. . . at Harry’s Bar? It was me. Well, sort of . . . My husband and I were staying in Venice in a swanky hotel, with a staff more than willing to satisfy our every whim. Actually, I was pretty whimless, except for one thing: I wanted to go to the famous Harry’s Bar — and I wanted a good table. If you were banished to the back room, you might as well skip...

  Can WHAT do WHAT? WHAT COULD  BE WRONG WITH CHILDREN’S BOOKS? Am I saying that Pat The Bunny (no relation) can warp young minds, or that the Little Engine that Could shouldn’t have? Well, I’ve just been to a play, The Misanthrope, that led me to think that.FYI: According to my trusty dictionary on my trusty I-Mac, a misanthrope is: a person...

Think of this post as a Chinese takeout dinner. Nights when you don’t feel like cooking but have to put something on the table, you whip out the trusty menu from Empire Divine Garden and order stuff like spare ribs, wonton soup, sesame noodles, egg rolls, steamed dumplings, General Tso’s Chicken. And days when a blogger feels a tad brain dead and writing...

I tried not to touch The Anthony Weiner Story. I really didn’t want to go there. But it was too hard to resist. What’s a blogger to do? There are three double entendres in the opening paragraph, and I wasn’t even trying. Ho, Boy, Has This Guy Weiner Got Problems Not even Weiner’s friend, the brilliant Jon Stewart, could keep his hands off....

Useless things you learned in school: How to dissect a frog. The date of the Magna Carta. Trigonometry. Quick! What IS trigonometry? 40% of people in a recent poll thought that 80% of what you learn in school is useless.Or was it that 80% thought 40% was useless. Whatever. True, most of the stuff they crammed into your dear little head had no value whatsoever beyond...

Ever complain about all the useless things they made you study in school? Like how to dissect a frog. Or the date of the Magna Carta. Or trigonometry. Quick! What IS trigonometry? 40% of people in a recent poll thought that 80% of what you learn in school is useless.Or was it that 80% thought 40% was useless. Whatever. It’ strue that some of the stuff they...

  Actual Sent Email:Sorry I didn’t answer your call, but I was out getting drunk with Diana.We also did some shopping. Reply:Next time, can I come? We can skip the shopping part. See? I told the truth instead of making up some lame excuse — and it worked. Think of how this could uncomplicate your life.Or complicate it beyond repair. Excuses You Might Consider....

Or: Where Is A Bookie When You Need One? All bets were off. My horse, the endearingly named Uncle Mo, was scratched the day before the Kentucky Derby, leaving me scratching my head and hedging my bets. I settled on Archarcharch, the horse so nice they named him thrice, and Pants on Fire because the jockey could have become the first woman to win the Derby. Alas,...