Baby showers are among the strangest social rituals ever to be thrust upon womenkind. Our family threw one for David and Amber the other weekend. In the weeks leading up to it, my mother kept calling me with yet another mind-numbingly infantilizing game she’d found with names like “guess that baby food,” “the poopy diaper game” or (save me already) “pin the binky on the baby.” I haven’t been to many baby showers, but my “I’m not a bra-burner!” mother schooled me in advance on the fine art of such nauseating estrogen fests. Apparently the men — assuming there are any — retire to the basement whereupon they will commence drinking beer, playing pool, talking smack and watching the Bengals on my brother’s 60-inch flat screen HDTV while the women gush over hegemonic genderizing gifts and play ridiculous shower games all in the guise of some universally shared matriarchal longing. Luckily, I claimed the role of photographer, thus sparing me from most of baby shower hell.

Baby Chase has received enough shoes to rival any well-dressed woman and David and Amber’s registry has now been officially exhausted. But nothing beats the bestest gift of all, compliments of yours truly and Cafepress.

“So, how many cats do you have now?” asked the blonde veterinary technical as she prepared the bill for the kittens’ last round of vaccinations last night.

“Umm,” I hesitated, anticipating the wide-eyed look that was sure to follow. “Sebastian and Sydney make six and then I have a foster kitty. It’s like a feline Brady Bunch.” I omitted mention of the four neighborhood cats who’ve laid claim to our front porch.

The eyes widened, but only slightly. I would find out later that she has her own fair share of furbabies, and recently rescued the momma cat and kittens left by her neighbors when they moved to Florida. There is a shared understanding among suckers for a furry face in that we are all patients in the same mental ward.

“So, who are you with?” she asked.

“Who am I with?” I asked, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, I mean, which rescue organization are you with?” she replied.

“I’m not,” I said, with a laugh. “Oh, no, the craziness is all mine.”

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Meet Sebastian and Sydney, and foster kitty Nigel (who we’ll also probably end up keeping)

I don’t know what’s worse for productivity: the day before vacation or the day after. Sigh, all I know is that it was entirely too short. We managed to squeeze a lot in on our six-day trip down South: tromps through the Shaker Village and two Civil War battlefield sites, a hike in the world’s longest cave system, tours of Lexington, Ky. and Music City, a riverboat ride down the Kentucky River, swimming, antique-shopping and despite being rounded up in the hotel lobby at 2 a.m. Thursday night for a tornado watch, lots of much-needed relaxing.

A few observations from our trip:

• Where there is roadside adult bookstore, there is a “Jesus Saves” billboard
• “Blazin’ Rectum” is probably not the best of varieties with which to market barbecue sauce
• The number of churches, Wal-Marts and fried chicken establishments increase proportionately the further south you travel.
• A dinner of French toast, fried okra and French fries really doesn’t sound so odd when you’re vegetarian, extremely hungry and Cracker Barrel is the only semi-veg-friendly restaurant around for 40 miles.
• When going on a guided two-hour, two-mile cave tour 350-feet below ground and with eight flights of stairs, position yourself in line as far away from children as possible.
• Small children should be required to wear diapers in hotel swimming pools for risk of a one-day pool closure due to an “accident.”
• Stray cats find me even when I’m on vacation.

Photo highlights of our trip follow after the jump. Read more…

Just a few random observations from the past week…

- It always promises to be an interesting class when the prof admits she’s hung over.

- The city once known as Porkopolis is now encouraging residents to eat, well, less pork (and other meat).

- If you park on the sidewalk, Newport Police will ticket you.

- Bunnies love cherry-flavored pediatric medicine.

- RuPaul out of drag (and wearing glasses) looks a lot like Cincinnati Mayor Mark Malllory.

The music automatically starts on the posted card and its annoying, so click to see it. Read more…

You know the old saying about a lucky rabbit’s foot, right? Well, on election night, I brought home the whole rabbit. Yeah, I like to think it helped my man win. Actually, my graduate seminar this year is on animals in American history and the other week had us reading Katherine Grier’s “Pets in America” — a bad choice for someone who’s already a sucker for all things furry. By the end of the third chapter, I felt the irresistible need to go to a pet store. By the end of the book, we were getting a bunny. So, meet Harry.

Feline fixation the night I brought him home. Now he’s just like a piece of the furniture to most of them, except for Chloe. She’s his new best friend.

A local fire department offered a mini-media fire academy to a group of my company’s writers and photojournalists. The official explanation given to our editors for missing more than a half-day of work is that we would be better able to report on emergency situations if we better understood the job itself. Unofficially, dressing up in turnout gear, sawing sedans into convertibles and crawling in a controlled 600-degree burn situation sure beats sitting in a cubicle being hounded by voice messages and emails. Here are some photos from the day:

Strapping on an air tank

Me vandalizing a car

Me and co-reporter Shauna (I’m on the right) using the jaws of life to cut apart a car. The spreader tool weighs 75 pounds!

Better angle shot of us using the spread tool to pop open the rear door

The result? A new convertible!

Because nobody looks good after sweltering in too-big thermal turnout gear for three hours.

I was the only one of our group to have even an iota of experience in this kind of work. I was in two Fire Explorer groups as a teen, where I got to legally help burn down houses and scale the sides of buildings. I had my own turnout gear and regularly rode with local departments and later, after getting my EMT certification, with Cincinnati. So, when our firefighter instructors would call for volunteers, I’d look around, see everyone shuffling their feet in hesitation, and then raise my hand like an overeager Boy Scout.

The academy was made especially poignant by the department hosting it, Colerain Township. As locals will remember, the department lost two of its own earlier this year in a house fire. The whole morning really reminded me of how much I miss the whole firehouse culture and EMS work. When I finally finish my master’s degree (hopefully in June of next year), I’d like to become recertified again and begin volunteering with some local departments.

Because I am a journalist and my contact information is splashed across news media directories worldwide, I get a lot of crackpot kind of emails. The latest comes from a man who’s appalled that John McCain recently met with the Dalai Lama and addressed him as “your Holiness.” “With his right hand,” declared the email writer, “John McCain confessed his Buddhist faith.” From his letter, you’d think Buddhism to be a four-letter word.

Yeah… crackpot emails generally don’t work, but they are even less effective when you send them to a reporter who’s also one of those Buddhists.

When my contractor neighbor told us that Newport’s historic East Row was comprised largely of gays and older émigrés from Indian Hill (one of the nation’s richest ZIP codes), I thought he was exaggerating or homophobic or a combination of both. But after being greeted by four gay couples in the first four homes of the eight-home Newport Garden Walk Sunday, even I had to admit the astuteness of his observation.

Despite Esquire magazine’s declaration in 1957 of Newport as “the most wicked city in America,” the city today is surprisingly conservative. The Committee of 500, a team of religious do-gooders, first set siege on the “Sin City” in the 1960s, declaring war on the city’s gambling, vice and prostitution bosses – for more on the city’s history, go here. By the time Brandon and I both moved here, much of the evidence of Newport’s illustrious past had disappeared, existing largely today in the memories of local old-timers who recalled the city’s heydays with equal parts nostalgia and censure.

The East Row Historic District sits comfortably at the foot of what is called Mansion Hill – the mansion in reference is the Wiedemann Hill Mansion, which was built for beer baron heir Charles Wiedemann in 1894. The area became a favorite of wealthy business owners and merchants in the late 1800s and its financial demographic hasn’t much changed since. Still considered one of the most prestigious and expensive areas of the city, stately Italianate and Queen Anne style homes mingle along tree-lined streets with many boasting impressive (and professionally designed) back-yard gardens. Here are a few highlights from them and our tour:

More photos are available on our online photo gallery here.

I got this from my sister on MySpace, but I thought it’s be fun to pass around. Here are the rules:

1. Answer the survey question and then look up your answer on www.urbandictionary.com and paste one of the definitions found there along with your answer.

2. Post it on your blog and include illustrations if you like.

3. Link to the person who tagged you and tag more blogs if you feel so inclined.

Here’s mine:

1) Your name?: Rachel.

“A smart, sassy and sexy young woman who knows things from fashion to film to literature, from Manolo Blahniks to Mahatma Gandhi. She impressed everybody in the meeting. She’s such a Rachel.”

2) How old are you: 29

“29 is akin to, in the words of most, “Humping a Humpback whale. The 2 from sideways looks like a whale’s hump and tail, hence the whale part, and the 9 is you. 29 resembles you humping a whale. It is a strange new thing that is catching on rapidly.”

3) One of your friends?: Lisa

“A very attractive kind of the female gender who has a sultry gaze and a great figure. Lisas are usually attracted to common types of carbohydrates and will devour them vigorously if let loose without caution. Extremely attractive.”

4) Where will your next vacation be?: Hocking Hills (for our one-year anniversary in July). Hocking Hills wasn’t in the dictionary, so I typed in “woods” instead.

“Incarceration Term-Used to describe whites in prison/jail. Short for peckerwood, a derogatory term used to portray dumb white boys. Much like redneck.”

5) Favorite Food?: Veggie Samosa

“Indian savory pastries filled with curry, generally potato curry. Quite possibly the most perfect things ever created by humankind, they are a treat for all occasions and a cure for all ills. Well, except violent gastrointestinal upset due to overconsumption, and we won’t do that again now will we? Needless to say, they’re radtastic.”

6) Hometown? Milford

“a collection or gathering of attractive young to middle age mothers who guys want to bone.”

7) Word to describe yourself?: Creative

“What teachers call you when they don’t want to say you are a dumbass.”

8 ) Car you drive?: Sedan

“Town in (North)Eastern France were France got pwned badly by Germany on September 1st 1870.”

9) Last person you talked to on the phone?: Contractor

“Someone who doesn’t have the skills or talent to hold down a permanent job. They are inherently lazy and sneaky.”

10) Your occupation?: Reporter

“The “Reporter” (n) A Gordita combo meal from Taco Bell. Just as a firecracker has a report, so too does the Taco Bell Gordita. If you have it for lunch, the report will occur around 3 o’clock. In other words, you will have to pinch a loaf shortly after eating it. The “Report” time varies per person.”

I am tagging Ottermatic, Lisa, Deniselle, Lindsay and Thoughtracer.