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Swimming in Quicksand
A Daily Journal of Survival
By Carol Joynt

July 07 - Aug 07

Photos at Photos Central
Contact carol@nathansgeorgetown.com

FRIDAY, AUGUST 31 ... As luck would have it, there's just enough time tonight to make a small diary entry. The drive north to Hogwarts was easy - astonishingly so. Smooth going the entire way. The remainder of the day was given to moving-in chores, as predicted, and too much time in the realm of what passes for shopping in mainstrem America: the mall. It's a concept that's not evolved. If anything, it has fallen into a rut of medocrity that has to be beyond what the mall developers imagined. Listless, vapid, sterile, unrelenting expanses of space that offer no compelling reason to do much more than wander bewildered. Even a shopper on a mission - like me - is given no inspiration by the drab, dreary, downmarket environment. One's only wish is to get the chore done and get back in the car. That's probably why the mall stores are eager to bring their brand of beige to village boulevards like our own M and Wisconsin in Georgetown.

Possibly more depressing than the mall itself were the stores. Take, for example, Bed, Bath and Beyond. Yee gads, what a bloated retail operation. (Think of all the ma ad pa shops that died for this beast.) Sure, it's got some known brands and a few necessary items, but most of it is just stuff. So very, very much stuff. Where's the pleasure? Where's the fun? It's one rack of made in China junk after another. We get seduced by enormity of it and the rock bottom prices, but consider what we're buying. I'm suspicious of a surge protector that's $19.99, or a lamp that's $9.99, especially if made in China. Can't America make these things better? For shopping to work does it have to be about cheap? Throwaway? I'd rather spend a few dollars more for something of quality that lasts. Maybe I'd have to buy less stuff, but okay. That's fine. Quality over quantity works for me. Do I want my son to sleep on bed linens made and dyed in China? Rely on sketchy electronics made in China? Use other products made in China, and made of God knows what? In a word, no.

Think about it: would you want to fly in an airplane made in China? Ok. Apply that answer to everything else.

I know there is quality in China. I know there are items made with artistry and craftsmanship, but much of the merchandise made in China for the American market does not come from the hands of artists or craftsmen.

Once out of the mall, I was better. My good mood returned. Back on campus there was promise in the ancient brick buildings, the sprawling trees that have seen countless generations pass beneath their boughs. Some might call Hogwarts old and traditional, and my point of view sentimental - the opposite of what we're doing at the malls - but today to me it was reassuring. There's nothing wrong with new, only make it also real.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 30 ... Several weeks back I did a small favor for our cool neighbors JEFF and ELIZABETH POWELL. They, dear hearts that they are, thanked me with a gift of a massage at the Four Seasons. I took advantage of it this week because A) the city is empty and serene, and B) a fast and massage go well together. The therapist who worked on me is DAVID SENDZUL. He told me he reads the blog and looks at the pics we take on the road trips and is a photographer himself. Moreover, he recently was in South Africa and got very up close and personal with the region's natural inhabitants: lions, tigers, zebras, rhinos, water buffalo. You name it, he saw it and phographed it. You can look at his photos at this link: DAVID'S PICS. I've put the one of an owl up as a photo of the day, but do check out the lions and tigers, etc. While you're at it, book a massage with David at 202.342.0444. You will thank me.

How many people think LARRY CRAIG will resign over Labor Day weekend? That's a great off-the-radar time to do that sort of thing. Or, maybe he won't. Maybe he likes going toe to toe with his Capitol Hill republican colleagues. If he sticks it out, the ensuing struggle will feed the media a good story for the return of Congress. I'm actually sort of already bored with it, but that's because I'm trying to keep the world at bay these hours before Labor Day.

I'm up at 5ish in the morning and hopefully on the road at 6 to do the long drive north to Hogwarts. This is moving-in weekend, when my son will relocate from the dorm where he's been for pre-season football and into his permanent sophomore year residence. Parents are needed, of course, to do heavy lifting, hang up clothes, make the bed, etc., while the boys continue to practice football. Practice runs till practically 9 o'clock at night, which may dash any chance of dinner together. There's some good food up in that area and I actually will be back to eating real food.

Whether I update the blog from there will depend on a project under way to convert "Swimming in Quicksand" into an RSS file. If you don't know what that is, I can't explain. I'm being taught how to do it but I don't understand it, except our web designer, TERI MURPHY, tells me it will jack up the readership substantially. Okay. I'm game. She tutored me much of the morning, and over the weekend she will do some things that may make the site unavailable to me. I don't know for sure. I'm going with the flow on this.

So many pundits pondering the republican pile up on LARRY CRAIG. It's the GOP eating the GOP. And they wonder: why? Of course the republicans want this episode over, and over fast. It's so simple. They see HILLARY CLINTON looming ever larger, a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon that's grown to five times its size and blocked the sun. She says it herself: she's an unstoppable force, a snowball tumbling downhill, a human hurricane Katrina coming in fast, and the GOP has become so many weak levees.

We will be doing some site work this morning and not updating until later today. But let me note again: the HOWARD FINEMAN Q&A has been moved to Wednesday, Oct. 10.

Oh, and will someone please put IMUS back on MSNBC, and on the radio. We're needy for some smart, biting, contrarian morning blather. Something that's not vanilla, downmarket and cloyingly PC. Yes, we have HOWARD STERN, but I have to get in my car to listen to Howard. I'm not a morning TV person. TV in the morning is like taking a drink in the morning. Spare me. However, I did check out Imus back in the day. Today I checked out his replacement - JOE ??? As AMY WINEHOUSE would say, no, no, no.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 26 ... A couple of things. One personal, the other more public. First of all, my son is on the train back to Hogwarts. We got to Union Station and were startled to see lines of people that snaked hither and yon. Crowds on a Sunday in late August? Maybe next Sunday, but today? Turned out their entire system was down. The computer screens were dark. The self-service kiosks were dark. If you had an online, pre-paid reservation it was useless unless you printed out the confirmation. They couldn't take cash or credit cards. It was insane. A helpful Amtrak person scooted us to the front of a line, and another helpful Amtrak ticket agent got us sorted out, even though we had only the confirmation number and no printed confirmation. In old fashioned ink pen, he filled out a voucher that would serve as a ticket.

Later, after Spencer lost the voucher and then found it on the floor (yes, a few moments of high drama), another Amtrak person said, "they would have let him on the train, anyway." It seemed to me a reasonable solution to the chaos. After all, who would be there, trying to get on trains, unless they had a ticket to begin with. How many people say, "Hey, Amtrak's down, let's go ride some trains."

All of this served to take our minds off the emotions of the moment, the hugs and good-byes. He was a little anxious but mostly looking forward to school and friends. This is my second year sending my son off to Hogwarts. Last year, once I was alone, I sobbed. This year I drove to "Yes," natural foods store and bought the ingredients for my upcoming dietary fast/detox/green cleanse. The empty nest will surely hit me, though. Probably next week after I go up to help him get moved from the pre-season sports dorm and into his full-time school year dorm. When I say goodbye then, and begin the long drive south, I'll be sentimental as hell. So I say to all you parents who share the empty nest with a spouse, be grateful. It's a much less emptier nest that way. This is when I especially miss my other goose.

Got home and went walkabout to explore the real estate "open house" scene. It's early yet, but there were a few. You know how it is when you go in, you have to introduce yourself to the agent. In each of the houses, after I said my name, either the agent or a fellow Looky Lou in the room gushed, "Oh, Nathans. I love Nathans. How much longer do you have? Can anything be done?" Then they would share a story or two about dinner last week, or last year, or 20 years ago, or this event or that moment. In other words, their Nathans memories. This is when my role is clear to me. I am not only the caretaker of what my husband created, but also the protector of a place where people have made an emotional investment. Nathans is mine only in a technical sense. Emotionally, it belongs to the people of the Washington area. They want Nathans, not a Verizon store, at the corner of Wisconsin and M. If I'd won the lottery last night, my first act would have been to pay the lease for 100 years into the future and then give the business to Georgetown.

But, guess what? I didn't win the lottery last night. Some lucky ducky in Indiana today is $314,300,000.00 richer ... before taxes.

btw, the back to school send off meal was banana pancakes. This time I added the seeds of a vanilla bean to the egg/milk/butter mixture before folding into the flour/baking powder/salt base, and then added the mushed bananas. Wow. The vanilla bean seeds made a wonderful difference.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 24 ... There's a small change in the Q&A schedule for October. HOWARD FINEMAN, bless his heart, agreed to move to Wednesday, October 10 from Thursday, October 11. So, please note this: Howard will appear on Wednesday October 10. I will keep reminding, especially since we already have so many reservations for his lunch. I needed the change due to a small conflict and I'm grateful he was so quick to agree. His will be a smart and interesting lunch, but also it will be fun.

This evening we hit the terrific Quarter Deck in Arlington for a crab feast, and wow what great crabs they were. Chunky, full of meat, and just plain yummy. The QD has been around forever, tucked back on a side street somewhere adjacent to Fort Myers. I know how to get there but would be hard pressed to give useful directions. Go through Rossyln, turn right, turn left, go straight, turn left at the 7/11 and there you are. It's got indoor and outdoor seating, pitchers of beer, a funky and authentic decor, a small lively bar. It's off the radar and that's good, because it's always packed. My son wanted a big crab feast before heading back north and he got his wish.

I realized today that in addition to the Q&A Cafe and trying to save Nathans, I'm working on two benefits and a rock concert. One of the benefits is for the French Embassy. It's called C'est Chic and is a festival of French films, all of them open to the public. That's in October. The rock concert is a global TV affair that will be held in Accra, Ghana, next March to raise funds for HIV/AIDS relief in Africa. The other benefit is in late May and celebrates the 50th anniversary of The Washington Hospital Center. Each project is interesting, slightly time-consuming, and certainly worthwhile. They also keep my mind off the Nathans project, which gets me in knots. It's still looking like the lead contender to take Nathans space is a cell phone store, possibly Verizon or one of their competitors. I have such negative feelings about cell phone companies that it's difficult to be objective on this. I must try. Right?

btw, I get inquiries about the hand made half hulls that used to adorn the walls in Nathans front room, also known as "the bar." We're thinking of selling the lot, about 21-22 half hulls in very good to excellent condition. If you know anyone who has a yacht club, restaurant or den to decorate, please advise them to call JON MOSS at Nathans. We've contacted their craftsmen and have the current prices, but do want to sell them as a lot.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 23 ... Today was a landmark day. Most of it was devoted to packing for my son's Sunday return to Hogwarts. This involves going through lots of clothing to figure out what still fits, as well as sorting through a lot of other stuff. Along the way we got into the closet where I store all of his father's suits and sport jackets. I saved them for a couple of reasons. One, because I wanted my darling boy to one day see the attention to detail his father put into his attire. Second, they are as precious as any couture outfit. Each item was custom tailored, either in Georgetown by a fellow named IGNACY KUNIN, or in London at Huntsman of Savile Row, or in New York at the atelier of ALAN FLUSSER. There are a few vintage RALPH LAUREN items, too, like a white double breasted summer dinner jacket. Howard always had the Lauren people put button holes in the sleeves for him because the off the rack jackets didn't come with real button holes. The buttons were just sewed on top of some button hole-looking stitches. He'd also have the buttons replaced with buttons he hand pick at a New York button store.

The Kunin sport jackets are remarkable, in elaborate tweeds and each lined with Hermes scarves, and the button holes are real. The Huntsman suits, which he wore most often on weekends, are in window pane, Prince of Wales check, and nail head patterns. Flusser made the pinstripe suits, and chalk stripe suits, and a number of linen sport jackets for summer. There are three blazers from Huntsman: a double breasted and single breasted wool with red lining, and a light weight single breasted with a blue nautical theme Hermes lining. Fussy? Not on Howard, whose pleasure in life was to have and hold the most beautiful things.

When Howard died I called the Flusser people and asked them to recommend a place where I could safely store the suits. They recommended a place called Parkway. I sent everything - about 35 suits and jackets - off to them in 1997, but had them all shipped back home several years later when Parkway called to say one of the boxes became infested with moths, and that the 5-6 suits inside were ruined, but that it was not their fault. It was the fault, they said, of the facility to which they shipped the suits. Since Parkway never consulted me about "outsourcing" my precious storage, I had the whole lot returned to our home, waiting for the day when Spen would be able to try them on. Today was that day.

Can you imagine the thrill to see my boy in his father's suits, and how handsome he looked! Just like his father. Most fit okay. Some were a little large. One of them, a Kunin favorite from when we were first dating, fit him like a glove. But he's not going to wear the suits. Teenage boys don't wear suits. They wear blazers and sport jackets, and so Spen will take one of the blazers and one of the tweed jackets to Hogwarts with him. Warms a mother's heart, I'll tell you that.

It also took my mind off the fact he will be back at school in two days, a high school sophomore. I'll be happy for him but will miss him terribly.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22 ... I give my brother, ROBERT ROSS, last word on the MICHAEL VICK case through a column he sent me written by JEMELE HILL. I only wish I'd read it before blabbing on NewsChannel 8 yesterday. Not that I would have been piled on any less, but I would have had the wisdom of Jemele's thoughts to bolster my argument.

Curiously, I was back on TV today. This time a national program on the Assisted Living Network. The show is called Daily Cafe and stars MARY ALICE WILLIAMS and FELICIA TAYLOR. The two of them had me as a guest to talk about: the O.J. SIMPSON book, NASA and whether public schools are safe. Yes, you could get whiplash changing subjects, and we did change subjects rather fast. I love live TV but, man, you've really got to jump in, interupt, and be borderline rude simply to get a word in. As for the issues debated: I said O.J.'s book should be released so he can continue to hang himself and so the Goldman family can get some money; regarding NASA, I pointed out the space program had not been on my radar until an astronaut drove half cross country in a diaper to beat up the girlfriend of her ex-lover; and school safety, well, brought up my old school rant about uniforms, discipline and a longer school day. And then it was "thank you, M'am," and I was excused from the set.

Before the show went on the air, Mary Alice popped into the green room to have a quick chat. "Before this, I was KATIE COURIC's writer on the CBS Evening News," she said. I knew that. It was like being members of the same club, since I was the first woman full time writer of The CBS Evening News for Cronkite way back when.(JOAN SNYDER filled in sometimes part-time before my arrival.) She knew that. I asked her if it had been sort of a nightmare experience given the turmoil of Katie's first year, but Mary Alice said "No. Katie was easy. It was everyone else. CBS News is such a grim place."

She's right about that. Even in the best of times, CBS News is like the Marines. I thought that was simply the nature of network news, until I got to NBC News and found everyone there to be so nice. Seriously nice. ABC News is somewhere in between CBS grim and NBC cheery.

You can watch Daily Cafe at 2 pm on Comcast Channel 8 and Direct TV channel 384.

The TV gig was about the most static part of my day. Everything else, from 6:30 a.m. on, was zip her, zip there, zoom here, zoom there. A family dentist appointment first, a family meeting with a lacrosse coach out in Virginia, Daily Cafe, followed by a meeting for the Africa Life Aid concert with MICHAEL FARRELL and former Ghana ambassador KOBY KOOMSON at The Four Seasons, and then True Value for lightbulbs for Nathans, and then groceries, and then to buy boxes to begin packing clothes for Hogwarts, and then lovely dinner at Makoto. When we arrived they did not like what Spencer was wearing, so we had to drive home, have him change, and then drive back. Still, excellent dinner.

Here's something that really should be my lead: Baked & Wired, the amazingly good coffee and pastry shop on Thomas Jefferson just below the canal, will now be open on weekends. This is very good and important news for Georgetown.

EARLIER... The debate about the presidential candidates' spouses is interesting. Just what is the contemporary role of the political spouse? (Don't think we won't ask this of CONNIE SCHULTZ on October 4.) MICHELE OBAMA hit a big soft spot in HILLARY CLINTON, saying if she can't manage her own house (and by that we know she means her husband) how can she manage the White House? ELIZABETH EDWARDS has hit some Hillary soft spots, too, in particular saying she's not been a strong supporter of women's issues. Hillary can't attack back because that would make her one of the "girls" at a time when she only wants to be one of the boys. But where's Bill? Many believe Hillary's entire candidacy rests on him, but what's with the silent gig? Does he think he's superior to the other spouses?

Not fair, Bill. America wants to hear you out on the hustings, making speeches at teas and being a good campaign spouse. After all, you and the Mrs created the modern co-presidency. Why not have a debate between Bill, Michele and Elizabeth? That's a debate I'd watch.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 21 ... I did the appearance on NewsChannel 8 to talk about the MICHAEL VICK case, but it was probably a mistake. Not one caller agreed with my position that he should do time and not be let back into the NFL. Arguments against his incarcertion ranged from "people kill people in Iraq every day and they don't lose their livelihood," to "he should be briefly suspended" and get back on the football field. I do not understand this thinking. His crime was heinous, both the act itself and the lying. What he did is a federal crime. Most of the callers were only slightly disturbed that he trained innocent animals to fight and kill each other. There was a "they're just dogs," attitude. Very disturbing. And here I thought mine was the majority point of view.

EARLIER... I'm admittedly an unlikely voice in this matter, but I will be on NewsChannel 8, BRUCE DEPUYT's show, at 3:45-ish today to debate dog fighting the the MICHAEL VICK case.

The media suggest HILLARY CLINTON is a tool for the war. The AP quotes her as saying the so-called "surge" has been successful. If she's not prepared to call for a total withdrawal from Iraq right now the notion of her being president leaves me cold. It scares me, too. Will she be a hawk to show the guys she has balls? To win the Budweiser and Dodge Ram vote? It's interesting to watch, but I fear she will totally tank for the war and if elected president she'll be to Iraq what LBJ was to Vietnam.

A TV show asked if I might want to come on to talk about MICHAEL VICK, the confessed dog killer. I don't think so, unless they can handle my opionion. It's basically this: I am in no way sympathetic to Vick and don't want to be in a debate with anyone who is. I'm unequivocal about Vick. He's in the same league with pedophiles or anyone else who takes advantage of the innocent. Lock 'em up and throw away the key. We've become a country where when sports stars get "banned for life" it becomes "banned for one season." I think they should be judged even more harshly than others because they influence so many young minds. No second chance. No appeal. Perhaps that's extreme, but it's how I feel.

LEONA HELMSLEY did, in the end, go gently into the night. I met her a few times in my professional attempt to bag an interview with her for LARRY KING. We had a lunch and a memorable dinner. She had an abrasive personality but I sort of liked her. She had some humor and some self-awareness, especially about her public image. She knew she gave away a lot of money to charity, she knew she got changed by the tax trial and prison, but she also knew that no matter what she did in the positive column, and even if Larry tossed her softballs, "everyone else will still jab knives into me." It was a little bit of a pity party, but she consoled herself with wealth and dogs. In addition to our one-on-one dinner at a swanky Upper East Side French landmark, there was also a lunch at one of her hotels with Larry and his wife, SHAWN KING. Very interesting to watch Larry and Leona going at it over iced tea and steamed chicken. It would have been a great show on the air but, alas, I couldn't bag her. She was smart enough to know it wouldn't work.

MONDAY, AUGUST 20 ... Saturday morning at 9 we got in the car and headed out Route 66 to Route 29 South. Two hours and change later we were in Thomas Jefferson's Charlottesville, Va. It was my first time there in possibly 25-30 years. In middle school my best friend's grandparents lived in nearby Cismont, and we'd visit, two 14 year old girls on the loose, until the time we and two older (16 yrs old) boys hijacked golf carts at nearby Keswick Country Club and drove them all over the course at midnight under a fool moon. Awesome fun until we got caught, returned to her grandparents and then sent home the next day.

I have some history with the University, too, having partied as an older teenager at some of the frat houses on weekend dates, though my date usually ended up commode-hugging drunk and useless as a rational escort. Later, in my early 20s, my then boyfriend owned apartments and other buildings adjacent to the campus and we were in and out of Charlottesville a lot when I visited from New York. That was a more grown-up experience, and I got to know the restaurants, and some of the lovely homes and estates, and historic sites.

Spencer and I walked the older parts of the campus, which are lovely in their red brick and white trim. Columns, columns everywhere, and locusts, reminded us we were in the south. We went to Keswick for lunch. It's now a hotel, but the lovely setting is the same and the golf course makes for a

SUNDAY, AUGUST 19 ... We're out of town until tomorrow, and may soon lose internet access. Can you imagine? Sometimes I think all I would need for my ideal home is a shack, a pool, satellite TV and radio, a parking space and wireless internet. The other day, when the power went out, JIM MARSHALL, the man who does all things eletrical for me, came over to see if there was anything he could do. When we realized it was entirely a Pepco problem, he said, "still, Carol, I'll always come to your rescue, because I know you need your access." I wish I had a plumber like that.

Do yourself a favor. Buy "Richistan," by ROBERT FRANK. It's my #1 book of the summer. He's the wealth columnist for The Wall Street Journal. If we are, as the New York Times claims, in a new "Gilded Age," Robert's book takes you inside and provides some social analysis. We are in an era of unimaginable wealth, and it comes from many sources, is in the hands of a range of people, and the impact trickles down to all of us in ways both good and bad. Next I read CONNIE SCHULTZ's book, "...And His Lovely Wife." Connie is the wife of Ohio democratic senator SHERROD BROWN, who I think must be played by CLIVE OWEN in the movie. Connie is a columnist for The Cleveland Plain Dealer, won a Pulitzer for her work, but still found herself a "wife of" on the campaign trail. This book is her memoir of that experience. Both Robert and Connie are booked for Q&A Cafe appearances, and you should make reservations to be there. Please.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 18 ... I'm thinking of vulnerable and fragile little Jamaica this evening, caught as it is in the crosshairs of Hurricane Dean. I've never been to Jamaica, but I lived for almost a year on and off Antigua in the West Indies and some of the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, and the infrastructure is pretty much the same. Most houses are built out of not much more than wood or stucco or both. Some are cinderblocks. Many of the roads are dirt and turn quickly to mud in heavy rain. Bridges range from okay to worse. The media tend to overuse words, but today the many mentions of "devastating" are probably appropriate when used to describe the potential impact of 150 mph winds on Jamaica. It will be a long terrible night in that part of the world.

But what a gorgeous day it was here. Oh, my. Summer in Washington at its best. We wanted to eat outside and for the first time tried Indigo Landing off the G.W. Parkway. It's right on the water with views toward National airport and the city from the south. It's a great place to watch small sailboats and large jets. We put our name on a wait list because they don't take reservations for the outdoor tables, which is silly but so be it. We used the time to walk around and look at boats. Our table on the deck was worth the 30 minute wait. The food, with its low country theme, was okay. The lettuces in the salad would have been fine had they not been drenched in dressing. My cheese and pickle "sliders" read well on the menu - in fact, temptingly clever - but were no more than very greasy silver dollar sized grilled cheese sandwiches. The hush puppies were were okay if a little tame. The beaten biscuits were just what a good southern grandma would make. The rockfish was good. The service was slow and inattentive, especially after our entrees were served, which helps to explain why the wait is so long for outdoor tables.

Before departing I looked around the indoor dining room. Why oh why do restaurants persist in having no table cloths? Especially restaurants with lots of glass and wood? I thought the dining room had great potential as a charming and cozy room - if it had table cloths - and if they arranged the tables in a more intimate and convivial way. They have some romantic corner banquets but instead of having romantic round tables, where a couple could sit and snuggle, they have routine deuces. It's a waste of space and of romantic opportunity. Overall, Indigo Landing felt like a restaurant run by the federal government. Would I go back for lunch? Yes. Would I try it for dinner? Hmmm. Maybe.

This evening we dropped into a place that gets it right every time. Kaz Sushi Bistro at 19th and I Streets. I love this place. What a great meal in every way.

Now, the Redskins, though I'll no doubt be flipping over the Weather Channel a lot.

EARLIER... Caught "Superbad," last evening, and while it was very funny, because JUDD APATOW is very funny, I think to be fully savored it helps to have a penis. It definitely plays to those on the inside of understanding and owning male equipment. The males in the audience were beside themselves with glee, while the women laughed a lot, though sometimes in amused shock and horror. I think I prefer "Knocked Up," because it has a tiny bit of the female brain in the mix. Apatow also directed "The 40 Year Old Virgin," which is a comedy classic, in my opinion.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 17 ... It's so peculiar. I'm referring to the media reaction to NICOLE RICHIE having lunch at Nathans. I understand it, but it's nutty. For the staff it was a little excitement on a Friday afternoon. What amazed them the most was when they got text messages from friends on the Hill and elsewhere while Nicole and boyfriend JOEL MADDEN were still having their lunch at table #1. This was before I posted it on the website. It's impressive that the word got out so fast. It had to come from the few people sitting at the bar. I'm surprised no one swung around to take a phone photo. Maybe they did. Maybe it will pop up later. But no one was behaving badly. It was the opposite of the kinds of moments that blaze on TMZ and PerezHilton, etc. If you didn't know who they were you would think it was some very alternative guys having lunch with a pretty girl.

Oh, well. It's always good for Nathans to get a little jolt. As I often say, everybody comes through Nathans front door sooner or later.

Trivia: When Nicole and PARIS HILTON did their visit to a DC gypsy fortune teller for "Simple Life" a couple of years ago, it was the gypsy across the street, who happens to be the sister of the gypsy who lives upstairs at Nathans.

See. I remember all the important stuff.

EARLIER... So, here's the scene: the middle of a routine lazy Friday afternoon in August with about 10 people in the bar and the dining room empty after lunch and who should walk in the door but NICOLE RICHIE, her boyfriend JOEL MADDEN and his band mates from Good Charlotte. This is not routine. Not in Washington, DC. But there they were, settled in at table #1, no photographers anywhere in sight, having Old Dominion Root Beer, iced tea and bar food. Nicole ordered a prosciutto panini, and the guys ordered burgers. She looked cute and healthy. The guys looked goth and handsome - all in black, hardware and tats.

I know, you will ask: why no pictures? Ha. It's simple. JON MOSS called to tell me Nicole was there. I grabbed my camera, jumped in the car, and headed to Wisconsin and M, parked, dropped coins in the meter, ran across crowded M Street, in the door and straight to their table with that intent. I introduced myself, asked if one pic would be okay, and a smiling Nicole said, "Believe it or not, I really don't want my picture taken." Fine with me. I said it was just for my website, but she's no dummy. Seriously. They were very nice. One of the guys, Joel I think, said, "We like Nathans. We like coming here. We appreciate it," when I slung my camera back on my shoulder and wished them well.

Back home now, doing website maintenance with AL LONG, Georgetown's own "MAC Man." Check it out, faithful readers. You can now access youtube clips right here on the front page. More to come. Click once and watch a little TINA BROWN.

EARLIER... It's been almost two weeks since I've had a drink of alcohol. This isn't some alki testimonial where I've gone on the wagon or sworn off spirits. Hardly. I like a good cocktail, and I certainly like a good glass of wine. But it occurred to me somewhere along the way that I needed to re-calibrate my drinking habits. I'm not a heavy drinker, but I found I was a frequent drinker. It'd go like this: One night meet up with friends and have a drink. Next night have someone over and have a drink. Another night go to a party and have a drink. A drink here, a drink there, and soon there were drinks and drinks everywhere. Later I would say to myself, "why did I have that drink?" And the answer too often was, "cause it was there."

My A.O. (alcoholus operandi) was 2 drinks as a norm and 3 in extreme, breaking down as a cocktail before dinner (usually of the vodka family) and a glass of wine with dinner, or 2 with a special dinner. But, in certain weeks, for one reason or another, this could be almost every night!

So, I decided to just stop. My first goal was to see if I felt like I was missing anything by not having a drink. So far, no, but then I have not been in any social situations like a dinner party where the hosts serve wine and there is a sense one should politely indulge. I have been out to dinner in good restaurants, and that was fine. Initially a little odd, but overall no big deal. The biggest thing was that the meals sped by super fast without alcohol in the mix. In another situation, a friend invited me over for drinks one late afternoon and when cocktails were offered I said, "no, thanks," and the conversation moved on. It was not difficult. I wonder if it would be just as easy in a more convivial "night out" situation, like at a bistro. I hope so.

Have I noticed any difference in myself? Yes. My head feels clearer, my overall physical well-being feels crisper (minus the bruises from the fall, though they have almost fully healed). Waking up in the morning is different in that I feel alert more quickly. Plus I sleep better. These are worthy dividends.

Will I drink again? Yes. In fact, I'll be at a dinner Sunday night where I plan to enjoy some excellent wine. That's a good reason to have a drink. What's a lousy reason - for me- is to have a drink just because it's been offered. That's what I want to amend.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 16 ... For the moment, DAN RATHER is sold out for September 26. There is a waiting list and, take heart, people do come off the waiting list.

EARLIER... Happily, reservations are rolling in for the upcoming Q&A Cafe season. If you are on the mailing list - and, of course, you should be - you received an email yesterday giving names and dates through October. A lot of people asked about the VALERIE PLAME interview. We won't take reservations for that lunch until early October, probably. Don't fret. We have 65 seats. There should be room for everyone.

JON MOSS is taking all reservations at 202.338.2000. He is available at that number between 10 and 5 on weekdays. Please make your reservations through Jon. I know some of you like to email, and I know that is easier, but we found last year and the year before that there was a lot of confusion on big game days from people who thought they had reservations but whose names were not on Jon's master list. Maybe the reservation was given to someone else and didn't make it to Jon's desk. Maybe the email slipped through the cracks. Therefore we decided to try a more concentrated system of having all reservations be made with Jon. The plus side is this virtually guarantees your reservation.

Also this year, we ask - please - if you think you cannot make it to a lunch, cancel your reservation as soon as possible. It's likely there will be someone on the wait list eager to get your spot.

Update from yesterday's tumble down the stairs: my banged up ankle, shoulder, elbow and knees are puffed up and painful, but functional. Don't think I could run a marathon right now, though.

We had an excellent dinner last night. Lobster rolls, tomato and mache salad, and mixed berry shortcake. Wagshall's steamed the lobsters for us. We got the tomatoes and berries at the Georgetown farmer's market. This was very simple menu and oh so seasonally good. To wash it down we made fresh limeade.

"Madmen" is on AMC tonight at 10. If you have not caught this show yet, tonight is your chance. It's just wonderful. And get your Fandango tickets now for tomorrow's opening of "Superbad." The expectation is it will be the super best movie of the summer. There's a midnight show somewhere out there in the 'burbs, which means it's not on my radar but may be on yours.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15 ... Yes, I know, I made a mistake on DAN RATHER when I sent out the email today announcing reservations are open for the new Q&A season. The date is correct, September 26th, but it is Wednesday and not Thursday. Duly noted. I have no proofreader. Something ALWAYS gets by me.

EARLIER... We have a little garden ornament ceramic cat that sits by the front stairs. It's head is the size of a tennis ball. The head got broken but I did nothing about it, only resting it on the cat's neck for future day when I'd get around to whipping out the crazy glue. I should have followed my oft given advice about don't put off till later what you can do right now. This morning the cat head rolled off the neck, landed on the stairs, where I placed my foot on it, lost my balance, and tumbled down ... bump, bump, bump, bang, twisting, scraping and bruising various parts. When this sort of thing happens, and fortunately not often, I mark it up as a bone density test. If nothing breaks then it's a good sign. But what a way to start the day. Before the pain set in I worked out anyway, because if I were to let pain stop my routine I would not ever get out of bed.

Nonetheless, now my left foot and right knee are screaming at me.

btw, we will begin taking reservations this week for the DAN RATHER Q&A. I will send out an email to the list first of all. If you want to be on the list, please email carol@nathansgeorgetown.com.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 14 ... In bed watching "Seinfeld" on NY channel 5, because that's the best way to end a day in which the pipes burst in Nathans dining room ceiling, water rained down on the teak floor during most of the night, and though JON MOSS ultimately got the pipe repaired the teak floor warped, buckled and cracked. The floor is quite a mess, and this is sad because it was installed in 1982. We've got it covered with mats at the moment and tomorrow Universal Floorcoverings will come in to assess the damage and give us a repair plan. Just what a restaurant needs in the middle of August when there's barely a vapor of $$$$ in the cash registers.

Earlier we went to see "No Reservations," which was not good. I wonder if it was meant to be that maudlin, disconnected, and low voltage. CATHERINE ZETA-JONES came across as miserable. Maybe it was acting but was the character meant to be that morose and out of it? It could have been salvaged by being about food in a fun way, but it was not. At this point, I'm just looking forward to "Superbad." Laughs. Give me laughs. No maudlin, please.

MONDAY, AUGUST 13 ... News of his resignation was the big bang today, but I don't care about KARL ROVE at all. I care about the damage he's done to the U.S. government, and I wish he'd resigned before he started the job, but he's a case of good riddance and don't let the door hit you on the way out. Loved all the jokes, though, about Bush losing his brain, his brain resigning and so forth.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 12 ... Today I had a reunion over lunch with a friend from more than 30 years ago. What a treat. Her name is MAMIE SCHROTH, and we met on the Cronkite show all those years ago at CBS News in New York. We became friends rather fast because we were close in age and because she was from Virginia near where my family lived. Also, we were both auxiliary police, though she was way better at it than I was.

Out of the blue this past week I heard from Mamie, who was in town, staying with friends and visiting family. Our reunion happened over a more than two hour lunch at the always good Bistro Bis on Capitol Hill. My son joined us, and I'm glad because Mamie had an interesting story to tell about her life since The CBS Evening News. She left the show in 1976, a year after me, and moved to Normandy, France. "I wanted to learn French and so I moved to an area where there were not a lot of Americans." She learned the language and also found a calling - the pursuit, celebration and marketing of contemporary art. From Normandy she moved to Rome, where for many years she has run an art gallery that specializes in contemporary art. It's a non profit operation, and sounds very grass roots, but her quest for artists and their art takes her to Africa, the Mideast, China and other parts of the world. She lives with her man, an actor, in the gallery building, which was the home of an artist who left her his estate when he died.

There has to be some kind of CBS karma going on these past few weeks. There was that email from ROGER MUDD (that I still need to write about here). Sailing with WALTER CRONKITE off Martha's Vineyard week before last. Hearing form Mamie, and also hearing this past week from RICHARD MUTSCHLER, who was the director of the Cronkite show and who, coincidentally, lives in Rome part of the year, and in New Jersey the other part. In the past year I've also email corresponded with SANDY POLSTER, who wrote the show along with CHARLIE WEST and me.

We're all getting on now, but Mamie looked terrific and sounded exactly the same, with her soft southern accent not muted by years of speaking Italian and French.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 11 ... MIKE ALLEN at The Politico tonight reports this: "The Bush administration is finishing a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq that paints a sobering picture of a mature civil war unlikely to be snuffed out through political progress, according to officials involved in the report’s preparation.

A late draft of the document warns of the possibility of a spectacular attack in conjunction with a crucial mid-September assessment by Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Iraq.

With the Petraeus-Crocker report looming, some administration officials say they fear a coordinated onslaught like the Tet offensive, a surprise country-wide series of attacks that produced a psychological victory for Vietnamese Communists in 1968."

My question: does anybody believe the Bush Administration's NIE reports anymore, if they ever did?

EARLIER... It's unfortunate I didn't take along my camera because today we enjoyed one of the best road trip getaways the Washington area has to offer. It began last night over dinner with my son, who was basically a giant pain in the a** because most of his friends are out of town and he's stuck with me and needed to blame me for that. Still, he wanted to "go somewhere" today but could not come up with where. Much back and forth. I ruled out every place we'd been in the last few months. But what to do that was uncharted by us? Also, my main requirement was this: no highways. I agreed to a road trip as long as we could do it entirely on back roads.

What we did was go to Frederick, Md., an odd little town, but also one that is packed with architecture, history and restaurants. It's also possible to get there solely on gorgeous back roads. We took River Road to Seneca Road to Darnestown Road, rolling along through countryside that reminded me of the cornfields of Iowa. We passed through prime Civil War territory, crisscrossing the Monocacy River, cruising through charming Buckeystown, and brushing many ancient battlefields. We saw few other cars. It took us about 1 hr 40 min to get to the town of Frederick.

First we took a walk, then we searched for food. I had one of the best meals I've eaten in weeks at a little place called Isabella's, where the gazpacho was authentic and the paella amazing. The bread pudding with strawberry compote and whipped cream was a fresh turn on the idea of strawberry shortcake.

The Frederick shopping district has something for every taste: antiques, funky fashion, sex, weird, religious, cult, clever. It's very random. There is history, mostly Civil War, attached to about every fifth building.

After lunch we visited the Monocacy Battlefield Park for a small hike, and then drove down the road to take another hike at the Monocacy Acqueduct. This is a lovely spot where the Monocacy flows into the Potomac. There are good hiking and biking paths, lots of access to the water, and the old acqueduct itself, which was restored most recently in 2005. btw, it is the largest acqueduct on the C&O Canal and was first constructed in 1829.

The drive back was as easy as the drive out. Again, few other cars. The sky was bright blue, puffy clouds, crisp sun and air. We stopped at a few farmers' markets for tomatoes and blackberries, and at the River Falls Seafood Market in Potomac for excellent tuna.

This was an A+ getaway and would be just as terrific on an early autumn day when the leaves are beginning to turn. Most important: stay off the highways, and have lunch at Isabella's in Frederick.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 10 ... What my broker sources tell me is the newest contender to be the next occupant of where Nathans now resides is - The Gap. Apparently they may want to put a men's store in there. I don't know a whole lot else except their reps toured the building yesterday, telling us only that they would have to gut the place down to the footprint. One of them said he actually likes Nathans, comes for brunch, and that it would be "sad" to see it gone. Isn't that sort of like the executioner telling the condemned "I always liked you" seconds before letting the guillotine drop? Seriously, I understand it is possible to love Nathans but also see the potential for it to be replaced by a retail operation. It is the cruel commercial world we inhabit within Georgetown.

We cannot blame the landlords. They have the right to get the biggest $$$$ possible. But from my point of view it is scary and frustrating to have my existence utterly dependent on five people and a lease. Work your ass off to make something a success, only to be put out of business. Not fun.

EARLIER... We've been home less than a week and I'm feeling strong pangs of wanderlust. The choices are limited by my desire to find someplace quiet, secluded and adjacent to water. HaHaHa. I can never get enough of a good thing. Mostly I want a room and a giant gorgeous swimming pool on a par with San Simeon, or the pool at the Hotel du Cap, Eden Roc, in Antibes, or the Biltmore Hotel in Scottsdale, or the Bel Air Hotel, or Malliouhana on Anguilla. I have a long list of beloved swimming pools. Beaches, too. Right now I could take a dose of the beach at Barbuda. Endless white sand, aquamarine water, and a lazy Italian lunch at the K Club.

On the subject of good things, I've been meaning to mention the radio station we listened to regularly while in the Hamptons. It is WEHM-FM. Click on the link and have a listen. They have a great playlist. It's now my background listening while I work at the computer. I wish we had something like it here in DC, but it probably wouldn't matter because when I'm in the car I listen to HOWARD STERN all the time anyway. While I was dubious at the outset, his relocation to Sirius satellite radio was the right thing to do. He's better than ever. Probably the last genuine person on radio. I love Howard. He makes me laugh, but he also cuts through all the B.S. I yearn for IMUS to return to the airwaves, as I've said before. What he did was bad, but every day others do bad things that don't get punished on the same school. I give you the Bush Administration, as an example number one.

Anyway, the rumors are that Imus may go to Sirius. Smart move.

Next week we will send out our first Q&A Cafe email. At least the first since the spring. It will announce that JON MOSS is ready to start taking reservations. This season, all Q&A Cafe reservations will go through Jon. It's simpler that way.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9 ... Our home may have power but the last 24 hours drained me of my power. Got a slight and good recharge this evening at Kaz Sushi Bistro, one of our fave DC restaurants. I didn't know it was "restaurant week," but was pleased with the budget menu. Got quite a satisfying meal of sushi, sashimi, other items plus dessert for $30. The final tab for two, with bottled water, and tax was $75. Up there, but we ate well.

With power and a/c working I look forward to finishing my desk work and then plopping in front of the boob tube for my new favorite show, "Madmen," on AMC. It's so good. It is a snapshot of America just before BETTY FREIDAN. The focus is Madison Avenue "ad men," shaping our culture, or reflecting it, through their sexist, racist, ageist creative filter. The women wear white gloves, type, wait on men, hope for a husband, get a husband, and go quietly insane, while the men don't fare a whole lot better. They are in their last death throes of the all-knowing male hunter-gatherer-breadwinner. There is no fair division of labor; men work and women cook and raise children. Everyone smokes and drinks and smokes and drinks. I don't do it justice. The show is brilliant. Watch it at 10 p.m. We're also counting the days until "Weeds" returns. Another fave.

EARLIER... The power update is this: power partially off for an hour or so and then fully off for another hour or so, but now - at noon - back on. The Pepco people have been very helpful, giving updates on the cause and the repairs. The cause was a transformer that blew. During the wee hours they replaced the transformer, and turned the juice back on at 4:30 a.m. This worked for a while, but then a fuse blew around 9:30, and that caused the later outtage. It was necessary to shut down everything in order to replace the fuse. The assumption is we are back in business, but BOB DOBKIN, the long-time head of communications for Pepco, said he wouldn't necessarily "bet my paycheck on that."

Big storms are barreling toward us from the northwest. Maybe they will bring some relief, if not more power failures.

Save this number for future reference:
(202) 872-3432
It is where you reach an actual human being at Pepco in the event of a power failure. They probably won't like my giving it out, but I'm one of you.

EARLIER... I spoke (wrote) too soon. The power went off again at 9:30 this morning. Just as random as before. Some rooms have it, some don't, but most significant - there's no a/c. Walked round the block to canvass neighbors and most have the same problem, especially along P Street. Plus we have serious road surface work going on, with giant

EARLIER... The power came back on at 4:30 this morning. Not a moment too soon, as the inside temp reached an airless 86 degrees. Even now, at 6:30, the house is not fully cooled down ... but on it's way. I keep the thermostats at between 73 and 75. I love summer, and heat, but nontheless will welcome the break in this heatwave. Note: this is the first time we lost power since Pepco finished the so-called "Georgetown Project," which rebuilt the village's power infrastructure as a response to the exploding manhole covers.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8 ... The interior temps at our house are in the 80s, but there are some bright spots: officials from Pepco are beginning to phone me. And they have updates. It is some 250 of us here in Georgetown who are effected. The fault is centralized in something underground. A truck is on the way. Finally. We may have power back in the early morning. There were apologies on behalf of customer service. The officials couldn't have been nicer. I've called neighbors to give them updates. Now, I will try sleep, and hope for the best. Should be an interesting appearance on "Daily Cafe" tomorrow. Weather.com says the air right now "feels like" 95 degrees.

Decided to be assertive, or just plain pushy. Phoned UP, as they say, and talked to a Pepco official who remembered I'd done the ad for them. She is telling me a different story than customer service. I am not alone. There are another 250 or more of us who have lost half but not all our power but still enough to knock out the a/c. This is what I think. The city decided to cut power by 5% to reduce the load, but not realizing that small cut would cripple the systems rather than simply lowering power use. It tossed many of us into power-deprived chaos. Ten minutes ago I got a phone call from a neighbor who has some light but no a/c. I imagine if I were to knock on doors I would hear the same story from neighbor after neighbor.

EARLIER... Sweltering here. Just talked to Pepco again for the 8th or 9th time. Each time they push back the time when they can get to our power outtage. Now they tell me 1 p.m. tomorrow. They imply I am a low priority because it is just my home and no others in the vicinity. One customer service rep had the nerve to wonder whether my bill was paid. That's the thank you one gets for paying the bill on time each month. He wanted me to know there are others in the region without power and they matter, too. Yes, I know there are others without power. Yes, I feel for them. Gosh, I know what they are enduring. But verbally weighing my needs against theirs is not customer service. Pepco is supposed to serve all of us, and well. It's not an either/or arrangement. They matter and I matter, too.

Welcome to just one family's nightmare on this hottest of hot nights. We've lost power in most of our house, and especially the parts that run the A/C and the kitchen. We have no A/C, no power for the fans, and no refrigeration. The few lights we have aren't much good. If anything, they just throw off heat. PEPCO HAS BEEN ABSOLUTELY NO HELP. Got a man at the emergency line who talked to me for 15 minutes about the philosophy of being prepared and asked why I didn't have a generator (!!??!), and that maybe I should consider spending the night somewhere else.

Oh, sure. That's so easy. I asked him if Pepco would like to cover my hotel bill for a night and he said, "M'am, that's against our policy."

The electrician, bless hs heart, is here and he says it's a Pepco problem. No circuirt breakers were thrown. Phoned B&B a/c and they, too, say it is a Pepco problem. B&B was going to send a man in from Frederick, Md., but at least they would send someone. I said, "no. It's not your problem." Pepco said they could get to it tomorrow after 11 a.m.

The temp in our house at 9:30 p.m. is already over 80 degrees, and the night is young.

I'm particularly burned because a few years ago I agreed to be appear in a Pepco ad to testify to their quality service. What a load of garbage now.

EARLIER ... A day almost entirely plugged into my desk. That's part of coming back from a holiday, yes? Desk and news. Which do you want first? I'll give you news first, because that's my nature. An excellent event was confirmation from HOWARD FINEMAN that he will appear at The Q&A Cafe on October 11. So smart and affable and smart. I'm so pleased. He's among the best.

News with no details, but heard from friends and neighbors: a wave of muggings in Georgetown over the last ten days but that the bad guys possibly all were caught. This is not the first wave of muggings this summer. It's been a plague of the last several months. At night I won't walk alone in Georgetown, and being with another is not a guaranty. We need cops walking the beat. It's that simple. I will try to get more details about this.

Heard that Hook restaurant is having a bit of a hard time. I hope this is not true, but my sources are pretty good. Hook is a good place and deserves the patronage of many. They opened on a tough side of the street and just before summer, which also is tough, and seafood is costly. We need a place like Hook to do well in Georgetown. So, make a reservation. 202.625.4488.

Nathans has a new suitor, but we know very little. Our due diligence dug up only that he reps CVS, Jerry's Subs, Pizza Hut, Rite Aid and Mattress Warehouse, among other retailers. Whoever the client is will come to see the building tomorrow. My two cents: I think Nathans is more suited for Georgetown at that corner, but it's not my building and not my Georgetown. As state here before, soon we will have no indigenous ma' and pa' restaurants in Georgetown - only chains and fast food. What then?

Here at my desk right now I am making new CD mixes for Nathans back room. This is who I'm loving: SUZANNE VEGA, who has a good new CD, SUFJAN STEVENS, who my son tipped me to, PATTI SMITH (wait till you hear her cover of "Gimme Shelter") , MODEST MOUSE, TRAVIS. I'm particularly taken with ANGELIQUE KIDJO. I've also mixed in SEA WOLF and the YEAH, YEAH, YEAHS. I so want to add AMY
WINEHOUSE, and probably will, just to have some fun. Amy is the best.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 7 ... Ace biographer SALLY BEDELL SMITH has a corker on BILL and HILLARY CLINTON coming out in late October. It focuses on their years in the White House. Sally confirmed today she will appear at the Q&A Cafe soon after the book hits stores. This was good news to come home to; we last interviewed Sally for her book on the Kennedy White House years, which was like climbing into a time capsule but with the analysis and wisdom of years gone by. btw, I wonder - since it's always "Bill and Hillary," if she gets the big job will it be "Hillary and Bill"? Will we, as with JACKIE KENNEDY, learn all about who creates his inaugural wardrobe, and how he hopes to decorate the family quarters and make them more "home" like? It would be so cool if he wore a dress to the balls; then donate it to the Smithsonian's exhibition of First Lady frocks.

Anybody who has ever returned from a sweet holiday knows what today was like for me. After the 45 minute phone torture with Direct TV it was at least pleasant to sit in the office with JON MOSS to discuss the recent past and the near future of Nathans. I spent some time this holiday wondering how to make Nathans last 20 months special for everyone: staff, customers, tourists. I want to make it like no other closing ever before. So many restaurant closings seem like sad and pathetic affairs, a close relative to the "midnight move." Let's make this fun, happy and rich with memories of good times. I wish we had a master list of everyone who met their spouse at Nathans, consumated a child after a night at Nathans, got hired over a job interview at Nathans. This is on my mind.

Also on my mind is when to start job hunting and what kind of job do I hunt for. Where do I live? I would like to move somewhere near water, but can I find gainful employment near water? I will be so broke and in debt that the options will be limited. All I'd really like to do is write my blog and interview people.

But today I am focused on right now. Today. The Q&A Cafe. Gotta lot of work to do to get geared up for the new season.

MONDAY, AUGUST 6 ... We're home, at last, but I'll keep that nice pic up for another day because it certainly says much of what there is to say about a holiday by the sea. Inhale. Sigh. Inhale. Sigh.

The drive south was about 7 1/2 hours, including the hour stop in Princeton to eat pizza, plus numerous delays on Route 95. We didn't mind. Our mellowness prevailed from my last swim this morning, through the drive down Long Island and across many bridges and all the way to home and the mail and getting groceries and unpacking. We're now so very very home. It was awesome to be reunited with our "family," Leo the dog and Ozzy the parrot, and I do look forward to getting into my own familiar bed tonight.

Lot's of nice email from people, including at least a dozen new requests to be on the mailing list. Yay. It's almost at 950.Checked the website's reports and over the past 7-8 days we've been getting 10-12,000 page hits a day. That's encouraging. People are exploring beyond the front page. Also a nice request to be a guest this Thursday on a TV show hosted by MARY ALICE WILLIAMS and FELICIA TAYLOR called "Daily Cafe." I think I'm going to be on a panel. Whatever. I'll show up, smile, and speak when spoken to, or not, or at least go with the flow. I hope I still have my seaside mellowness on that day. Also, I was asked to speak to a group at Congressional Country Club. That's cool. They are people who are interested in public speaking.

My first order of business is to nail down a few more interviews for The Q&A Cafe and to find a TV crew to shoot, edit and post the interviews on the web and on youtube, and who can live with what I can pay until some money comes in from Plum TV or NewsChannel 8, wherever the show ends up airing. I watched Plum while up north and it's fresh and light but sometimes amateurish and would benefit from a program like The Q&A Cafe. We would be a standout in their schedule, I think. I could be wrong, but I think I'm right.

I wish we'd worked something out with IMG, but they wanted a marriage contract up front, as if there already was real money. There's no money - only a really good show that deserves to make money. For a couple of weeks I was talking to a fellow who started Wallstrip.com, HOWARD LINDZON, who seemed to want to do something with us, but the trail feels a little cold. We haven't talked since before my holiday. RICK KAPLAN connected me with him and it initially felt hopeful. Moving a ball to the goal is hard, hard work, constant hard work, and it's important not to be discouraged by obstacles, setbacks and the dozen challenges that are part of every day/play.

I am Carol, and I am building a liferaft.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 5 ... It's early afternoon and by tomorrow at this time we'll be on 95 rolling back toward what I consider the deep south, Washington, DC. For a Rocky Mountain yankee it's torture, but I look forward to seeing the dog and parrot.

To beat the gridlocked traffic on Montauk Highway we got up early and went for breakfast at Babette's in East Hampton. A little bit of sticker shock on the tab for one order of whole wheat pancakes, one order of poached eggs, two o.j. and a coffee. If I told you $50 would you believe me? Believe me. Though we did get to watch HARVEY WEINSTEIN and his date have breakfast nearby, and so I guess that justifies the tab, right? In East Hampton logic...

In the department of Hamptons name-dropping, the win for the weekend - in our family, at least - goes to my son. One of his Hogwarts classmates is the offspring of an iconic entertainment mogul who I'll call RANDY FLAGG. Yesterday the school chum invited Spen to come over for the day, and they went sailing on the Flaggs' 10-foot boat. The boating party included RICHARD GERE and his wife, CAREY LOWELL,and their children, SNL star AMY POEHLER, and her husband, actor WILL ARNETT. Later they went to a BILLY JOEL concert where they were joined by KELLY RIPA and her husband, MARK CONSUELOS, CHRISTIE BRINKLEY, LORNE MICHAELS and ALEC BALDWIN.

When he returned home at midnight to our friends' Water Mill house we, of course, wanted a full report ... but he took much of the day in stride and did not have many juicy details, except that he thought Amy and Will were hilarious, that Christie Brinkley looked good "for someone so old," and that Richard Gere worked hard to be relevant to the teenagers.

We took a drive around Georgica Pond and other boulevards of the extremely wealthy today and decided that while beautiful it's all a big bore. The privet hedges, gates and fences that hide all the mansions and estates also serve to obscure any sense of the beauty of the place. There is simply no access. What's the point of being in a lovely region if the only way you can see it is in coffee table books? That's another reason we love Nantucket most of all. It's beautiful, there are a lot of rich people with mansions and estates, but for the rest of us there still is lots of access. We can see the place. We can get to the beaches. We can walk the streets. The scale, architecturally and socially, is human.

Also, while the traffic was bad everywhere we went - Newport, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Falmouth - it's horrendous here on Long Island. Beyond rational. Why do all these people sit in miles and miles long gridlock? Where are they going? Thank God I have GPS in our car, because it's the only way we've been able to get anywhere ... on back roads that keep us off Route 27. Seriously, some of the backups go for 6-7 miles.

btw, AMY WINEHOUSE goes really well with the back roads of the Hamptons.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 4 ... No time to write; stuck in Hamptons traffic all day. But do check out fresh pics at caroljoynt.com. More later.


FRIDAY, AUGUST 3 ... We bounce from one marvelous lily pod to another ... boing, boing, boing ... like two frogs, always landing in the arms of a charming hotel or the warm hospitality of friends. We're fortunate, and we know it.

Newport, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, last night Falmouth and today Water Mill, one of the jewel box towns of the Hamptons. The other best part is that every night we've been near the sea. That matters.

Yesterday was a travel day, as we hopped one ferry after another - from Nantucket back to Martha's Vineyard and then another from MV back to Falmouth. Our friend MICHAEL MILLER met us at the Falmouth dock and drove us to the big and comfortable home he and his wife, CATHY, have near the water's edge. He made rockin' good margaritas, quacamole and salsa - and he knows how since they spend half the year in Mexico. Dinner was grilled chorizo, chicken, and corn hash at the family table with fun conversation until the four of us were ready for bed.

We set off early after breakfast to begin our journey south, making a brief stop in Providence to tour Brown University. We're not on the college bandwagon yet, but whenever we're near a school we vere off the highway to take a look. Next year will be the summer we begin closer looks.

Today we took three ferries that got us from New London, Ct., to Orient Point, NY, and through Shelter Island, Sag Harbor and to Water Mill. It was quite hot and the wind hitting the ferry felt good.

Our friends here have one of those houses you drool over in the pages of Architectural Digest or HG. Handsome, elegant, luxurious, with many little personal and fun touches in every room. We particularly liked the giant blow up animals floating in the pool. It was impossible to climb aboard any of them without immediately falling off.

Right now is the pause between pool time and dinner time, with dogs scampering around, music in the background, the sunlight drifting down to an evening angle, the giant sigh of humans as they shift gears into a welcomed August weekend. Next stop is the caroljoynt.com to post some new pix.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 2 ... Alas, all good things come to an end, and so today we depart Nantucket. Because there is no direct ferry from here to Woods Hole, we will take one boat back to Martha's Vineyard and then another boat over to Woods Hole or Falmouth. It's a hot morning and will make for a good day at the beach. Yesterday, it felt like the entire island population was at the beach, because the roadways were empty. Usually the traffic is near gridlock, especially in and close to town. And if we think we have parking issues in Georgetown, they pale compared to Nantucket town in August.

I arrived wondering if the rich people had made a gross and apparent mark on the island. There's a little of that, but nothing too alarming. No question there is a lot of money happening here. One look at the construction warehouse - and the fleets of construction vehicles - and that fact is obvious. The stores are aimed at fat wallets, too. I mean, why else would there be Lanvin, Chopard and Manolo Blahnik in the store windows of a laid back sandy island?

Nonetheless, everyone seems to meld okay. The stinkpots have pushed the sailboats off the docks, the Range Rovers BMW and and Lexus SUVS crowd the bicycles and jeeps - but there is an almost normal Nantucket flow on Nantucket.

Still, I'd love to try a winter here. Desolate, forbidding, fierce, but probably also quite beautiful and peaceful.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1 ... I didn't exactly keep to my plan about no photo taking today, but then some photos are difficult to resist ... like cute kids, happy friends and a dog. Finally the heat and humidity and fog seem to be subsiding and the weather is back to Nantucket normal - clear skies, bright sun, breezes and very refreshing air.

I would love to be able to come live here for a year, including most of all a winter. It would be so interesting to do a year on this island.

EARLIER...Last full day on Nantucket. I think I'll close the laptop, hang up the camera, turn off the cell phone....and inhale salt air. Possibly an update much later, but depends entirely on the salt air.

TUESDAY, JULY 31 ... We are between a day of wandering, eating and more wandering and an evening of dinner with friends. More before bedtime, but for now there are fresh pics up at caroljoynt.com.

I want to mention the passing of TOM SNYDER. People ask me if I knew him. No, I did not, but I was a big fan. I loved his show. It gave me a reason to watch late night TV that felt relevant and interesting. He gave talk TV a new edge, and everything he did was uniquely his own. There are so many images that pass through my head as I remember his show, but a stand out is BETTE DAVIS. It's because of Snyder's prison interview with CHARLIE MANSON that my executive producer at CBS News "Nightwatch" assigned me to go get a Manson interview for CHARLIE ROSE. The producer had worked with Snyder and Snyder's then executive producer, ROGER AILES, and was involved in Snyder's Manson one-on-one. He wanted to get one of his own, and for Charlie, because he knew it would be big ratings. Coincidentally it also won Charlie and me our first Emmy's. I've always felt I had Snyder, in part, to thank for that.

When I heard he was ill with leukemia I sent him a fan email, wanting him to know how much his work meant to me, and that he was there before anyone else.

MONDAY, JULY 30 ... Dinner tonight with BO BLAIR at the very good 21 Federal here in Nantucket town. It is owned by NELSON DOUBLEDAY, JR., and is one of Nantucket's most consistently good restaurants. Howard and I first ate there ages ago when BOB KINCAID was the chef. Bob later opened a 21 Federal in DC on L Street, which was also quite good, before he opened the blockbuster Kincaid's on Pennsylvania Avenue. Bo, as you probably know, owns the wildly successful Smith Point in Georgetown and Jetties on Foxhall Road. He's a restaurant impresario, and someone I go to like a well for restaurant advice. I value his opinions and am sometimes awed by his vision of who I am and where I should be. He thinks I sell myself way short, don't take advantage of a lot of opportunities and that I'm sitting on a gold mine with The Q&A Cafe. Wouldn't it be nice if that was true?

This is where Bo and I often disconnect. He's such a master of business and I am not. He has grandiose ambitions for me and I tend to see only what's right in front of my eyes. It's not that I don't have ideas and vision, but the reality of Nathans limits what I realistically can do. Tonight Bo sort of came round to that point of view as he weighed the weight and drag on me of having to finish out Nathans last 20 months. Being in the business, he understands what is involved. After a long time talking about how I would be able to find investors in a future endeavor - The Q&A Cafe - he finally said, "but you probably won't be able to get a dime out of anybody until you are at long last free of Nathans." You don't need to tell me. With Nathans, when it comes to trying to get money, I am radioactive. I repell investors.

This is frustrating, too, because I have good ideas and many if not most would be money-making.

For something like the 5th night in a row I had local fish. Tonight was halibut. The other night in Edgartown, at Catch, I had sea bass or turbot, which the waiter said "was still squirming when it arrived in the kitchen." Catch had good food but horrible service and shocking prices. I don't mind paying good money for a good meal, but I expect the staff to be trained and to have some idea what the job involves - like cleaning away dirty plates, showing up in the dining room, bringing the wine before the entree is served. These things are fundamental. The staff were friendly but clueless. The owners of Catch should have paid us for the endless couple of hours of frustration and torment.

Tonight at 21 Federal it was good service. Last night at Pearl it was somewhere between Catch and 21 Federal.

btw, Bo thought it was very funny that we ended up in the fog on the nude beach today. "Everyone knows that's the nude beach," he said. Not us. I told him, "it's really something to walk down a fogged in beach and suddenly see naked people emerge from the milky air."

We did all the regulation Nantucket things today: breakfast at Black Eyed Susan's, a walk around town, lunch at Something Natural, got the car stuck in the sand, had to be pulled out, and unknowingly chose the nude beach for our seaside walk and fog-bathing. But all good.

Sunbathing in fog was new to me. It made the cold water feel even more frigid, but we did not need sunblock. We could only see the outlines of the peoole up and down the beach from us, and it wasn't until we took a walk that we realized they were nude. Due to the fog, no one was embarrassed. Bare-assed, maybe. (Forgive me. Couldn't resist).

This was after I managed to drive the small front-wheel drive rental car into the deep sand. Ugh. Fortunately two men came along (fully clothed) and one hooked a tow rope up to the back of the car while the other man and Spencer pushed. In no time we were back on firm ground.

It's wonderful to walk around Nantucket town. There's architecture, history, charm, flowers, yachts and genuinely attractive and smart shops. The shops are small, unique and generally not chains, though something shocking happened on the Main Street - a Ralph Lauren shop opened. What's next? A Gap? McDonalds? Apparently the locals have picketed and protested, but Ralph is still in business.

Not too too many signs of big money, yet, but we feel it out there. The prices on everything are high. The shops clearly cater to people with fat wallets and Black Amex cards. I stopped in at The Galley Beach restaurant today, one of my faves, to make a future reservation. When I requested a particular table the maitre'd said, "I will try to hold it for you, but we get high rollers in here who spend thousands of dollars and they sit where they want."

There was a manager at the desk of our hotel all day today, keeping an eye on things. In the afternoon they served tea, lemonade and fresh baked chocolate chip cookies out on the porch.

SUNDAY, JULY 29 ... Some very good news today. SHEILA JOHNSON's office confirmed she will appear at The Q&A Cafe on Thursday, November 8. Add this to confirmations from VALERIE PLAME WILSON and DAN RATHER, plus ROBERT FRANK, and we've got a good season starting to shape up.

Unfortunately, though, there's been no luck in reaching an agreement with Interface Media Group re shooting the lunches for webcast, etc., and so that part of The Q&A Cafe may come to an end, and we will also have to pass up the offers from Plum TV and NewsChannel 8. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. I do want to continue to videotape the lunches, though, and must set about trying to find another production company or assemble Nathans own video crew. We can't pay much. We can pay something, but not much. We don't make $$$ on the lunches. We charge patrons only what it costs to feed them and to pay the staff and taxes.

Enough work. We're on Nantucket now, after a ferry ride in pea soup fog. The captian blasted his horn every few minutes. It's sunny here in Nantucket town, though, and from where I sit on the white on white on white king bed in our room at a hilltop B&B there is a full view of the harbor. There's Washington-like humidity, and all the locals complain like crazy. Fortunately our inn has A/C or it would be a rough night's sleep. We have what they call a "suite" with a small sitting room that has a sofa bed for the teenager. The decor is very spare contemporary - all white walls and upholstery with bare pine floors and some sisal area rugs - in contrast to The Chartlotte Inn in Edgartown, which was haute 19th century English country house meets whaling captain chic.

We took a big walk through town and then a sentimental drive out to S'conset, to meander around the 'hood where we used to rent on Baxter Road for year after year. Fortunately, the area we know is relatively unchanged, though at the other end, near the Summer House, there is a lot of development.

Do look at the pictures I've posted at caroljoynt.com. I hope they make you feel like you're almost on the road with us. There are more to come.

EARLIER...Got up early for a last walk around Edgartown. Gosh, the fog is inviting. It feels good - moist, cool - and conjures images of when Edgartown was a whaling town, and what the early morning's were like when the ships headed out for a long voyage of whale hunting. I enjoy looking at the old captain's houses, too. The architecture here is big boned, sturdy, in contrast to the more delicate and refined style of Nantucket. The architecture could be a symbol of the differences between both islands.

We're off to Nantucket today, and I'm looking forward ... mostly. It's one of those places I love and have known for a long time. Therefore, my eagerness is colored with some trepidation about the changes all the new money many have wrought since I was last there three years ago. Maybe it will be okay. I don't wander among the McMansions, anyway. But can they be avoided?

An especially special day yesterday, sailing with WALTER CRONKITE, JOANNA SIMON and Walter's crew, Jay and Jenny, on his gorgeous Hinckley sailing yacht, the Wyntje. We made a course out past the Poge light on Chappaquiddick Island and almost headed to Nantucket before turning round and returning to Walter's dock on the Great Harbor at Edgartown. We had sun, pretty clouds, a steady breeze, plus 3-4 hours of sailing. Walter took the helm at the outset, and then he handed it off to Spencer, and at the end of the day I took it for a while, too. Walter brought us into the dock.

Briefly, I was back in the life I loved and lost in the maelstrom of the last decade. There's very little that moves me as much as holding the wheel of a sailboat as it moves through water in a good breeze. I love the sensations, all of them. The sounds, the smells, the touch. It was particular fun to watch Walter and Jay talk Spencer through the basics of steering, while also teaching him how to read the compass and the sails.

Aw, what I would give to be back on the water every day, living on a boat, being a sailing bum.

SATURDAY, JULY 28 ... Back in my nook at Espresso Love, where it is packed with the early morning caffeine rush. I'd love to jump up and shout, "Obama or Clinton?" There would be a lively vocal response and no one would shout back, "Giuliani or Romney?"

It was interesting to see the documentary last night about the astronauts who did the moon missions. They are a small group. Only nine men actually walked on the moon. I don't think I'd ever before heard interviews with these astronauts, who now all are men of a certain age. They hold up well, though, especially MICHAEL COLLINS, JAMES LOVELL, GENE CERNAN and ALAN BEAN. Reclusive NEIL ARMSTRONG, however, did not participate. Not having the first man who walked on the moon is a rather large hole in a film about the men who went to the moon.

The film captures some of the excitement of that era, but not enough of it. There's a lot of talking, which could be cut down by a third. Some of it is interesting, and some of it is not, especially the end part with the spacemen who found God on the moon. It probably needs to be in there, but by having this part be the end gives it too much importance.

What a coincidence, though, to be here to screen the film about the moon landing on the same day I showed my son Chappaquiddick's infamous Dike Bridge, both having combined to make July 19 1969 one of the most newsworthy days in modern history.

At the screening there were at least six people from DC. I was happy to see them, because they are friends, but don't you feel that when you are away on a holiday it makes it less of an "away" when you run into people from back home? I do. I go away to get away, from everything and everyone (with a very few exceptions) who are part of DC. That's why my favorite holidays are to places where they don't speak any language I know, making me feel even more away.

In the "Moon" movie one of the astronauts said that at a certain moment on the moon he stopped and looked around and realized that he and his space partner were the only two human beings on that entire orb. What a feeling! Another said that when he got back to earth he went to a shopping mall simply to stand and stare at and enjoy "all the people."
Fascinating. I would love to interview one of these guys, especially BUZZ ALDRIN, at The Q&A Cafe.

We were supposed to go to a midnight screening of The Simpsons movie last night, but at 11:45 it became apparent that salt air, sunshine, lots of walking and an earlier film, plus dinner and good books, made bed at the B&B a more appealing option.

One last note: PHIL DONAHUE looks good for his age. I have no idea his age, but he is trim and fit and attractive. TED DANSON, too. This island is definitely the island of the middle aged. In almost every direction I see people who appear to be between the ages of 45-65. But then there's Cronkite - 91 and looking excellent. Today we are scheduled to go sailing with him.

FRIDAY, JULY 27 ... Today we did as much as we could on Martha's Vineyard with four wheels and two pair of feet. We started out with sunbathing on Chappaquidick Island. In an earlier time this would be a quick ferry ride across Edgartown harbor. Today we sat in a five blocks long line to get on the 2-minute ferry. But once we were over there we were pretty much on our own. No crowds. The roads were empty. (Where did all those ferry people go?) The only way to get to Poge beach is to follow the same path TEDDY KENNEDY followed on that fateful night in 1969 when he claims he got confused at the fork in the road and accidentally headed down the dirt road to the beach when he meant to take the paved road back to the ferry. Ha! This is not easily done. This allowed for a parental tutorial in the Kennedy episode known as "Chappaquidick," and the senseless death of MARY JO KOPECHNE.

The story is complicated. Talk to the real locals - not the summer visitors - and you hear they believe not very much of the story Kennedy told of what happened.

By the time we crossed the famous bridge, my son was fairly read in on the scandal. It didn't mean anything to him one way or the other, because the Kennedys, with the exception of the late president, are not on his radar, but at least he understood the official facts and the public skepticism.

The beach was bright with sun. The nearest few people were a couple of football fields away. We stretched out on towels to enjoy the warmth and our books. Later, we took a long walk and skipped stones.

At lunchtime we took the ferry back to the mainland and drove to Menemsha to have lobster rolls on the docks. (A little dismayed they were pre-made, wrapped in plastic and in the fridge.) From there we toured Tisbury, Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs. Back to the B&B for lemonade in the garden and just enough time to transform for the 5pm screening of a new documentary "The Dark Side of the Moon" at the local cinema. This was fun. The pre-screening party was a mix-up with some of the island's celebs, including PHIL DONAHUE, MARGO THOMAS, SUSAN ST. JAMES, DICK EBERSOLE, MIKE WALLACE and, most importantly, our host WALTER CRONKITE. The party was handled by that famous NYC party impresario, PEGGY SIEGEL, and I told my son, "at her recent 60th birthday party she handed out a sheet listing all the people who had done work on her." She would be pleased to know he said, "she doesn't look anywhere close to 60."

Whatever, it just goes to show that 60 in NYC is different than 60 anywhere else. New Yorkers don't concede to anything they don't like or want to do, and I love that about them.

Here's a small world story. We were reunited with CYNTHIA RIGGS, fifth generation native of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Her descendats are the Dionysus and Coffin families. We met her many years ago when she was captain of the boat owned by CHARLIE ROSE, the "Curiosity." She also dated my father. In 1988 she returned to Martha's Vineyard to live with her elderly mother.

This is the update on Cynthia: her mother passed away, Cynthia renovated the family home and turned it into a B&B with her daughter, she went back to school, taking a special writing course at Vermont College, and has since published 5 mystery novels that are a success. St. Martin's Press is her publisher. You can find them on Amazon at this link: CYNTHIA RIGGS.

We invited her to dinner and the three of us had a great time, especially me and my son, listening to Cynthia's stories about Martha's Vineyard. Wow. She has material for at least another dozen books.

Gotta go now ... to the midight screening of the "Simpsons" movie.

EARLIER... I've never been a cafe blogger, but here I am on Friday morning, laptop flipped open, cafe au lait beside me, staring intently at the screen, which means I look like all those other coffee bar people who often make me wonder, "WHAT are they doing?"

It's almost 8 a.m. and the Edgartown church bells are ringing. Slowly, the town is getting its morning pulse. I was up at 6:30 for a long walk, staying as close to the water as possible. There was fog, which made a beautiful setting only more beautiful.

Dinner last night at the Edgartown Yacht Club, which is one of the most charming buildings here and in the best possible location - built out over a pier, in a central spot of the harbor right near the Chappy ferry. In three directions there are water views, and when they slide back the windows, as they did last night, the breeze blows through as if we were eating on the aft deck of a big boat This, of course, made me very happy. At official sunset they call the room to order, everyone stands for the lowering of the flag, and when it's down a cannon is fired. While the "boom" was startling, the routine is not unknown to me - my husband used to lower the flag and fire off a cannon at sunset at our home on the Bay. I had the cannon made for him and we still have it, but firing a cannon in Georgetown would probably not go down too well with the authorities, or the neighbors.

Today we plan to plop on the beach and tour and tonight we're invited to a movie screening which, we've been told, will bring out "all the Martha's Vineyard celebrities." Whatever that means. Unfortunately, LARRY DAVID has left the island. If only he'd waited a few days I would have volunteered to help him forget his wife went AWOL with a younger man. This would amuse my son, because he tells me constantly that I am the female Larry. It's probably not meant as a compliment.

I pulled together some pics of the trip and have them posted at caroljoynt.com.

THURSDAY, JULY 26 ... This entry is coming to you courtesy of the wireless internet at Espresso Love in Edgartown. Our B&B does not offer any internet access, and does not permit use of cell phones on the property. Therefore I am forced to live in that time of yore, before electronics ruled our lives...though before bed it's still necessary to plug in chargers for the camera, the phone, the laptop, and the bluetooth.

I'm okay with the cellular detox. Time to read, to walk, to take in the sights. Today it was a walk to adore the beautiful morning in Newport. The air smelled like the Med, which comes from a mixture of salt air and rock. We drove to Falmouth, parked the car at the home of friends, and then hopped the Island Queen passenger ferry over to M.V., where the beaches, roadways and sidewalks are packed with people. But, just as with Georgetown, once off Edgartown's congested main streets, the residential streets are leafy, shady, pretty and quiet.

Tonight or tomorrow I'll get some trip pics up, including of Newport last night. We had dinner at a window table at the Clark Cooke House. It's worth eating there and a must to request a window table. We looked out over the people walking back and forth on famous Bannister's Wharf, once upon a time the main drag of The America's Cup races. My first visit to Newport was in 1977 when TED TURNER and his crew won the race on Courageous. Returned again when DENNIS CONNER lost the cup. A day that changed everthing for American yacht racing and had a particular impact on Newport. While it still has plenty of boats, it feels lesss salty and more touristy. Way too many t-shirt and logo shops.

The mansions of the gilded age still attract visitors, and it's always fun to walk the length of "Cliff Walk" along the ocean.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 25 ... Greetings from Newport, RI, where the breeze is brisk and briny, the clam chowder the best in the world, and the sailboats dot the horizon all the way to the end of the earth. It's a little crowded, but still wonderful to be here. We're at Harbour Court, a hilltop mansion overlooking the harbor that once was the home of the JOHN NICHOLAS BROWN family and is now the Newport home of the New York Yacht Club. The rich but neatly trimmed green grass slopes almost straight down to the water's edge and a dock. After checking in at about 1:30 (we departed DC 6 a.m.), we went into town for lunch at The Black Pearl, a favorite of 30 years. Of course, I had the clam chowder. Newport has a unique clam chowder, and that recipe is the basis for the clam chowder served all the time at Nathans.

I also had a helping of Mt. Gay rum, served with orange juice and a splash of grenadine a) because I had to do something to neutralize my highway caffeine high, and b) can't arrive in Newport and not hoist a shot of Mt. Gay.

Got some good news today on The Q&A Cafe front: good friend VALERIE PLAME WILSON will appear on Thursday, December 6, for an interview about her book, her life and everything else. I've been negotiating this booking for several weeks with Simon & Schuster, and it was quite a relief to learn we've got a date. Valerier and her husband, JOSEPH WILSON, were patrons of The Q&A Cafe, and Joe did an interview himself. They moved to Santa Fe a little while ago and are quite happy there.

This may sound lame, but seriously, I have to take a nap now or my face will go clunk in my next helping of clam chowder at dinner tonight.
TUESDAY, JULY 24 ... Shortly we depart on a small summer road trip, which could be billed as lifestyles of the rich and famous meet the poor and unknown. We're the poor and unknown. Our trip takes us to Newport, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and the Hamptons, where the scenery is lovely though clouded this time of year by people who are just too rich, too fabulous and too plentiful. We will visit friends, eat clam chowder, inhale glorious salt air and, if lucky, spend meaningful time doing nothing on beaches. What I'm debating is whether to blog this trip. We have, after all, blogged all others', including last summer's road trip along the coast of Maine, which was devoted in part to eating every possible lobster roll we could find.

I look forward to seeing Nantucket, though in the three years since we were last there it reportedly has been steamrolled by billionaires on a buying and building binge. Gosh, I hope they haven't messed with the pretty and private parts. I look at their Godawful mansions and think, well, there are the Newport museums of 75 years from now.

The wealth in this country is staggering. Check out the new Fortune. Better yet, buy the book I'm reading: Richistan, by ROBERT FRANK. It's all there. The good, bad and ugly of the new super rich. And Robert himself will be at Nathans in October for an appearance at The Q&A Cafe. I can't wait to talk to this man. The book is that interesting and troubling.

On the subject of troubles. What do we do when a pretty little girl grows up to be sadly and publicly on an expressway to self destruction? I'm thinking of LINDSAY LOHAN, who got herself arrested again last night for DUI, driving with a suspended license and cocaine possession. Of all those reckless, messed up and misdirected size-0 young Hollywood women, Lindsay seemed of a separate cut. She's got real talent. If you saw her in The Parent Trap or Mean Girls you know what I mean. Based on the charges, if they hold, she faces possible jail time.

Jail and a confessional with LARRY KING didn't seem to incite any self-awareness in PARIS HILTON. Yesterday BRITNEY SPEARS had a full blown metldown in an interview with a magazine, and she's the mother of two. No one would care except teenage girls look at these celebrities and think, because of all the publicity, the way they behave must be cool. When one of them dies, or causes someone else's death, will that end the cool factor?

 

 

MONDAY, JULY 23 ... Ended the day enjoying a reunion with a dear friend down from New York. SUSAN MAGRINO is a PR and marketing ace, has her own agency, and reps, among others, MARTHA STEWART and DOMINICK DUNNE, plus the One and Only hotels, and many more hotels and bold face names. We used to see each other a lot, when I was with "Larry King Live" and we did a lot of business together. But now we don't see each other often enough. The last time we connected was at her wedding after-party at the Four Seasons restaurant in NYC. She's happily married and happily still hard at work.

One of Susan's clients is Qatar Airways, which is how I happened to be among her guests tonight at the Mandarin Oriental, where the airline's CEO tossed a huge party to mark the start of daily nonstop Doha to Dulles service.

No expense was spared, starting with the generous pours of Krug champagne, the entertainment, the food and the groovy swag: a platinum i-Pod Nano. The opening act was comedian STEVE BRIDGES. Remember? He did a rocking GEORGE W. BUSH at a White House Correspondents dinner year before last.

interestingly, tonight he had the option of doing Bush or BILL CLINTON and it was decided he should do Clinton. I thought,"Wow, how irrelevant can a sitting president be, when the big bucks dinners don't feature him as the spoof?" Nonetheless, Bridges did not go gentle on Clinton. Making some fairly ribald jokes about Clinton's friendship with former President Bush (41), he said, "What happens in Kennebunkport stays in Kennebunkport." Later, Bridges had Clinton riff on his presidential library in Arkansas: "We have the only books in the state." About Qatar Airways, Bridges/Clinton said, "The greatest access to the middle east without having to invade a country."

Hahaha. I hope that got a laugh out of WILLIAM COHEN, RICHARD ARMITAGE and JOSH BOLTEN, the trio who passed for the party's A-list. Not.

I had fun with Susan and SALLY BEDELL SMITH. Sally's book on the Clinton White House years will be out in October. And, yes, I asked her to do a Q&A.

EARLIER... The thing about living in Washington is that sooner or later you could be in the same room with the President of the United States. (Better chance you'll get run off the road by his motorcade.)

In one way or another, and always at The White House, I've met/been at a party/worked a story with every president back to Nixon. (I saw Johnson at the Press Building just before he left office, and coverd Eisenhower's funeral from Mass Avenue). This does not mean I'm special. It only means that mostly due to with my work I've had the opportunity to be at White House a lot and often in close proximity to the man with the job, or his number two. (I'll never forget the first time I saw Nixon in his hide-away office).

This afternoon, my son and I were guests at a small farewell party for our dear friend SCOTT SFORZA, who was essentially executive producer of every GEORGE BUSH appearance on TV. This is Scott's last day on the job, and I guaranty you his departure leaves a hole in the smooth running of the White House' communications wing.

The party happened in the marbled, frescoed, moulded, double high Indian Treaty Room on the 4th floor of the Old Executive Office Building. There were soft drinks, spicy fried chicken, crudite, an awesome chocolate cake with white icing, and the President and First Lady, both in pants suits. They arrived after everyone else, including press secretary TONY SNOW and a few other administration notables whose names I don't know. Scott's mom was there, beaming, as well as a happy collection of siblings, in-laws, neices and nephews. Everyone was a Scott Sforza fan, which is easy to be.


The few speeches were all about respect and admiration. Scott and I met at "Nightline," where he ran our desk, and even then he was the consummate get-it-done colleague. He could always get it done, whether it was on Capitol Hill or in Bahgdad. TED KOPPEL didn't like to travel too far without having Scott nearby, and President Bush clearly held him in the same regard. When Bush arrived at the party he wrapped an arm around Scott in a gesture of genuine affection. He cupped his hand on the back of his head and pulled him close, the way a father would embrace a beloved child. I found it very tender and a side of this man that does not get beyond his inner circle. He wrapped his other arm around Scott's mother, while Laura stood nearby. For a second it appeared he might puddle up while talking about Scott's departure. Both the president and Laura were smaller than I expected. It's often the other way around with presidents. Neither had much happiness in their eyes, but they smiled a lot. When Bush finished his remarks, and after saying hello to the guests and posing for pictures, he said to Scott and the room, "Well, I still have a job," and headed for the door with his wife.

Yes, I know, I rant and rave here about the administration on a regular basis, but today was for and about Scott.

At the buffet table we chatted with DORRANCE SMITH, who was executive producer of Nightline when I was there. Dorrance left Nightline to work in the administration of Bush #41, and took Scott with him. That's when Scott first met #43, and they hit it off. Dorrance is head of public affairs at the Pentagon. He said he had to leave Scott's party to head back to the Pentagon for another farewell party there. Many similar farewell parties will happen around town as we head into the final chapters of the Bush Administration. People will start to bail, and for many the sooner the better.

Scott has not decided what's next yet. He doesn't have to. Good jobs will come flying at him.

EARLIER...I am an opponent of the war. The web is a great wide wonderful universe of opportunity and fun and creates all kinds of interesting and satisfying ways of gathering information and commmunicating. It is the best of new frontiers. Used properly, it supplants or reinvents almost every other form of media. Therefore, if you feel the need to say something snarky about me, based on moldy events of decades ago that I honestly don't recall, it's not necessary to post these comments on message boards elsewhere. It still gets to me, you know? If you have something to say, then say it to me directly. I can be reached, obviously, as my email address is right here on the front page. Geez. I'm sorry. I had no idea. We're talking when I was 19. That's a long grudge.

SUNDAY, JULY 22 ... Finally, a weekend of weather we deserve. The kind of weather that makes us giggle about the locals who sweated through airport security, sat on tarmacs, hassled over the rental car, suffered through jet lag and-whatever-else to get away from Washington's summer swelter, and here it is, perfect in our own back yards. It's South of France sunshine, Blue Ridge mountains cool, Cape Cod breezes. It's so nice I'll have to avoid the Sunday shows simply to preserve the serenity.

A friend is coming for lunch and while he said he would be happy with a tuna sandwich, and meant it, and while I love a good tuna sandwich, his request blossomed into my idea of a summer garden picnic. However, to get what I needed involved visits to four markets. Wow. Maybe someday we'll have a market in Washington that has all the good things in one place. But i'm done with my foraging. Got the breads at Marvelous, the lettuces, tomatoes and cheese at Balduccis, the curry chicken and tuna salad at Wagshall's, the pate and blueberry tart at Poupon. Oh, wait, one more: the coffee ice cream and peach sorbet at Sara's. In the summer, rather than a pot of hot coffee, I like to serve bowls of coffee ice cream. It's got just enough caffeine to give a kick, as well as being creamy, cold and satisfying.

Speaking of picnics. On Fridays at Nathans you can have a sort of picnic. That's the day the kitchen staff make fried chicken. It started as a treat for their colleagues, but JON MOSS was so effusive about how good it is, I suggested it go on the menu as a Friday special for all to enjoy. It may be summer only, so mark your calendar to get into Nathans on a Friday for scrumptious fried chicken, plus cole slaw and some fresh chips or fries.

Yesterday afternoon I treated myself to a facial at the ERWIN GOMEZ salon on Wisconsin Avenue. I've been getting facials since I first walked into a Georgette Klinger salon in NY in the mid-70s. To me a facial is as important as teeth cleaning or any other kind of health and fitness maintenance. I get one about every 5-6 weeks, ususally from LANCE ETCHISON at Blue Mercury. I don't know why I hadn't been to the Gomez salon before. I suppose it seemed a little trendy and I couldn't tell from the outside if I would be happy once inside. But trustworthy friends kept mentioning the place and with positive reviews. LYSBETH SHERMAN swooned for it.
FRANCESCA CRAIG gave it her highest recommendation. I knew if they were pleased I would be pleased.

My appointment was for 10:15. I arrived a little early and looked over the many products they offer in the front of the salon. They've got good product lines. Items you would want as a treat for yourself or a present for a friend. Fun and good stuff. To me these products are like toys and candy to a child. I love it: toys and candy all in one store. My appointment started late, which bothers me, but the woman who gave the facial, LISA WHITE, got me over it real fast by being smart, friendly and very good at her craft. All the treatment rooms are well-appointed, stylish, and serene. Love the blue light in the ceiling. The music is good and not too loud. There's a lovely back garden with chaises and a waterfall. I can't wait to go back to try their manicures and maybe a make-up lesson from the master himself, Erwin Gomez. They are open every day at 202.333.7290.

SATURDAY, JULY 21 ... My summer breakfast routine tends to involve fresh fruits, whole wheat toast, and yogurt. But this morning I had one of my winter breakfasts: oatmeal. What's better in freezing temps than to start the day with a hot bowl of porridge? It's so Dickens and coal dust and warmth from a blazing hearth. It's also quite good for you. Oatmeal is low in calories and fat, high in fiber, and warms the tummy. There are ways to make it more interesting than mere school gruel, too. For one thing, don't go with the instant, flavored oatmeal. Like all commercial cereal, those versions have more sugars than you need. I use McCann's Irish Oatmeal. It takes longer, but the cooking process provides time for a little over-the-pot aromatic meditation. (They also have "quick cooking" version for those in a hurry).

Ways to tart it up: add a couple of pinches of Demerara Sugar from Mauritius (sold at Williams Sonoma); add 1/8th of a teaspoon of pure vanilla extract (I like the Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla from the Nielsen-Massey company in Waukegan), some fresh seasonal fruit, like blueberries, pitted cherries, diced apple. If it is a tender fruit, add it late in the cooking process, or plop it on top before serving. Another kick can come from adding a sprinkling of maple sugar to the top of the bowl just before drizzling on some milk or cider. Voila! Breakfast is ready. Today I had a cup of Mighty Leaf green tea as my hot drink, but in the winter I love a steaming cup of Cadbury's "Drinking Chocolate," which a friend kindly brings for me from London.

So, why did I have my winter breakfast on a July morning? Who knows? But it certainly was delicious and now I'm ready to go shovel the front walk.

Things to do today: go to the Washington Bayhawks major league lacrosse game at Georgetown University at 4 pm, and then to Nathans for the team "after party," which goes from 7-9.

Please still keep in mind this email I received from my brother, ROBERT ROSS, regarding MICHAEL VICK. The NFL is considering suspending him, but with full pay. Which made me wonder: if you got indicted by the feds for alleged dog killing, would your boss suspend you with full pay?

Anyway, here's the email:

"Is there any way you can get this website spread around your "connections". We are starting a grass roots effort to get Michael Vick thrown out of the NFL ........right away!
Warning.........photos are not for the faint of heart, but they make an impact."
http://www.usanimalprotection.org/gypsy.htm

FRIDAY, JULY 20 .... Checked in with Amazon. My darling son's copy of Harry Potter has been scanned three times now at the Landover warehouse, with the most recent scan at 1:20 this afternoon. There's a party at Barnes and Noble at 11 p.m., of course. We had a small debate about whether to walk down, given that this could be the last event of its kind. Great opportunity for political candidates to work on that under-12 vote.

We have a history with Harry Potter in this household. We bought our son his first book at The Homestead Hotel bookstore when he was 5, and his father read it to him. A few years later we flew to London to be among the first in line at midnight at Waterston's. That was a fun trip. From London, through France, and elsewhere, my son, then 8, more often than not had his nose in the book, which was the British version. When we got back to the U.S. we bought the American version and he read that cover to cover, also.

He needs some relief this week, anyway. Hogwarts is announcing house assignments and roommates for the coming year, and that is of course frought with peril for teenagers. What if I'm in the wrong house? What if I don't have my best friend as a roommate? What if, what if? What he least wants to hear is his mother saying, "just go to school and do well. The rest will fall into place." Groan. Giant groan.

Harry Potter is required reading for all Hogwarts students. No kidding.

THURSDAY, JULY 19 ... Received this noteworthy email tonight from my brother, ROBERT ROSS:
"Is there any way you can get this website spread around your "connections". We are starting a grass roots effort to get Michael Vick thrown out of the NFL ........right away!
Warning.........photos are not for the faint of heart, but they make an impact."
http://www.usanimalprotection.org/gypsy.htm

Yes, MICHAEL VICK should so be fired by the NFL and then tortured by a pack of hungry dogs.

One of the more interesting days in my life. More about it tomorrow. Too late now to report it in a fair and meaningful way. It's that important. Suffice it to say I found closure with something that happened more than 30 years ago, involving me, ROGER MUDD, WALTER CRONKITE and The CBS Evening News.

Another interesting thing happened due to DCRTV.com. Yesterday the site's creator and editor, DAVE HUGHES, ran an item about my ongoing negotiations with Interface Media Group and how they are the hinge on which swings whether The Q&A Cafe will/will not show up on News Channel 8 and Plum TV Network. Dave new the story, and I gave it confirmation. In the absence of a PR firm to handle Nathans and the Q&A Cafe, which would cost money we don't have, I am my own mouthpiece, hype artist, media whore, hack and PR maven.

This is the item as it appered on DCRTV.com:
"Carol Joynt's "Q&A Cafe" Could Be Seen On NC8 - 7/18 - Sources say Nathan's Of Georgetown owner Carol Joynt is close to making a deal that would put her hybrid talk-show-in-a-restaurant, "The Q&A Cafe," on TV this fall in Washington and in other locations across the country. We're told that the project hinges on whether she can come to agreement with Interface Media Group, the DC-based production company that would provide technical video and editing support for the weekly program. If all falls into place, the "Cafe" could be seen on the DC area's NewsChannel 8 and on the Plum TV Network, which is seen in the "high-priced Zip Codes" of Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Aspen, the Hamptons, Miami Beach, Telluride, Vail, and Sun Valley. "The Q&A Cafe" begins its fall season on 9/26 with Dan Rather as guest....."

Later Dave sent me an email sent to the site's "Mailbag." It reads:
"RE: Nathans and sources. Dave: What do you mean sources? You know
& we know that Carol Joynt is your "source" on that item. She tries to hype herself on DCRTV as much as possible. Why not write something like: "We have learned...?" You break so many "real" TV strories;
don't look bush league when writing about a "talk show" that may make it to News Channel 8. Good luck Carol!"

Well, no detective needed here. I know exactly who wrote it. And, gosh fella, why so wound up? First of all, Dave Hughes has lots of sources. Second, I'm honored when hyped on DCRTV. Anywhere, for that matter. Again, as I wrote above, in the absence of an advertising budget, hype is good.

All in a day's work of keeping afloat.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 18 ... Thank you to my mom and dad, who made today possible.

Random, terrific email on or about my birthday:

While on this 150 million dollar yacht sailing up the coast of Alaska, with 22 crew for 8 people, and after having booked my daily massage and having had dinner prepared by two chefs, I would go to my stateroom and read Carol's blog! Here, here!

We like that. And we like this one, too:

I have been fortunate enough to come across you, have never met you personally, but have been following you and your Q&A Café. I love the concept and the idea and the whole idea of the Q&A sessions! Unique and very hot! There has to be a way to keep that going REGARDLESS of what happens with Nathans!!!! I’m going to figure out a way to make that happen, because I think you have something there. Not like you have not heard that before!!!!!

I don't hear it often enough. Just like this one, which warms the ego:

I just wanted to drop you a note to thank you for sharing your experiences, challenges, successes and endeavors through your web site. It is truly a daily enjoyment to read your column, insights, opinions, interests and the interviews of the Q&A Cafe.

And this one, surprisingly, from someone I know:

I clicked on the link at the end of your e-mail and got sucked into your blog. How do you do anything else? It's really very good.

Thank you, all. These are birthday presents.

EARLIER: Birthday memories.

- My first on my own at 18, when I took the Trailways to the Outer Banks, got a motel room, went to the docks at dawn and begged my way onto a fishing boat so I could get to the Gulf Stream and be at sea with no land in sight. Repeated this for many days.

-Turning 25 in the West Indies. Guest on a beautiful sailboat anchored in a quiet harbor on the western shore of Grenada. During late afternoon cocktails, probably much to the other guests surprise (or delight) I emerged from the below decks naked and dove into the shimmering aquamarine water for a lovely swim. It was perfect.

-More than one birthday lunch on the sunkissed terrace of the Hotel du Cap, Antibes, France, which has one of the most beautiful views in the world - followed by a swim in their carved-out-of-the-rocks salt water pool, one of the most beautiful pools in the world.

-A dozen birthdays on chartered sailboats anchored either in Edgartown or Nantucket or some nook in the Elizabeth Islands or a remote spot off the coast of Maine.

-A birthday dinner of 20 friends hosted by my husband at Gerard's Place on McPherson Square, which was set up as a Culinary Fantasy Francais, complete with a gentleman in a beret and striped t-shirt playing the accordian. Ooh lala.

-Turning 40 on a trip that combined both a stay at Canyon Ranch and a stay at The

Thank you to my mom and dad, who made today possible.

Random, terrific email on or about my birthday:

While on this 150 million dollar yacht sailing up the coast of Alaska, with 22 crew for 8 people, and after having booked my daily massage and having had dinner prepared by two chefs, I would go to my stateroom and read Carol's blog! Here, here!

We like that. And we like this one, too:

I have been fortunate enough to come across you, have never met you personally, but have been following you and your Q&A Café. I love the concept and the idea and the whole idea of the Q&A sessions! Unique and very hot! There has to be a way to keep that going REGARDLESS of what happens with Nathans!!!! I’m going to figure out a way to make that happen, because I think you have something there. Not like you have not heard that before!!!!!

I don't hear it often enough. Just like this one, which warms the ego:

I just wanted to drop you a note to thank you for sharing your experiences, challenges, successes and endeavors through your web site. It is truly a daily enjoyment to read your column, insights, opinions, interests and the interviews of the Q&A Cafe.

And this one, surprisingly, from someone I know:

I clicked on the link at the end of your e-mail and got sucked into your blog. How do you do anything else? It's really very good.

Thank you, all. These are presents.

TUESDAY, JULY 17 ... My birthday celebration WEEK kicked into high gear tonight with a small dinner at Nathans. Courtesy of my friends in France I was able to drink too much Dom Perignon. Who would think it was possible? But gosh it tasted good. We did the 1995 vintage, the 1996 vintage and the 1999 vintage. What a flight. Plus some awesome French camembert that was fresh from France. From Nathans menu I ordered steamed mussels in a garlicky white wine broth, while others at the table had pasta, steak, salmon, rock fish and a cheeseburger. God bless American restaurants. Where else could you have such diversity on one menu? (And do it so well?) For dessert there was cake and ice cream and the staff embarassed me with the singing of Happy Birthday To You. We are off and running.

Very cool of Mayor ADRIAN FENTY to endorse BARACK OBAMA. To my mind Obama is one of only two people who should be on the Dem ticket in the fall of '08, the other being JOHN EDWARDS. I like RUDY GIULIANI, too, but his party needs to be kicked way out of Washington. I know HILLARY CLINTON is popular with the die hards, but she has a whole baggage car of issues that make her too complicated, too perplexing, and too political.

I would like to sleep late tomorrow, given I will be older and will need my rest, but sleep isn't on the agenda. An early session of weight work, because I am in training, and then a visit with the Kidney Stone Man at Georgetown Hospital to confirm - I hope - that the little darling has been born. Not sure when or where but hope it was one of those port-o-potties at the lacrosse tournaments. So fitting.

EARLIER...The front page of AOL promotes a Business Week "Retirement Guide." It says people today are retiring in their early to mid 50s to chase dreams like living by the sea with a sailboat docked behind the house. Ha. At the time most adults start to think about retirement down the road I'll be at the threshold of a new career, hunting for a job, trying to start fresh. That's me in 21 months, when Nathans serves its last cold beer, locks the front door and ends an era of Georgetown pub history. Then I get to pound the pavement, eager to find employment that can support me and a teenage junior in high school, and also provide health insurance and - just for laughs - a retirement plan.

I will most likely have to move from Washington. I'm prepared. Given the debts attached to me it will probably be prudent to move to an offshore entity where I can change my name and identity. I will have lost ten years. It will be like coming out of a coma to find myself older and with a grown child. What happened to the last decade, I'll ask myself? Whoosh.

The Bush Administration is putting out a new threat assessment today. It's called the National Intelligence Estimate. Anybody who read any of the good Iraq books - I'm thinking Cobra II, Hubris, State of Denial, among others - knows that the NIE can be totally rigged by the White House. Early reports indicate it will say Iraq is a hobted of Al-Qaida training and plotting. If it's true, we have only one person to thank: GEORGE W. BUSH. Please, please, please, can't we fire this man? Where's the old, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" spirit that made this country independent and great? Why do we let him roll us day after day? My experience as a business owner taught me that those who I hire I can also fire. Well, we the people are the business owners here. We hired him, we can fire him.

MONDAY, JULY 16 ... Two people not on my radar are VICTORIA BECKHAM and her husband, the soccer player, DAVID BECKHAM. I know about them largely because they are wallpaper on two favorite celebutrash websites, TMZ.com and perezhilton.com. She always looks like a cross between Zoolander and a Fembot. Nonetheless, I can't wait to watch or record the NBC special tonight that chronicles the arrival in Beverly Hills, California, of Mrs. Beckham. It sounds like some of the most horrible television ever, and therefore irresistible.

Since I scare easily, I have to say the stock market is beginning to scare me. It's doing so well. If it doesn't fall over from its own weight it could hit 14,000 this week. Will it last? Will it thrive? Will it go boom? That's the scary part.

EARLIER... ANNA QUINDLEN's "memo to Hillary" in the new NEWSWEEK is good reading, except she should have it this way: OBAMA-CLINTON.

Or OBAMA-EDWARDS, though I doubt JOHN EDWARDS is keen on doing No. 2 again. I hope he'll prevail in the primaries, though, and give us an EDWARDS-OBAMA ticket.

Launched my birthday celebration week last night at The Palm and decided that if it's possible their martinis are just too big. Perhaps that's the point. Like their steaks and lobsters, those bowls of ice cold vodka are man sized, and I'm just a little girl. Nonetheless, a good good time. As unhealthy as it may be, I love their platter of half fried chips and half hashed browns. Also loved that friends at an adjacent table thought one of my two young male escorts was my date. For me to know and no one else to find out. However, I will say this: the other handsome young man was my son.

The Palm was packed.

We ended the evening at Milano, which was quiet - for them. Here's some restaurant news: Milano will not close for renovation this summer, as was originally planned. But The Palm will close for August and September, to complete the outdoor dining terrace work that's now underway and also to do some minor fix-ups inside. Get over there now for a Palm fix before the closing.

For my birthday I am giving myself a complete car wash, wax and detailing. Once upon a time it was trinkets from Cartier and a tin of beluga from Petrossian, but now a clean car and a full tank of gas feels as rich as CARLOS SLIM.

Finally got around to reading the much talked about Washington City Paper story about Georgetown bars. I like the City Paper, but this story is a snoozer. It so completely misses the larger scene. It focuses on one little sliver of idiotic, irrelevant preppy scum, who are not on the main radar, and misses a better story: that more adults are actually enjoying a night out at local pubs and bistros. With the kids grown, the people who made Georgetown rock 20-25 years ago are returning to the watering holes for some catching up. Yes, the preppy dreck are out there, but they don't define Georgetown nightlife anymore. Actually, not since about 1965. About all they contribute to Georgetown is pre-dawn vomit on the sidewalks. I mean, who wants them? Who needs them? They want to be or do PARIS HILTON, and it's b-o-r-i-n-g . Keep them out of Georgetown, please. Send them to Clarendon, or Alexandria.

Because there are preppies, and then there are preppy scum, and the distinction is important, at Nathans we turn away popped collars, we execute double popped collars, and people in flip flops and Lily dresses get locked in a cage on the roof.

In the spirit of full disclosure: I own Lily. But not Lily dresses. There's a difference.

SUNDAY, JULY 15 ... Well, we are done with the lacrosse tournaments for the summer. Four in all since June and all but one went well. Today the team wrapped up the tourney season on a hot, dusty and windy field in a park in Maryland's Hunt Valley, near Timonium Race Track. They won 6-4. In all we drove about 250 miles, must of it highway, but also got off on some back roads and saw beautiful countryside. It is a lovely part of the region. Also disccovered - thanks to Zagat - a cool bakery/sandwich shop/cafe called Stone Mill. Liked it a lot.

I've been out of touch and have no idea what's happening in the world, but hope it is no more or less than tangled in chaos than it was on Friday evening. What I want to do is catch up on the McCain campaign meltdown, among other stories. First, though, a good dinner out on the town.

EARLIER... Off for another lacrosse tournament. But last night we got in a nice stop at the French Embassy for their annual Bastille Day celebration. Tables everywhere brimming with smoked salmon, seafood terrine, charcuterie, croque monsieur, fromage, fruit, sweets. The beverages had their tables, too: a Ricard bar, Kronenbourg beer, wines ranging from Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay to, naturally, champagne. A long line of well wishers waited patiently to have a moment to say farewell to ambssador JEAN-DAVID LEVITTE, who heads back to Paris to a position in the new government of President NICOLAS SARKOZY. The word is the new ambassador, who arrives in August, will live a bachelor existence. He is separated from his wife, who will remain in France. That should put the socialite meddlers and matchmakers in a frenzy.

It's 7 a.m. Time to get on the Beltway.

SATURDAY, JULY 14 ... Email to me today from DEBORAH JEANE PALFREY, the "DC Madam." Make of it what you will:

"FYI (for what it may be worth) I can tell you that Harlan Ullman’s name is splattered throughout the phone records. In addition, I remember taking a few checks from him over time. -Jeane"

Here's Harlan's response: "no comment--except those were her calls, not mine"

In an interview with me at The Q&A Cafe, available on youtube.com, he denied having any connection to Ms. Palfrey or her escort business. You can also watch Ms. Palfrey's Q&A if you click on the pic to the right.

EARLIER... It seems we survived Friday the 13th. It never scares me much. It's the little daily superstitions that hobble more.

We're off to northern Baltimore, but here's something to do today with Maryland in mind. It's what we did last night. Get some Chespeake Bay jumbo lump crabmeat (we found it at Black Salt on MacArthur Blvd.) and make crab cakes. All you need is a little Hellman's Mayonaise, some diced onion and green pepper, a dust of bread crumbs, and maybe a little Old Bay seasoning. Gently blend and mold, saute in claified butter (also available at Black Salt) until heated through with a caramel brown on the outside. Serve with lemon wedges, cole slaw, roasted potatoes. Wash down with beer or a very chilled Grand Cru Chablis (at MacArthur Liquors, next door to Black Salt). I served French champagne, for the eve of Bastille Day.

Do not buy crab meat unless it is from Maryland. That's key.

FRIDAY, JULY 13 ... We have to be north of Baltimore for a 9 am lacrosse game tomorrow, which means rising at 6, hitting the road at 7, and writing for tomorrow tonight. It's a two day tournament; 5 games at 3 locations. The New York Times today had a good front page story about lacrosse, focusing on the sport's native America roots. Read it at Lacrosse. As a board member of the foundation that most directly celebrates the American indian heritage of lacrosse, The Tewaaraton Foundation, I was particularly pleased with the prominence and thoroughness of the story. Each year we give out awards that are equivalent to the Heisman, including two to the top male and female native American players. The Times story makes clear that lacrosse is much more than a sport of prep schools and the elite.

I got a phone call today from a dear and long-time friend, MARK TINKER, who is a successful network television producer, director and writer. We go way back, having met in l980-something at the Malliouhana resort on Anguilla, which once upon a time felt like my home away from home. Mark is the executive producer/director of "John from Cincinnati" on HBO, but is now getting started on the spin-off of "Grey's Anatomy." I told him I got hooked on "John" when the kid broke his neck and lived to walk, talk and surf again. Along the way in his career, Mark was the executive producer of "Deadwood," and "NYPD Blue," "St. Elsewhere," and co-executive producer of "L.A. Law," among many other series and shows and movies. He's a busy guy. Yes, he is the son of GRANT TINKER, a network television legend, who long ago paved the way for me to become Washington Bureau Chief of USA Today the Television Show, an episode in my life that should be a Broadway musical.

Mark and I did a lot of catching up, he gave me good advice regarding the future of The Q&A Cafe as a TV show, and said that one thing so many say that confounds me to the max. When I pointed out, as I probably do too often to my patient friends, that Nathans is the Titantic, and that I will be jobless and adrift in 21 months, Mark said, "I think you'll be okay." How does he know that? How does anyone know that? I don't feel it at all. What I see is unemployment, no insurance, and almost a million dollars of Nathans debt, plus my son beginning his junior year of high school with college on the horizon. That doesn't feel like being okay. I love that Mark has such faith in me. Where? How? When? Short of a winning lottery ticket, I don't see how I'm going to spin this miracle, but I'll try.

Thank you to BRUCE DEPUYT, who invited me onto his NewsChannel 8 show today to talk about sex and scandal and politics. I loved his initial email, because the subject said only "sex." I wrote back and said, "I'm yours." I wore my $9.99 pale blue v-neck long-sleeved knit shirt form the Target of Japan, because sincere blue seemed right for talking about sex scandals. My entire wardrobe is either very old, deeply discounted, or cheap from the start.

SO ...off to the lacrosse fields at the crack of dawn, and then off to the French Embassy for their Bastille Day party at sunset.

EARLIER... The pleasure of eating lunch at good restaurants was introduced to me in 1972 when I worked at Time Magazine in New York. Whether the publication was Time, Life, Sports Illustrated or Fortune, the culture in the Time-Life Building on 6th Avenue was to go to lunch. There was no honor in having a sandwich at your desk. Actually, about the only time anyone ate in the office was a bagel from the cart that rolled through the hallways around 10:30 am (you could also get a desk-side shoeshine and buy a lottery ticket) or the occasions when a really late closing was catered. Dining well was what you did at Time Inc., between chasing down stories and writing with a certain panache. Everyone had an expense account, including a lowly entry-level reporter like me, and while the expense account was officially for wining and dining "sources," the sources were often a colleague or two. But this wasn't wasted corporate money. Many good story ideas were hatched over a vintage bottle of wine and a grilled Cote de Boeuf at Rene Pujol or one of its neighbor French bistros along West 51st Street. I also loved Pearl's, a pioneering NYC haute Chinese a block or two over.

When I got to CBS News the restaurant lunch habit was still in play, including a bottle of wine with the meal, but there were days of breaking news, especially Vietnam War or Watergate-variety, where a sandwich at the desk or a quick bite in the basement commissary were the only rational options. Still, lunch was a two hour affair. Typically I would use the first hour to go to a nearby indoor competition size pool, swim 50 laps, sauna, dry-off, dress and then hook up with colleagues for an hour lunch, which was either French or Japanese. In 1972-73 sushi and sashimi were the new rage. We also had a few favorite Irish pubs where we'd go for stew and soda bread. We'd also explore new places. Good, interesting food was a hobby and a relaxing break from the stress of the day. Sometimes we'd compete with each other to target a new cool place to eat. Other times we'd collectively gorge at the Sabrett's hotdog wagon outside on 57th Street or go to Rocco's sandwich shop for genuine Italian subs.

Cooking didn't enter my life until the summer of 1975, when I took a year off from network news to crew on a 75 foot Herreshoff NY 50 sailboat in the West Indies. We used our earnings to eat at good restaurants ashore in the Virgin Islands and Lesser Antilles. We had favorites from Grenada to San Juan, but some of the best eating was on St. Barth's (so innocent and unravaged by fashion back then) and on St. Thomas. We were a three-person crew: captain, cook and mate. I was the mate, or deckhand. Our cook was terrific, but then one day he disappeared and with the owner on board with 5 guests I was pressed into service as "cook." Yes, some sexism there, but we weren't going to tap the captain. For seven days I had to produce three deluxe meals daily and canapes for cocktails. For ever after I have cherished The Joy of Cooking, because it got me through that week. Not only was I cooking the meals, but sometimes I was cooking the meals in the narrow, cramped galley with the boat healed over at a steep angle. Then we'd tack and it be would heeled over in the other direction. Try working sauces, sautes and tossed salad with those challenges.

Still, the experiences taught me to love a good lunch and to love to cook.

THURSDAY, JULY 12 ... A night out on the town which, admittedly, is not my usual M.O., preferring almost always to stay at home in my jammies and slippers rather than stand stranded in loud, large cocktail parties where the only beverages are promotional drinks and the occasional food amounts to quarter size pita triangles with a chunk of tomato and a dab of avocado. But then I say to myself, "You gotta go out, sometimes." Tonight it paid off, because at the first party I talked with Virginia's former governor, MARK WARNER, who gladly, happily and enthusiastically accepted an invitation to appear at The Q&A Cafe. I'd been working on him for a while, with a significant assist from MAME REILEY.

After that I was ready to head home. But then I talked for a moment with KATHLEEN MATTHEWS, the former Channel 7 news anchor who now runs communications for all of the Marriott empire. Talk about moving up! Plus, she he loves the job. Once again I broached the subject of J. WILLARD MARRIOTT, JR., appearing at The Q&A Cafe. Kathleen said if she could do the interview she could probably make it happen, but I had to politely decline that option. Nothing against Kathleen, but while I may not be the best interviewer, or famous, The Q&A Cafe is my little baby and the interviews have gone okay, so far. They aren't like anybody else's interviews, they are sometimes awkward, but most of the time we land a good conversation with the guest, and even pull out a few revelations. If I start now to let other people do the interviews I essentially give away the show. No, no, no.

I've realized in the last few weeks of negotiating with various parties who are interested in The Q&A Cafe - to put it on TV, to put it on the web, to put it here or there or everywhere - is that I need a business manager or agent; someone who sees the whole landscape: where we are now, where we can go. I have my vision, and its good, about the future of this endeavor, but I have no business sense. Therefore I say "no" to everything because since I can't trust my own judgment I will not - due to past scorchings - trust the promises of others. I briefly let a management company run Nathans for me and they, in very short order, tried to kill The Q&A Cafe, rung up bank debt for which I was personally liable, prompted a huge lawsuit from a fired employee, and deferred their management fee until the money owed was so large they almost grabbed the business. At one point they approached me to say they could pull together a group of investors to take charge of Nathans but I had to agree to have no say in the management. Oh, right.

They got 86'd, and I have not since signed anything with anyone. Add to my signing phobia the fact that the lawyer I inherited with the business had me sign a personal guaranty on the lease which has become basically a noose round my neck. I had no idea what it was at the time. Now I know in triplicate.

See how parties stir me up? From that first party I went to a second party, at the Four Seasons Hotel, where I listened to young women argue about MICHAEL STRANGE and something she wrote that brands Washington as a town for "marrieds only" and how unmarried women, especially, are marginalized. Duh?

This is the way I like to start the day: with a fresh booking. This morning I got confirmation that CONNIE SCHULTZ will appear for an interview at The Q&A Cafe on Thursday, October 4. I'm thrilled. She has written a terrific and clever book, "...and His Lovely Wife," which is her take on the campaign trail and life married to a politician - Ohio democrat SHERROD BROWN, who was elected to the Senate last year. Connie has two feet of her own to stand on: she won a Pulitzer for her columns in The Cleveland Plain Dealer. It's gonna be a good conversation.

Now, if I can get just one more today. There are so many requests out there, being analyzed and vetted by gatekeepers galore.

This is how I keep my mind off the maddening blather out of the Bush White House that we are making progress in Iraq. Is there anyone with a pulse who listens? Can't we fire this guy? How is it that Clinton could be impeached for sex but Congress is lame about impeaching Bush, who's family-avenging war has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans? Where is the logic? Sex is an impeachable offense but dangerous ignorance is not?

Seriously. I have to ignore the news because it is too upsetting. However, I do hope that CINDY SHEEHAN does run for office and does defeat NANCY PELOSI, who has failed, so far, at bringing any meaningful force to her job as Speaker of the House. From where I sit, it feels like the White House ignores her entirely. She shouldn't allow that.

BIG NEWS: The Q&A Cafe mailing list today reached 901. These all are people who asked to be on the list. I didn't game it or buy it from another source. Thank you to all 901 of you. Soon I will send an email out listing the lunches for the first part of the fall.

TUESDAY, JULY 10 ... Tuesday nights at Nathans are becoming so much fun. Bartenders Matt and Jesse are a good pair and together they attract an interesting mix of old school and new school bar clientele. I go down with my son and we sit at the bar for dinner, enjoying the back and forth of the bartenders and their friends. It is the finest spirit of camaraderie, and something I think that is best served in a sole proprietor pub like Nathans. It is all your best bar fantasies come to life, plus good food and quality wine and spirits. There's a lot of joking and flirting. Men want to be the bartenders best friends and the women want to be their best ... you know.

When Spencer and I sit there side by side I know I am showing him a part of his father, because his father created this very scene and was the master of casual but cool repartee at the bar. Howard was always just intimate enough, but never too intimate with the customers. He charmed them, he made them feel he had their attention, and then he disappeared. He wasn't in the room to become their pals. That was the manager's job. He wanted to orchestrate a good time for them, be entertaining, be the elegant and charming host, and then get off the stage and back to his own private world. He did it without effort and the customer always was left feeling as if Howard had eyes only for him or her.

On the occasions when I witnessed the performance I was in awe. There was a significant part of his personality that was out-directed to others. He didn't want or need the moment to be about him. Sure, he wore the tailored Savile row suit just so, the Turnbull & Asser shirt just so, the Hermes tie, the Gucci slip on, the hair swept back, and all of it pulled together in a tight, graceful and lean 6' 3". Whether he liked it or not, if he was in a room he was the room. He was well read, knew the world, knew the players, knew the game, and could talk it low with the high and high with the low. That was the appeal. He had entrenched manners, a conductor's timing and a Vegas sense of humor. DAMON RUNYON would have had to create him if he didn't already it exist.

Howard appealed to the bar crowd because he could talk the track, football, basketball, Wall Street, landscape architects, the new Bordeaux, sailboats, fast cars, politics, books, art, world history, high society, low society, princesses and hookers.

I was never like that, and I will never be like that. Too shy. Too reticent. But I certainly relished his performance. Tonight reminded me of him, and in the best way. If he'd walked into Nathans tonight he would recognize the place, and then asked, "Who's that old lady at the end of the bar who looks like my wife?" Ha Ha Ha.

None of this would be happening, or at least appreciated by me, were it not for the glorious smoking ban. The bar is now a habitable place. A customer can eat, drink, talk and breath.

EARLIER... We're off and running with the booking for the fall '07 season of The Q&A Cafe. Today DAN RATHER confirmed to appear on Wednesday, September 26, which therefore becomes the first lunch of post-summer. We'll start taking reservations mid-August. Stay tuned. If you are on the mailing list you will be the first notified for reservations. Also confirmed is "Richistan," author ROBERT FRANK. I love that book. Love it.

EARLIER... The "DC Madam" is very much back in the news today. DEBORAH JEANE PALFREY, freed from a restraining order, posted the phone records of her escort service on her website, and already one U.S. Senator has had to come clean with the revelation he was a client. His name is DAVID VITTER, a republican, who immediately wrapped himself in God and family. Read his timely confession and you'll know why I never ever ever book Hill office holders to appear at The Q&A Cafe.

I'm on Palfrey's email list, and have been receiving regular updates leading up to the court decision. I've also been regularly encouraging her to simply "name names."

Palfrey's appearance at The Q&A Cafe is available at Q&A Cafe TV, or click on the picture to the right. It will take you there.

We've begun to book guests for the new Fall season of The Q&A Cafe, which begins on Wednesday, September 26. Whether it will be webcast is still unknown, but JON MOSS and I sit down for final negotiations with IMG today. I hope we continue working with them, because it's been a good relationship, but if we can't cut a deal it is back to zero.

MONDAY, JULY 9 ... We're back from New Jersey but it might as well be a return from outer space. That's how cut off I felt from news and events over the past few days. No complaint. It's a lot of fun to watch my son and his friends play lacrosse. Also, the weather was dry, sunny and quite warm. I'll take that any day over cold, wet and windy. Plus, we had so much good food between games. The drive back was a headache, due largely to road work on Route 95 and being caught amongst the returnees from a weekend at the beach. Long stretches in which we'd fly and then equally long stretches in which we'd inch along bumper to bumper, with all that expensive gas churning fumes into the air.

Back home now to continue the search for a sponsor/sponsors/advertisers for The Q&A Cafe on television. If I can find the sponsors, this will happen. I need sponsors in order to hire and pay a crew to shoot and edit the lunches. This money will not go into my pocket, alas. But without some sponsorship it will no longer be possible to webcast the lunches, to put clips on youtube or to get the show on real TV. (Unless I shoot them myself, which is outside the box but still possible). We've got a good offer pending, but they want me to find the sponsor.

Try to grab a copy of New York Magazine to read the cover story on KATIE COURIC. It's her side of the story about how it's going at CBS News. I still think her best move would have been to start her own production company and go up against OPRAH in the day-time talk show market, where there is a ton of money to be made. But LES MOONVES offered a pretty fat paycheck, too, plus the prestige of anchoring an evening news broadcast. But who watches them anymore who is under age 70? Even Katie can't define who's in the audience.

Recently I ran into an old CBS News colleague over lunch. He's still there. He said morale is very low, there's a lot of unhappiness, and a lot of anxiety. But he's only one point of view.

If The Q&A Cafe had just one fraction of a percent of the sponsorship that is routine at the networks we could fund our shows for the next decade.

FRIDAY, JULY 6 ... Greetings from somewhere outside Princeton, NJ, where we are at yet another lacrosse tournament. There are many upsides. My darling boy gets to play lots and lots of lacrosse. I get to watch him. The region is a micro-climate that makes it like a mini-New England but close to DC. And we get to indulge in some seriously good eating. There's DeLorenzo's Tomato Pies in Trenton, perhaps the only U.S. restaurant to earn a 27 from Zagat but not have a customer toilet. The pizza, however, is the best anywhere. There's Dilly's burger stand, in Center Bridge, Pa., Bucks County, with very good burgers and shakes. There's Hoagie Haven in Princeton, with ... you guessed it. Lawrenceville, a few miles up Route 206, as some of the best restaurants in the state, including especially The Lawrenceville Inn and Vidalia. What I love about these places, apart from the excellent food, is that they are Bring Your Own Wine.

Princeton is home to some of the best ice cream in the Mid Atlantic - at Bent Spoon and Halo. Today I slurped up a cup of Organic Watermelon Sorbet at Bent Spoon. Spencer had the blood orange sorbet, plus kiwi. I got a delicious coffee at Small World Coffee, a "ma" shop that also serves up world class blueberry muffins. PJ's Pancake House has made me a buckwheat pancake addict, happily. Also, sometimes at PJ's, I get to watch BILL FRIST hand feed himself a big tube of sausage.

Tonight we dined at The Ferry House. Good meal, but particularly loved the crab cocktail, which featured giant chunks of lump meat on a "bed" of mushed avocado, dressed with lime and some piquant. It worked. It worked overtime.

My advice: come to Princeton ... and eat.

Too good to be true. "It's chilling to read the NYTimes account this morning which has more background on the London/Glasgow terrorist attacks. It recalls that old phrase, "hide in plain sight." A new version might be, "find trust where it is easily given." The bad guys game us in ways you'd think we could predict, but why would we? Why would we expect to find terrorists among the doctors? Will the next time be school teachers? Air traffic controllers? Pilots? Police? It won't be lawyers or cab drivers or politicians, because we don't trust them.

People who came in contact with the British terrorists said they spoke English well, dressed well, had their papers in order, British passports, behaved as normal members of society, and never stirred any suspicion. Background checks brought up nothing. In other words, they were well-educated, productive and compatible members of the community. Except they wanted to kill us.

Are they here? Now? It's possible. We know they had to come up with another way to gain the advantage over us. We guard access to the jets now, but there are so many other ways in which we're vulnerable. Could some Metro drivers be Al-Qaeda, and one day load a bus with explosives, drive it into the middle of rush hour and blow it up? Could a group of elementary school teachers be plotting suicide missions? Could a librarian be the mastermind of a cell? Will they look Middle Eastern? Not necessarily. The bad guys know our prejudices. We trust the people who look like us.

I don't want to think about it too much, because I scare myself, become paranoid, begin to see suspicious elements everywhere.

THURSDAY, JULY 5 ... One more rant before this day of apparent whining is done for. It has to do with the intersection of Wisconsin and M Streets and the late DC Police Reserve Officer JOSEPH POZELL. There is an effort underway to rename the intersection in Joe's honor. That's fine. It's a sweet gestsure. But please let me make a suggestion that would actually honor what Joe stood for: put a traffic cop back in the intersection. What I remember about Joe is him being in that intersection during all the prime time moments, doing a job that needed to be done: making sense of the traffic and pedestrian chaos that comes with being the most important crossroads in the most powerful city on the planet. It is insulting that the city council and police don't recognize the value of what Joe did by putting another cop in his shoes.

They can have all the ceremonies they want. Make all the hoopla about the special gloves Joe wore. They can put his name on street signs and carve it in granite - but what does all that mean if they don't also underscore the value of his job by keeping it - the job, and therefore the spirit of the man - alive?

Speaking of the authorities...

It takes all my will power, common sense, maturity and sense of self-preservation NOT to get into smackdowns with the parking ticket guys (the exception being one actually human fellow in Georgetown). But, really, can't the city teach them friendliness and courtesy - and some occasional rational judgment - rather than only to robotically crank out tickets? Today I'm parked in mid-town, and return just as the meter is up. The guy is approaching the car in one direction, as I approach in another. He sees me. I shout out to him, "here I am." He has not entered any information. I get to the car, unlock and open the door, and he says, not smiling, not making eye contact, "I still have to issue a ticket." No, he didn't have to. And even if he had to, can't they say "I'm sorry," or "I hate to do this," or "I wish the rules we have to follow weren't so unyielding and imbicilic?" At least then I would feel we are on the same planet, or that both of us are humans.

The best thing he could have said was, "Since clearly you raced back, I'll give you a break this time."

And please please please don't tell me I can go to traffic court and fight the ticket, or write to the DMV and protest the ticket. The stories are legion of well-meaning and innocent citizens being reduced to dust by the process of fighting a parking ticket. Four months ago, parked at one of the new time slip meters on M Street, I had a slip in my window that was good until 3:50 pm. I returned at 3:45 and found a ticket under the windshield that was issued ten minutes earlier. I wrote a letter of protest to the DMV, including the ticket and a photo copy of my parking slip. It's still listed online as being outstanding. How fair is that?

But here's a positive ticket story. I use Yates gym. For whatever good reason, I parked briefly at the upper lot outside the main entrance about a month go. As reported here, I got a ticket for $125. I wrote a letter of polite protest, took it personally to the Georgetown University traffic office, handed it to the woman, who read it and said, "I'll reduce it to a warning." That WAS fair.

EARLIER...Hats off to the New York Times food critic for making up top reference to a feature of modern restaurants that drives me out the door never to return again. FRANK BRUNI wrote this about a new Manhattan eatery: "Talking with tablemates at Mercat can be like watching an in-flight movie when you haven't purchased the earphones. You get the gist of things, but it requires lip-reading, guesswork and faith." The reason? Cause the restaurant is too damned loud. He goes on about Mercat and others into this trend who, "either engineer, or fail to remedy, a volume of sound that crosses far over the line between pulse-quickening and brain-rattling."

Touche, Frank Bruni, and thank you very much.

I am so tired of restaurants that think loud is appealing. They aren't discos, where I want my ears jammed with sound. They are restaurants, where I want all my senses to have balance and calm so that I might better savor the experience of tasting my food and drinking and talking to, and especially hearing, my companions. I know noise is fashionable in new eateries, but it's a drag and ultimately - for me, at least - ruins the experience. Like smoking, which is so wonderfully gone in DC.

Regarding smoking, what I hear from the staff at Nathans is that the main impact of the smoking ban is felt between the hours of 3:30 and 5. That seems to be when the smokers used to come to the bar. Now they don't, and the day bartender feels the pinch. Otherwise, it seems to be a popular development. I, for one, have been in Nathans bar more since January than in the last 10 years. It's now a pleasure to be in the room, to sit and have a meal. And, in Nathans dining room it is possible to hear each other without shouting. The din is pleasant, not ear-crushing like a jet engine.

FOURTH OF JULY ... There's a reason Nathans serves fresh, house-made potato chips. I am a potato chip fiend. Today, naturally, is one of the stations of the cross for hard core potato chip eaters. Today and most of the other summer holidays, plus stand-out sports events, and picnics. If I didn't have some discipline I would eat chips daily (I probably do), and more than twice a day. I particularly like potato chips with sandwiches. Restaurants that serve fries instead of chips with sandwiches are just not on my radar. (Nathans does this, and it makes me crazy, but the staff tell me that's what the customers want). A fry is okay with a burger, but with almost any other sandwich - for me - it has to be a light, crispy, not greasy chip.

A BLT or a club sandwich, or shaved white meat turkey with mayo sandwich, egg salad and olives sandwich, or a good (toasty &buttery) grilled cheese, plus a hand full of chips and glass of milk or fresh lemonade = perfection. There's more. I like to make a sandwich of ripe banana with potato chips on whole wheat. Yum. Also, peanut butter with crushed potato chips on whole wheat. Also a yum.

I also eat chips right out of the bag. I have been known pull into out of the way places in Pennsylvania to get bags of fresh Herr's potato chips, which started in Lancaster in the 1940s. Pennsylvania has a lot of great chips. Just as with popcorn at the movie theater, fresh matters with potato chips. Lay's Classic can satisfy a craving, also. When I'm feeling virtuous and sane, it's Baked Lay's.

Of all the chips I've tried, the absolute champ to me is Charles Chips. This goes back to childhood when, like the milk, the doughnuts, and the bread, the Charles Chips got delivered to the door by a man in a starched suit who drove a big van. They came in a big tin (still do), and it was pure joy to pop that tin, tear open the bag and pull out a big perfect chip. They still exist, but are harder to find, and there are some imitators. You have to be careful. I prefer to order them from the Vermont Country Store. Of course, when I order them I have to eat them .... so.

In addition to liking chips with milk and sandwiches, I also like them with a martini. It's the contrast of the salt and grease and crisp with the austerity and bite of the vodka. I've been known, too, to take some caviar and Scottish salmon into Nathans to have ON the house-made chips, along with a dab of sour cream and capers, chopped egg, diced onion. This technique goes really well with Dom Perignon, too.

Today I will have a hot dog, a hamburger, some chips and probably a beer. We've been invited to some July 4th parties, but I'm feeling stay-at-home, lowkey, maybe walk to the waterfront, or maybe park in the hammock and listen to the boom boom booms.

Whatever you do, have a happy time celebrating America's 231st birthday.

TUESDAY, JULY 3 ... From an 8 a.m. meeting downtown that ran for 90 minutes, plus two trips to Bethesda for computer matters, and the talk to students at A.U. about the "art of the interview," and an afternoon meeting at the Four Seasons, plus getting the child to his job and the dog to the groomers, and a hit on the grocery store, and some business at the bank, plus Nathans, there has been no down time today. It does not feel like the eve of a lazy holiday in July. My plan is to go somewhere and have a triple cold vodka martini and think about the rest of it.

As for the commuting of SCOOTER LIBBY's jail sentence, all I can say is you know there will be a pardon down the road.

We still need sponsors, btw. Don't you want your name in the credits of The Q&A Cafe? "This broadcast made possible by a generous contribution from (YOUR NAME HERE). It's possible, you know.

MONDAY, JULY 2 ... It's a pleasure to accept the nice comments I've received - some random, some from friends - about popping up on Channel 9's 11 o'clock news Saturday regarding the "suspicious package" in front of the Georgetown mall. It was a live interview with CINDY PENA, one of WUSA's foot soldiers of fundamental street reporting. You have no idea how hard she works for the money; Cindy and all other local reporters. The beat is like a tilt-a-whirl. Be here, be there, be back here, go over there, and there and there.

Here's the behind the scenes: whenever I see a local TV news truck I all but roll myself in front of their tires. I am a moth to the flame for two purposes. 1., Even as "the interviewee," I feel back in the business I know and love; 2., If the pop gets Nathans name on the screen, I win (unless it's about rats or roaches). I am a media whore for my business. Therefore, when Spencer and I walked past the media pack on our way home after the incident, and Cindy, standing outside her satellite truck, asked, "Carol, will you do a live shot with me?" I said, "If you have some lip gloss, I'm yours." That's how it is for me. My big mouth can be bought for lip gloss and a live shot.

EARLIER...The radio was fun this morning but was I surprised to learn my gig would be not 15 minutes but close to two hours. On top of that, it was necessary to settle in with TONY KORNHEISER's regular posse. They play a game of extreme "talk," that, like Seinfeld, is not really about anything but still has to be timely, trendy, smart, amusing and fast. Like almost any team game, you learn while you play. Thank God, DAVID BURD was coach. He fills in now for Tony for six months, until Monday Night Football wraps for its season. I hope David will have me back. Who knows? I have to be less moronic next time. What ever possessed me to say some of the things I said? They came out of my mouth as if from another brain. Maybe it was the Diet Pepsi and the pretzel sticks handed out by producer MARC STERNE, who doubles as cockney "Nigel." That's interesting cuisine for 8:30 in the morning.

Otherwise, gosh what a lovely day.

Get this: last night my son made dinner. Out of the blue, when we hit the market for staples, he asked if we could get some Chilean sea bass, mango, tomato, red pepper, Balsamic vinegar and limes. Back home, he sauteed the sea bass, made a topping out of the other ingredients and, voila, dinner. Very delicious. I may move his recipe down to the menu at Nathans. It was a lovely dish for a summer evening.

That's all for now. We're off to try out a new restaurant that opens later this week and that I'm sworn to keep secret. Here are some clues: GWYNETH PALTROW, criminal law and potatoes.

SUNDAY, JULY 1 ...A particularly peculiar night at Nathans Saturday evening, due to the place being "locked down" by police and fire after reports of a "suspicious package" in the general vicinity of the mall that's on the south side of M between Wisconsin Avenue and Potomac Street. I've been locked out of Nathans before, when the manhole covers exploded and police cordoned off our entire block, but this is my first official lock down. As I said to almost anyone who listened to me, consider the people coming out of the new BRUCE WILLIS film two blocks down at the Loews. They would think they walked into the movie. There were that many fire trucks, police cars, hazmat units, K9 units and God knows what else deployed to our relatively compact intersection, all with lights flashing and whirling. There were guys in bomb suits. It was a Hollywood caliber scene. Fortunately it also turned out to be a false alarm.

Spencer and I, back from his lacrosse tournament, did the unusual thing of heading down to Nathans for dinner. This was mainly because the Washington Bayhawks lacrosse team would be there after their (losing) game to Rochester at Georgetown University. It's always fun at Nathans when the place is packed with handsome athletes. Friends who are fans were there, too. The place rocked.

Half way into dinner I noticed a hook and ladder outside. This could have been 8:45-9 o'clock. I mentioned it to the folks at my table but no one paid me much mind. When some cop cars arrived, I asked floor manager STUART WADE if he would please find out if it was anything we needed to be concerned about. He returned and whispered in my ear, "there is a suspicious back pack a block down. They are evacuating the area."

From the windows we saw people moving pretty much as they usually do on a Saturday night in Georgetown. There was no panic, no sense of urgency. I went outside myself, found a police officer, and asked a few questions. He said, "we're trying to keep everyone calm. We think there is a bomb down there," gesturing in the direction of the mall. I asked if 2nd District CMDR. ANDY SOLBERG was around, and was told he was in Boston. Later, I found a higher ranking officer. I asked if Chief CATHY LANIER would be on the scene. He said, "No, I certainly hope not, because if she comes here then we will have a problem." Wow. Curious. Did I catch a whiff of cop unrest?

Back inside Nathans it was Saturday night business as usual, 4-5 deep at the bar.

When the streets were cleared of all civilians, the police told me, "we may have to evacuate your customers. We don't know yet." We quieted the room and I made a brief announcement. "If we do get evcuated, please be calm and close out your tabs." Ha ha. Always the joker. Moments later, police had us close our doors and said no one could leave. The customers were cool about it. One woman was unnerved because her teenage daughter was somewhere outside. In the dining room, two tables of visitors from Northern Ireland took it in stride. The lacrosse players partied on. A friend at Nathans, who is a former Secret Service agent, called the super secret command center and told me, "they know nothing about it." A good sign or a bad sign? Take your pick.

By 10:45, in time for the 11 o'clock news, police gave the all clear. Some people departed, but more people stayed to eat and drink. Spencer and I headed home, at last.

An interesting note is that when I called both Channel 4 and The Washington Post to find out whether they had more information, neither knew very much about the event. The Channel 4 assignment editor at first seemed confused by what I was saying. (Maybe that was my fault???) She said, "are you calling about Dulles? All our crews and our reporter are at Dulles." "What happened at Dulles?" I asked. She said they were doing a Glasgow react story. MARTY WEIL at the Post didn't know anything, either. This is typical for a Saturday night in the main stream news biz. For WRC, they had one crew and that crew was at Dulles. For the Post, the Sunday paper was virtually put to bed. It would have to be one helluva breaking story to bust everything open. Channel 7 was the only news outlet with a crew at the scene, and their photographer, MATI KERPEN, was in the intersection a good hour before any others arrived. I called ALEX LIKOWSKI, my friend who is a news director at WJLA/NC8, but Alex was only able to confirm what I already knew. CNN called from Atlanta, and the anchor said he was watching Nathans front door on the live feed from Channel 7. I asked, "should I wave?"

By and large, everyone was anxious but calm about the the goings on outside Nathans big windows. After the lockdown, many customers moved to the windows and watched the action, such as it was. Oddly, I was never worried. It seemed to me the police would have been far less casual had the threat been actual. Or at least I hope so. They took almost 30-40 minutes to clear the streets. I would want a much faster and emphatic sweep for a real bomb. Walking home, not meaning to be too dark, I said to Spencer, "a real bomb would have gone off before anyone noticed it was there."

 

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