar in which he hangs out is not far from the eye place, so I’ll do that before I go home. Hey ~ a free lunch is a free lunch & this place has pretty good food.

I know that I will need a good nap after all that running around all morning.

In other news ~ I have my flight plans for a trip to Tennessee to visit with my son & his wife & my granddaughter at the end of this month. March is looking like it’s going to be very busy.

March 1, 2026

I AM SO ASHAMED OF MY HOME TOWN

but honestly I’m not surprised ~ since in many ways, it’s turned into a MAGA outpost & isn’t the self-styled “City of Good Neighbors” that it used to be.

I usually catch the news every morning ~ if only to get a weather report for the day & the sports, of course ~ & I have yet to hear anything about this AT ALL.

His name was Nurul Amin Shah Alam. SAY HIS NAME. Nurul Amin Shah Alam.

He was a refugee from Rohingya. He was blind & only knew a few words of English. On one of the coldest days of winter, he got lost on the lower West side of Buffalo.

I first read about it in Digby’s Hullabaloo & when I realized that it was BUFFALO, I was like, WHEN THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN?

& WHY?

What’s the matter with people nowadays? Have they lost all notion of compassion?

One Man’s Horrible Fate

February 22 ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

References. Millay, Edna St. Vincent. “Rendevous”. No More Masks!: An Anthology of Poems by Women. Edited by Florence Howe & Ellen Bass. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday Anchor Books, 1973. poem is found on page 67.