From: Rachel Richardson

Subject: Bengals proposed pigeon “solution”

To: david.crowley@cincinnati-oh.gov, jeff.berding@cincinnati-oh.gov, john.cranley@cincinnati-oh.gov, chris.monzel@cincinnati-oh.gov, cecil.thomas@cincinnati-oh.gov, leslie.ghiz@cincinnati-oh.gov, chris.bortz@cincinnati-oh.gov, laketa.cole@cincinnati-oh.gov

Dear Cincinnati leaders:

I read with great disgust and outrage the proposed “cost-effective” solution by operators of Paul Brown Stadium to the pigeon problem to be to cruelly shoot and kill the offending birds. I understand city leaders are working out the legalities of this issue and I strongly urge you to speak out against the needless and excessively cruel killing of innocent animals.

Cincinnati is a city long beleaguered by crime and violence – what sort of message are we sending by condoning more violence against some of the most vulnerable creatures we share our city with? The great Indian nationalist Mahatma Gandhi once opined that “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” What does it say of Cincinnati when we legalize the wide-scale killing of animals who slightly offend us?

Once again, I urge you to think of the greater implications of allowing this action, and strongly urge you to encourage the Bengals to consider other, non-violent means to its pigeon problem.

Regards,

Rachel Richardson

After rescuing five cats and briefly taking in a dog last year, I’m only now realizing that I can’t save every mistreated, abandoned or stray animal who wanders in my path. At five cats currently, our house is probably at the city’s legal limit for pets, anyway.

I might have mentioned this before, but we have three generations of hillbillies inhabiting the three houses flanking ours. Yes, imagine. Hillbillies in Kentucky. The day the grand hillbilly matriarch placed a “for sale” sign in her front yard, we celebrated with hopes the others would follow suit. Unfortunately, the housing market around here has softened and they still haven’t sold.

You would think a single mother with two kids on welfare whom we secretly believe to be mentally challenged and who cannot even afford a car, would need the responsibility of a pet like a hole in the head. Yet the hillbilly girl across the street has done exactly that. An adorable Boxer puppy is now chained to a leash tied to an old basketball net in their driveway. No grass. No water. Scarcely any food.

I first saw the dog yesterday, when its incessant barking interrupted my workday at home. The poor thing craves human attention. He’s a very sweet dog, well-tempered and would make a great pet, I bet. Unfortunately, he’s been “adopted” by an owner who doesn’t take good care of him. Yesterday his chain was wrapped up in a crack in the driveway, and the poor thing could hardly move three inches, let alone reach the empty water bowl. Might I mention, it topped a record high of 98 degrees yesterday.

Calling animal control will do no good; they’re overstretched and understaffed as it is. I’m thinking a covert rescue mission is in order.

Brandon’s mom spread the word about that we’d prefer gift cards to Lowe’s as wedding gifts, and both our family and friends responded with showers of home improvement gift cards. Since we both lived independently before we met, we didn’t need to register for anything, but we do have a list of home improvement projects a mile long. We’ve mentally spent our upcoming tax return sevenfold.

We set out Saturday to squander our newfound wealth, and thought up of new projects to add to the ever-expanding list, like refinishing our kitchen cabinets. I’d love to totally renovate the kitchen when Ikea opens, but I know we’ll never get the return on the investment. Along with the cabinet materials, I also bought enough spring flower bulbs to open a small conservatory, along with mulch that I need to finish Phase I of the backyard project.

It occurred to me on the way home that for the next two years, I will not have the time to do projects like these, thanks to the time black hole they call graduate school.

I’ve been looking forward to graduate school ever since I returned to college years ago. I’ve always felt like the geriatric outsider lurking around the MTV spring break set in my undergraduate classes, and I envisioned graduate school to be oh, so much more serious and intelligent and full of academic people like me. For the record, it isn’t – the second-year grad students treat us like lowly high school freshmen.

I’ve been looking forward to graduate school for so long, but now that it’s here and classes have started, I’m ready to hang it up. It’s intimidating; reading two books on average each week with reviews and papers due several times weekly. My first American lit class is on Monday, and we have a 12-page review of a reading due on Friday. This wouldn’t be such an impetus for panic, except that I also have to squeeze in a 40-hour work week sometime.

Add to this the difficulty I have even getting through the first chapter of a book, any book. I tend to skip words, lines and even paragraphs when I read dull and dry material, which is how most historians write, unfortunately. Writing papers can be a test of true endurance. I’m trying to get back on ADD medication, but it’s going to take some time for it to even kick in.

Have I gotten myself over my head? And for what? The vanity of a master’s degree?

The Enquirer, in collaboration with C-Change, is looking for the best photos of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky to be put in a full-color, hard-bound, coffee-table book.  The photos that get the most votes will be published in the book alongside the best photos from The Enquirer, so the book is truly the best of  the best.

You can check out my photos and vote for them by going to my profile page.

IKEA is on schedule to open their West Chester location come spring.   Bring on the Scandinavian furniture!

I had settled the remote on Whose Wedding Is It Anyway when Brandon let out a groan.

“We’re already married,” he whined. “Why do you still watch these shows?”

“I’m still planning the reception,” I retorted, as I dangled the remote out of his reach.

I really have no clue what it is about the various wedding shows that piques my morbid curiosity. I never dreamt of my wedding as a little girl. I’ve never doodled Mrs. So and So on my school notebooks. And I certainly never entertained notions that I would find anyone other than a cat that I could live with, let alone pledge my never-ending love and loyalty to.

And I do get good planning ideas from watching the wedding shows, though I did nix the whole letting the butterflies go at the wedding idea and the Cinderella theme where the groom tries the “slipper” on the foot of all 10 bridesmaids. And besides, shows like Bridezilla only help Brandon to appreciate me all the more.

As part of the reception organizing, I’ve been watching Ace of Cakes on the Food Network to prepare for making my own wedding cake. Truth be told, I’m a little in love with Duff, but Brandon is well aware of my lust for the apron’ed man with a constant supply of buttercreme frosting – “Baaaaby, let’s go to Baltimore and stalk out Duff, pllleeeeeease!”

Still, I wouldn’t recommend attempting a three-tier cake with fondant icing a scant seven hours before your scheduled event. The result is below, and yes, this is the cake’s “good” side. The other shows a leaning tower o’ cake.

Luckily, it tasted a lot better than it looked. The 12-inch bottom layer was German chocolate with chocolate bavarian creme; the second layer was butter cake with a strawberry glaze filling (think Strawberry Shortcake); and the top layer was lemon cake with raspberry filling.

We had a great reception, but I am so glad it’s finally over. I hadn’t realized how stressful these things really are. Writing my graduate thesis will be a piece of cake, no pun intended, after planning this reception.

It occurred to me about this same time on Saturday that, oh holy hell, I have a reception to plan in a week’s time.

Our family used to have gatherings regularly, until my grandmother died in 1996.  I hadn’t realized the cohesive element she, as matriarch of the clan, formed until she died and our once close extended family seemed to dissolve until we are almost like strangers.My wedding is the first in the family since my cousin Rhonda got married in the 1980s (there was another, but they got married by a justice of the peace with no family celebration).  So, I am looking forward to this reception, but I had no idea how much work planning a reception for about 75 people could possibly be.

Of course, the organization is compounded by the fact that I am not only the party planner, event designer and cake decorator, I’m also the caterer.  Which wouldn’t be so bad except that I can’t cook, and my organization skills are non-existent.  I will either have not enough food, or so many leftovers we could feed a small developing nation.

It also occurred to both Brandon and I, that we are not the most interesting people.  I’m banking on the cornhole set my mom is bringing to amuse my side of the family, with a few new babies on Brandon’s side to gush over.  Family photobooks will be on display, and the clubhouse has a big-screen television.  But really, how do you amuse people for hours on end?  This is why the boy and I don’t go to parties.

Although we’re on the national no-call list, we still getting telemarketing calls guised as donations to various “charities.”  Each one has the same schtick: they always ask if I am Mrs. Kinman and each time I tell them there is no Mrs. Kinman at this address.  It usually throws them off and flusters them just long enough for me to interject a “We ain’t interested” before hanging up.

I recently stumbled upon this article by Catherine Deveny about the whole business of changing your surname upon marrying.  Deveny bluntly sums up my thoughts on the whole matter in mere sentences:

Wake up! We are in 2007. Women are no longer owned by their father and then their husband. So why are some women still changing their surnames? And why do some men still want them to? It’s sad, it’s misogynous, it’s archaic, it’s insecure and it’s unnecessary.

Long ago when I was just a budding feminist, I remember a conversation between my mother and older brother about women taking their husband’s surnames, which I denounced for the silly and archaic tradition it is.  My brother insisted that because the man buys the ring, a woman is obligated to take his last name.  My mother patronized me with a dismissed “She’ll change her mind once she falls in love and gets married.”

Fast forward ten years later: I’ve fallen in love, gotten married and still haven’t changed my name.

I announced my intentions to keep my name long before we said our “I do’s,” but never informed Brandon’s family, namely because, for me, it’s a moot issue.  Marriage isn’t about semantics; it’s about love, respect and commitment.
Both of Brandon’s sisters-in-law took his brother’s names when marrying, and are religious to boot, so I was somewhat apprehensive on his family’s reactions to my blatant act of feminism.  His mother asked me outright the night before our wedding and I took a deep breath, and told her of my plans.  She didn’t seem surprised; I think she knew the answer before she even asked.

My mother, by contrast, thinks I am being blasphemous and disrespectful to Brandon.  You would think she of all people ought to know better.  She went from being a daughter to being a wife at age 18, where she changed her name to my father’s name.  Now that they’re divorced, she retained my dad’s name and is in a relationship with someone else who she could potentially marry, upon which she would change her name again.  In just a short span of fifty years, she could literally have three identities.

Our reception is coming up on Sept. 15.  I sent out all the wedding announcement and reception invitations with our “Brandon Kinman and Rachel Richardson” mailing labels, but I know I am going to field this question again. I’d rather not engage the questioner in a lengthy diatribe on how the practice is a tool of the patriarchy.  Any clever response ideas?