Katie Reider tribute

Last night a benefit was held in Cincinnati by WomenOutFront at the Below Zero Lounge to raise money and support for Katie Reider's family. As you know Katie lost her battle fighting a rare tumor last month at the young age of 30. Local area tri-state musicians were on hand to pay tribute to Katie by playing her music and celebrating her life through her songs.


Wicked Daisy














Perfectly Equal

Frozen Feet

The raffle and silent auction contained a wide variety of donated items for folks to bid on.

Oh yeah.....and there were Jello Shots.......sold by the Jello Shot wench.

Katie's father, Rob Reider, and her partner Karen Reider were also on hand last night to listen to the bands pay tribute. All of the proceeds gathered last night will go to Karen and her children to help pay some of the bills that were accumulated during Katie's fight. All in all it was a very nice evening remembering someone so talented and special.

See the video attached on this blog to hear Katie remembered by her family at her memorial service held last month.

Sunday morning after ramblings

Just a few items worth blogging about this morning......

A few of you may be into the latest technological devices on the market. I am a techno-freak. If it blinks, buzzes or beeps......its for me. I have recently discovered that I have a always had a thermometer/navigational system in my presence for which I was not consciously (I think I was ignoring it) aware. You have heard of Tom-Tom? I have Lyn-Lyn. "Turn left, turn right, slow down, you missed the exit, go back, there's a cop, COP!" Who needs a $300 device when I have Lyn-Lyn who provides navigational guidance AND can predict the exact air temperature just by venturing outside to walk the dog. It is truly amazing. :-/

Last night Lyn-Lyn and I ventured out to a WomenOutFront event featuring Tret Fure. You may remember her from the Chris & Tret duo. The whole Chris & Tret thing predates my life as a lesbian so shameful to say....I am not familiar with her music today or their music yesterday. She gave a very good performance and I think everyone present enjoyed the show. I was lucky enough to talk to her before her performance and we chatted about the current political campaigns and what we think is going to happen if Hillary is nominated or Barack is nominated. Her fears are the same as mine. If Barack wins, we may have more Hillary supporters swinging to the McCain side since they do have some similarities. As you recall, McCain was a supporter of civil unions up until the time he officially started thinking about running for president - then he did an about face to gain the evangelical vote. If Barack wins the nomination and McCain starts courting the gay vote.......he may gain the Hillary supporters who just can't vote for Barack. It is a big mess indeed.

At some point during the evening, there was food involved. I fixed a couple of small plates for Lyn-Lyn and I - identical food on each plate. However, identical food items aside, only one of us had the thrill on of an ongoing gastro-intestinal free-for-all shortly after we left the event. My navigational system Lyn-Lyn was seriously disabled all evening and into the wee hours of the morning. Yeah.....there shouldn't be a germ left in her body after this all-night fiesta. Egads!

I am happy to report that after almost a full bottle of Gatorade she is recuperating quietly. She must be feeling better because she is currently watching a Food Network show about the history of hotdogs. I am not allowed to order in any food at this point for the fear of starting up the carnival rides in her stomach again so I think I am now forced to eat alone this afternoon. So it looks like it will be a quiet Sunday afterall.

Oy vey!

Women Out Front

Here in the Cincinnati tri-state area we are lucky enough to have a lesbian organization with some real promise. Now I don't mean for it to sound like we are without hope here, but Cincinnati is one of the most conservative cities in the U.S. It is not one of the top spots that come to mind when you think about the GLBT community. However, thanks to Women Out Front, we do have a very nice social network in place for the lesbian community.

The Women Out Front organization was developed by one woman with a vision and the resources behind the vision to make it work. As their mission statement aptly puts it:

"Women OUT Front (WOF) seeks to enrich the lives of women by providing opportunities for social interaction at a variety of both professional and social events."

While I don't think we have every lesbian attending all of the WOF events, I do think it has opened some closed lesbian minds to what is available in this area. I mean let's face it.....some women won't come out and attend any GLBT events no matter what you do and then there are some that are regulars. But the fact is......we have now been given options. Options that this area hasn't seen in some time and it is quite refreshing.

Sure, WOF is no where as big as some of the other well endowed GLBT cities in the U.S., but it is something for Cincinnati. The most important part of it being that this org tries to reach out to all ages in our community and as some of you may know that is not an easy thing to do. You have to try and fill the void the best way you can and try to reach a happy medium with most of those who are interested in participating.

I know some of you live near the "gay meccas" of the U.S., but I would be interested in hearing what options you all have in regards to really participating in your lesbian community.

Lesbian sightings!

Last night was the HRC / Women Out Front sponsored L-Word premiere here in Cincinnati. Hundreds of women attended. That's not something I get to say often about local events outside of Pride, so let me bask in the moment.


Living in the mid-west/mid-atlantic/upper south -- we hibernate November - March. So the fun thing about such events is the opportunity for people watching and occasionally running into one or more women I haven't seen, in some cases, for years. Seeing who's there with someone new. Or who's there without the someone new you saw them with at the volleyball tourney last summer, U-Haul hitched to the back of their new jointly-purchased SUV.


This is a relatively small community and I've said more than once it would be so cool to take over a wall at a bar and do a local version of Alice's chart. I know you can link up on the Web at ourchart.com... but can you imagine the fun of someone just taking out a magic marker and starting to draw?


Sure, there'd be some degree of drama as possibly unknown connections were posted. But we're fairly non-violent in these parts. And yes, there may be a few folks who thought they were hubs whose... orbit isn't quite as complete as they might have thought.


Chart-planning aside, the season 5 premiere solidified at least two opinions shared by a majority of the Cincinnati crowd: We find Tasha and Alice hooking up worthy of at least a semi-outbreak of applause, the only one of the evening. And Jenny's an annoying bitch. Why couldn't she stay in the raft?

And Today's Pre-L-Word Entertainment...New Hampshire.

I'm back into the work/weekend groove and have already successfully slotted CNN's Ballot Bowl '08 coverage and the gym in. I even got the channel changed on one of the gym tvs from Fox to CNN!

Tomorrow, we'll join a few hundred other family members for an HRC/Women Out Front L-Word early premiere party. Tina. Shane. Alice. Girl drama. Not sure there's a need to say much more on that front.

Add in the black bean soup simmering on the stove and it's shaping up as a pretty good start to '08.

I've done a lot of candidate-related surfing since Thursday's caucus. Read many blogs, watched Youtube more than I probably ever have before. I gotta admit. I'm catching something. And it's kind of exciting. Check it out.

Oh, and just so you know, we're calling the scary guy from Arkansas 'Huckleberry' from now on...