Baseball in Cincinnati

Mascot Rosie Red at a recent home game

Here’s a measure of how important baseball is in this city: the Cincinnati Enquirer currently has a graphic counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds to opening day. Every year, opening day is a virtual holiday here, with most major businesses shutting down and allowing employees to head to the ballpark or go watch the game on TV.

I’ve never seen anything like it, and apparently neither has Reds manager Dusty Baker. “I know how important Opening Day is in Cincinnati,” Baker recently told the Enquirer. “It’s more important in Cincinnati than any place I’ve been.”

Washed!

Violet’s intense interest in The Shower Channel has led Ray to become a devotee, too. Their favorite show is Washed! television’s leading docudrama featuring humans taking showers.

OMG! Look at all that soap!

For the dogs, the show has the same weird fascination that a horror movie has for teen-agers — it’s riveting to imagine how horrible it would be if they were being slashed up with a big knife, or in this case, being lathered up and rinsed off.

One thing the dogs seem to agree on is that the true star of the show is Mrs. SR013. The male lead, whats-his-name, is OK to watch, but when Mrs. SR013 is in the shower, Washed! just takes off. As one critic put it, “She really makes the shower stall come alive.”