Dressing Room

Wellington WestPulte Homes has opened a new model at Wellington West in western Howard County.There are 31 one-acre homesites available and two 20-acre parcels. Side-entry garages, brick fronts, libraries, gourmet kitchens and designer baths are standard.Options include morning rooms, sun rooms, master bedroom fireplaces, granite kitchen counter tops, and stainless steel appliances.The Chatsworth starts at $466,990 for 3,933 square feet.The first floor consists of a 16-by-14-foot dining room, 16-by-14-foot living room, 12-by-14-foot library, 16-by-22-foot family room, kitchen with cooking island and nook, laundry room, powder room and a three-car garage.

Calvin, Joan, Oscar, Anne, Ralph, Donna, Marc, Oleg, Paloma and Liz were there, and so was Alli Russel.A stylish woman of a certain age, Russel came to the opening of the new Loehmann's in Timonium yesterday in search of a periwinkle gown for her granddaughter's wedding. "I've been a customer at Loehmann's for more than 30 years, more than 30 years. My husband was still living," she said.Russel never patronized the original Loehmann's, founded by Frieda Loehmann 76 years ago in Brooklyn, but she doesn't think this slicker, brighter, more accessible store is what Frieda had in mind.

Rob Johnson stood by his locker in the Jacksonville Jaguars' dressing room at Memorial Stadium last night resembling the last survivor of the "Lost Patrol."He leaned on a crutch for support, his left ankle encased in a heavy cast and his chin sporting several stitches. Physically, he was hurting. Spiritually, he couldn't have felt better.Making his first NFL start after two years as a seldom-used understudy to Mark Brunell, Johnson gave an inspired performance in guiding the Jaguars to a 28-27, season-opening victory over the Ravens.

I want to convert a seldom-used guest room into a dressing room. The space has a window and two doors, one of which leads to the bath and the other to our bedroom. Can you give me some pointers on planning the conversion so that the dressing room will be both efficient and attractive?The first step involves a lot of counting and measuring. You'll have to tally up the number of shoes, suits, dresses and so on that are to be stored in the converted space. Then you should calculate the size of those parts of the room that are to be used purely for storage, while keeping in mind the need for ample circulation space.

Listen here now, I love the blues, but I never associated it with romance. I mean, it's not make-out music. It's not Barry White. If anything, the blues is about romance-gone-sour, love denied.So anyway, at the Full Moon Saloon Monday night, hot guitarist Mad Maxx led off the jam and, three chords into the first number, two couples simultaneously started making out. Don't know what it was, but gotta get me some of it.Saturday sightingsSeen Saturday at Attman's, happily seated behind a bowl of matzo ball soup: "Damn Yankees" star Jerry Lewis.

2 Baltimore men charged in shoplifting incidentsPolice arrested two Southwest Baltimore men in separate incidents Sunday and charged them with shoplifting clothes from the Macy's department store at Marley Station, police said.About 2 p.m., a man walked into a dressing room, put on merchandise under his own clothes and walked out.A store security guard detained the man until police arrived. The man showed officers items with tags still attached, police said.Police said Herbert Ulysses Millward III, 23, of the 500 block of S. Fulton Ave., was charged with theft.

Two men burst into an apartment outside Annapolis Tuesday morning and attacked a Gambrills man, county police said.Jeffrey Lorne Glasock, 24, of the 900 block of Central Lane, was treated at Anne Arundel Medical Center for injuries to his face and released, police said.Mr. Glasock and a friend were in an apartment in the 2000 block of Harbour Gates Drive when someone knocked on the door at about 2:10 a.m. When the friend answered the door, two men brushed him aside and jumped Mr. Glasock, police said.

When the Maryland basketball team began its season, there was a new sense of confidence surrounding Duane Simpkins. XTC Not only from within the junior point guard, but from those around him as well.From his teammates and coaches who had watched Simpkins become perhaps the Atlantic Coast Conference's most improved player last season. From opponents and media types who seemed surprised at the way Simpkins played in many big games for the Terrapins."I think Duane proved last year that he was a solid ACC point guard," Maryland coach Gary Williams said recently.

A Pasadena man was arrested outside the Loft bar Monday morning and charged with carrying a handgun, police said.The owner of the bar in the 7800 block of Harbor Road, Bayside Beach, called police about 1:30 a.m. and told them one of his customers might have a gun. Officers arrived and found the owner and the customer standing outside the bar, police said.The customer admitted having a gun and showed the officers his permit. Officers noted the permit's restrictions only allowed the customer to carry the gun between his home and his business at East Coast Entertainment Properties Inc., and only while doing normal business activities, police said.

LANDOVER -- The Washington Capitals, who have become one of the NHL's most active participants in the off-season free-agent pool, yesterday signed Boston Bruins center Dave Poulin to a two-year contract.Poulin, 34, is one of the hardest working and most respected players in the league. The Capitals are hoping that his winning past, which includes six appearances in the Stanley Cup semifinals and three trips to the finals in his 11-year career, can help the club take the next step into the championship round.

M arin Alsop's interior designer traveled to her parents' Upstate New York house recently to select some family antiques for her new home, a condo in a historic Mount Vernon building that's brimming with 19th-century charm. The ground-breaking maestra with the ultra-hip BSO dressing room isn't going traditional on us, is she? "We're not putting in clawfoot chairs and that kind of stuff," Steve Appel of Nouveau Contemporary Goods assured me. "We're doing very modern pieces." The pieces raided from Alsop's antiques-dealer father's collection - an 18th-century tricycle, a 20th-century Victrola, for example - will be accent pieces meant to play off the home's architectural features.

I rarely go shopping with my husband, primarily because of the genetic differences in our shopping styles. My method: Browse, try on, ask the woman in the dressing room next to me what she thinks of what I'm trying on, find stuff I didn't come for and head to the register with several items. His method: Enter store, look for specific item, if not immediately apparent, leave. Don't go back for several months, if possible. There are only two stores where anything close to a browse has occurred in his case: The Home Depot and Costco.

Linda Parsons hadn't been in the new Filene's Basement in Towson five minutes before she scooped up four designer purses - Nine West and Ellen Tracey, if you must know - in this season's bright colors and at less than half the normal prices. The 51-year-old retired state government worker has shopped "the Basement" for 25 years, ever since the days when she had to wear a bathing suit to try on clothes at the flagship Boston store, which was famously devoid of dressing rooms. "Once you start coming you can't stop," she said.

Two Parkville-area boys picked the wrong house for a break-in early Tuesday, and one of them was knocked unconscious while tangling with the occupant -- a retired colonel and former interim Baltimore police commissioner. John E. Gavrilis, who retired from the city force in early 2000, told Baltimore County police he was awakened about 4 a.m. by someone whispering and the glare of a flashlight in his home in the Harmony Hills neighborhood. The 50-year-old Gavrilis -- who keeps in shape by working out and was once an amateur boxer -- said he surprised the pair and began to struggle with the larger of the intruders, who was 6 feet 2 inches tall and more than 225 pounds.

A Memorable Place A good dunking and a good ribbing By Galia Berry SPECIAL TO THE SUN There were many Colorado rafting companies to choose from, but this ad got our attention: "Bill and Hillary May Be Tired of Whitewater ... But You'll Love It!" Facing us are the Shoshone Rapids on the Colorado River. A thought crosses my mind: I am going to die. One consolation: I won't die alone. Also signed up are two boisterous families from Texas. Our guide is Sebastian, a gentle soul with a kind face.

It's 4:30 a.m., still pitch-dark in Manhattan, when Robin Roberts leaves her 27th floor apartment to go to work at Good Morning America. It takes two alarm clocks and several swipes at the snooze button to start her day. About half an hour later, casually dressed, she carries the day's wardrobe and a folder of research material ("my homework") delivered by courier the night before. Outside her building, she slips into the back seat of a black Lincoln Town Car for the five-minute ride to ABC's Times Square studio.

SEATTLE -- Harvey Fierstein is shaving his eyebrows. This is a first for him. Oh sure, he's worn lipstick and eyeliner, dresses and falsies, high heels and pantyhose. But before he began playing Edna Turnblad, the frumpy Baltimore housewife in the new Broadway musical, Hairspray, Fierstein had never taken razor in hand and removed all traces of his eyebrows. "Don't forget the detail of shaving the eyebrows," he says over the buzz of the electric razor -- as if it were possible to overlook such a distinctive bit of denuding.

WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah - Shelley Looney said she wouldn't think about the goal. But the gold? Yes, she said, she would think about the gold. "You do think about how sweet it is to have it placed around your neck," she said. Four years ago in Nagano, Japan, Looney scored the winning goal against Canada as the Americans won the first Olympic gold medal in women's hockey. Tonight, the Americans face Canada for gold again. "Oh, you know I'd love to score the game-winning goal," Looney said.

As co-founder of the American Dime Museum, home to a two-headed calf and other freaks of nature, Dick Horne prefers a "professorial" image, "not seedy, but borderline," he explains. Horne's wife, WBJC on-air personality and Baltimore Symphony chorus member Dyana Neal, prefers an "artsy but sophisticated look." Recently, the couple held forth at the opening of a new Dime Museum wing, featuring an exhibit called, "Midway in Miniature." They looked grand; he in his dark hues, she in leather slacks and a cashmere sweater.

I just tried on a gazillion swimsuits without leaving my home or removing a stitch of clothing. There were no fluorescent lights, no tattletale three-way mirrors and no snide saleswomen saying, "You are going to try on that?" It's every woman's clothing dream and it's available courtesy of the Internet. Now, there's finally a really good reason for owning a computer. Virtual dressing rooms are just beginning to make their way onto the Web. With them, you can try on clothes on a virtual body that looks like yours.