I'm standing around the temple yesterday morning, waiting for services to begin, feeling virtuous and all, and chewing the fat with a friend from my political life. I'm telling her about the Peaceblog Project, and asking her to write for it. She's enthused. I'm enthused. Her husband walks up.

Background interlude: I like her husband. I've known him for 20-some years, during which time he has declined to hire me on no less than three occasions, and we have both won awards for our work. He is now a nationally sought-after designer and conference speaker. His company has merged, grown, merged and grown again. Did I mention that I like and respect him? I do. A lot. I have a nagging feeling, though, that he doesn't much care for me at all, regardless of our mutual professional respect. And frankly, I'm only guessing and hoping that it is mutual.

So she tells him that I'm telling her about my blog project. He gets a look like he's just stepped in something that was left in the grass by a dyspeptic dog. He says: "Oh, no. Not a blog. People who write blogs have way too much time on their hands. The only thing more pathetic are the people who read them. Who wants to waste time reading someone else's virtual rants?"

OK. He told the unvarnished truth of his own opinion. I can respect that. I'd do the same. Usually do, and usually with the same results: seething resentment and hurt feelings on the part of the person so addressed.

The wife says that she likes reading them. I wander away, feeling like the thing that was stepped in.

I have this suspicion that the reason this man doesn't like me so much is that I'm too much like him. Our birthdays are a day apart. But he came from a prominent local family and is male. I suspect that he looks at me and thinks, there but for the grace of money and gender, go I. And that thought is unsettling. To him, at any rate. Not to me, because, as I said, I actually like this guy. A lot.

Which brings up the next question: Why? Why, if he is usually the same kind of prick that he was in temple yesterday morning, and why, if he continually interviews me, but then doesn't hire me, and why, if I can tell that he barely tolerates social discourse with me, DO I like him?

And that I can't answer. I think because he is so talented, and so funny, and so smart. All the things that make us similar. I think I like him for exactly the same reasons that he doesn't like me: we are very, very much alike. Except that he's real tall, and real good looking and a guy. And rich. And famous. And has his own very successful business. But, you know, except for that....

In the old days, back before G-d invented dirt, and I was a young designer who still had visions of a career standing at a drafting table, getting my hands full of ink and 2-coat rubber cement, only designers (or the paste-up guy at the local printer) could produce newsletters and such.

And then came the desktop computer, and it was OK. And then the desktop computer begat the desktop publishing software industry and everything went to hell in a handbasket.

Suddenly, secretaries were using the words "font" and "typeface" interchangeably. Point sizes were replaced by pitch (on IBMs). People with no eye, queer or otherwise, were able to put together newsletters. They used every typeface installed on their machines . . . in each publication. Because they could. Grayscale tints were placed behind blocks of copy. Black boxes contained knocked-out lettering. Xerox machines replaced printers.

And, in the immortal words of Stan Freeberg, "Everybody Wants to be an Art Director."

But they are not. Many, if not most, people haven't got what it takes to be a good graphic designer, top of the line software notwithstanding. If you don't believe me, just look at how the average man or woman dresses to appear in public. If they can't tell what looks good on themselves, what makes them think they can figure out how to make something look good on a page? Huh? Answer me that!

Here at the hospital, I used to have to work with the nurses who would bring me "designed" newsletters to publish. I would say this to them:

Everybody here went to school for something. You went to school to become a nurse. I went to school and studied design. While I could, theoretically, start an IV, it would be painful and messy, and you would not want me to do it to you. Likewise, although, in theory, you could design a newsletter, it would be messy and painful ...

Now I'm out of the printing business, and in the web publishing business, and you know what? I didn't think it could happen, but it's even fucking worse. There are so many more ways to be incompetent. JPGS that are articulated and bitmapped are presented as quality graphics for me to post.

Can I retire yet and become a luddite?

The following wedding announcement is from the Miami Herald. The names have been abbreviated to prevent any lawsuits against your author. That everything I say is fact makes it hard to charge me with libel, but the new missus has a history of bogus and frivolous lawsuits, not to mention some heavy black arts. Nevertheless, it is with much joy that I present the annotated version.

B******n - E*****t

Ms. B***y B******n and Mr. M*****l S. E*****t were married, 5 September 2003, in an American Indian (this would be after Ms. B had burned through Judaism, Zen Buddhism, New Age Crystals, Witchcraft and Feng Shui. Mr. E is a former Jesuit.) ceremony at their mountain-top home in Ludow, Vermont. (This is at least the third marriage for Ms. B, and the second for Mr. E. Her first two ended in divorce, after she had drained the souls and pocketbooks of her victims husbands. Mr. E's first marriage ended with the death of his wife, of breast cancer. Her funeral was produced and hosted by his then-mistress, Ms. B.) They will honeymoon in Madrid and London in the fall. (Ms. B likes to honeymoon in Madrid. She's done it before, with number 2. Although the adjoining suites in the Plaza during the first Mrs. E's funeral was probably the "real" honeymoon for these two.) Mrs. E*****T is the former B***y (nee Bernyce) G*****n W*******n, daughter of Y****e and B******n G*****n (Aha! Now we know where the latest last name came from. It's important, when one is a grifter, to change names often. Don't know if she changes her social security number, too. It would help with that back taxes thing she was running from for the past dozen years, though.) of Forest Hills, New York, both deceased. (And, no doubt, spinning furiously at what their spawn has become) M*****l S. E*****t, son of M**y and the late M*****l J. E*****t of Bayonne, New Jersey, (and tell me that dad isn't doing some heavy spinning of his own) is the former Associate Vice President Medical Affairs, Executive Director, UM Hospital Division and Chief Information Officer, University of M**** School of Medicine. (Former being the operative word here. He was "asked" to leave rather suddenly, after an argument over the cooked books and the half million dollar make-over his office had, under the Feng Shui direction of his mistress. Marble floors, a five-foot fountain, crown moldings and custom office furniture as the hospital was bleeding red ink. There were reports of loud voices and the words "lying" and "horse shit" being bandied about. Ms. B was asked to leave shortly after her protector.) The couple reside in the Cayman Islands, BWI, where Mr. E*****t is the Chief Executive Officer of the Cayman Islands Health Services Authority. Mrs. E*****t is Director of Marketing for the Cayman Islands Hospital. (Gee, I wonder how she managed that? As the dearly departed Leapin' Larry Greene was wont to say: It ain't who ya know, it's who ya blow. Here in M***i, her skills at writing and promotion were, shall we say, uneven?) The E*****t's (yep, it was printed with the apostrophe. Herald misprint, or grammatical error from the author? Probably the latter. As I said, writing was never her strong point.) will retain their primary residence on Key B******e, Florida. (There is no mention of their combined five adult children. The bride's three are estranged from her, and have been for years. They are: the lesbian chef, the Hollywood sex worker, and the lawyer. The groom's children haven't spoken to him since their mother's funeral. Well, that's not quite true. His daughter was living with him, until Ms. B moved in within the week following his first wife's death. She was actually in the apartment before the body cooled. She couldn't abide having the daughter there, so she threw her out. The son quit speaking to the father shortly after, when Ms. B decided that the son could sell his car to pay for law school, since his veteran's benefits didn't quite make that nut, and Daddy needed all his money to pay for the remodeling of their home. The old Mrs. E's stuff had to be cleared out and her memory effaced as quickly as possible. There is no photo accompanying this announcement, one assumes because the bride -- and is it correct to call a thrice-married, 67-year-old hag a bride?-- does not show up in photographs, nor does she cast a reflection in mirrors. )

I was talking to my cousin the other day, and telling her about my cute, cute, cute little cake mold from Martha Stewart for a beehive-shaped honey cake.

Being Jewish, honey cake is a big deal. At least once a year someone has to make a honey cake. And, universally, everyone else has to pretend to eat it, all the while trying to feed it to the dog and complaining about the density (somewhere near that of a black hole).

I said to Barbara, honey cake is the Jewish equivalent of Christmas fruitcake. It's expected to show up at the appropriate holiday. Everyone makes a fuss. Nobody likes it. They are small, weighty blocks useful as doorstops and little else.

Except, of course, for the one made with Martha's recipe. It is light, almost airy. It is flavorful. I make mine even better than the original with the addition of instant coffee to the batter.

I made the cake complete with the little marzipan bees, once. Since then people have had to settle for the cake alone. I don't know if I'll do the marzipan bees this year or not, since I'm going to have a new audience for the production. (Different family at the holiday table -- new audience, same thing.)

Anyway, I'm off to my parents' house tomorrow and I'm packing up the cake mold, my laptop, a book, a bag of needlepoint, a loose leaf binder full of recipes, a pack of smokes, and a bottle of vodka. Oh yeah, there's clothing in there too, but mostly this is about mental survival.

Wish me well, I'll be gone for a week. I'll try to post, but if I can't, just leave messages on the guest map and peruse that long list of links, over there on your right.

And do NOT feed the dog any more honey cake.

Last night's episode of "Whoopi" just cracked me up. I'm probably the only person in America watching and laughing (except for my darling husband, who laughs at some of the same things I do). But laughing I am. Last night skewered our nation's new color coded warning system for terrorist dangers. They had a code orange, which meant that unattended packages in the lobby required blowing up by the NYC bomb squad. On yellow days, unattended packages are safe.

Maybe I wouldn't have found it quite so humorous if Miami wasn't under an Orange Alert this week. You might think that the front page of our local rag newspaper would feature this notice. You might also think the world is flat. You would be wrong on both counts.

Yesterday, the story was buried somewhere in the newly graphically destroyed redesigned paper in a sidebar on an inner page in the local section under a headline that read (and I am NOT making this up) Miami Under False Code Orange Alert. The story went on to say that the Feds thought we should be under an Orange Alert due to super secret de-coded messages that threatened a terrorist attack on the city. The local FBI thought that the messages were bogus. So they split the difference by issuing the alert and telling everyone "Never mind" like some kind of spy network Emily Litella.

Today, the story made it to an actual body copy story. Same thing. National says that the threats were very specific: day, date and city, but they refuse to actually name names. Or date dates, as the case may be. Just a generic sort of "some time this week" in Miami. Or not.

It's not like I work in a tall building in the county hospital (the designated treatment center in case of a mass casualty event) in the direct flight path of the air port, or anything. I'm not nervous. I'm barely cautious. But every time one of the choppers comes in to the Trauma Center, or a plane comes in for a landing, or even when the MetroRail glides into the station at the foot of this building, my stomach clenches.

This is just great. I have a light in my car that doesn't designate any particular problem, it just lights up when you need to take the car to the mechanic. I call it the random anxiety generator light.

I feel like the FBI has put a random anxiety generator light on the entire city of Miami. Or maybe the FBI is being run by Jewish grandmothers. "I don't want you should worry, but..."

To quote the ever eloquent Jodi, "feh."

* A note. I used to do a radio comedy program on my local NPR station. It was "The Pandemonium Midnight Uprising," and I did a weekly movie review in the person of Rhona Remora. A remora is a fish that sticks (literally, via a patch of like, backwards pointing scales on the top of their heads) to sharks. When the sharks swim, the remoras go along for the ride. When the sharks eat, the remoras get the leftovers. A very little imagination can take you to where I was when I named this character. Anyway, as much as I loved doing Rhona (she has a high, very nasal New York accent, via Brooklyn) she finally went to the cutting room floor when Pande ended. But after seeing a movie this weekend, I had to bring her back. Take it away, Rhona. Cue the cheesy intro music:

Hiya, Rhona Remora here with another Pandemonium Movie Review.

This week I went to see "Once Upon a Time in Mexico." This should not be confused with "Once Upon a Time in the West." Or, for that matter with "Once Upon a Time in America","Lagaan, Once Upon a Time in India", "Once Upon a Time in the Midlands", or even "Once Upon a Time in Beruit."

I'd been told that this "Once Upon a Time" was a sort of remake of the great Clint Eastwood classic, "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly". By sort of I guess they meant that it was a film. I had just seen TGTBTU on cable, so I remembered the plot. There was a lot of money. The good guy (Clint, of course) knew where it was and was going to steal it from the dead guy. The bad guy (Lee Van Cleef) didn't know where it was, but he had the good guy captive and was going to kill him after he had stolen the money from the dead guy, and then steal the money from Clint. The ugly guy (Eli Wallach) was along for comic/violence relief since he was never going to get the money from anyone: good, bad or dead.

There was none of that in OUTIM. Well, no. There was money, and two of the Mariachis got it, one of them was The Drunk, and the other was The Kid. There was plenty of ugly, with both Willem Dafoe and Mickey (O, my god, what happened to his face?) Roarke. Neither of them live, or get the money.

Antonio Banderas gets the money, but then he throws it off the roof of a building so the villagers can grab it. I think. Maybe. Or maybe the money is blowing around in the village square because the building it was in blew up. Hard to tell, because pretty much everything in this movie either blows up or gets shot up.

Even the predictable fruit cart chase ends up not with a fruit cart crash, but with a massacre of harmless fruit. Watermelons exploding from armour piercing bullets. Bananas spattering. Unidentifiable pulp and juice everywhere.

Johnny Depp plays a CIA agent and Ruben Blades a retired FBI agent. They both take a lot of lead. Neither one gets any money, but Ruben gets Mickey Roarke's chihuahua. Depp gets the girl, but she turns out to be bad, and so he gets to turn her into one of the dead.

There's a cameo appearance by someone I think is the director's grandmother. In the middle of one of the never-ending gun fights, an older woman in a military uniform unlike any of the other military uniforms, steps out of a doorway and plugs away with a shotgun. She appears in no other scene. Maybe they were smoking in the cutting room, and she belongs in one of the other "Once Upon a Times."

But that was the movie. Lots of blowing up stuff, lots of bullets flying, lots of body count and a really gross thing happens to Depp. Maybe this should have been called the Pretty, the Dead and the Missing Plot.

Until next week, this is Rhona Remora saying: Remember, in the dark, they ain't all alike.