FOG

4 TO 8 YEARS OF AGE"Beetle Boy," by Lawrence David. illustrated by Delphine Durand. Doubleday. 32 pages $15.95.Gregory Sampson has turned into a giant beetle and no one notices -- except his best friend Michael. Gregory had to cut more holes in his shirt for all his arms, or legs. He used his antennae to hit the ball, which Michael didn't think was fair. This is a wild and lively story with crazy mixed up pictures. It's worth at least 10 good giggles!"Chesapeake Bay Walk," by David Owen Bell, illustrated by Jennifer Heyd Wharton.

On the last Monday of September, my brother, my nephews and I were treated to an interesting morning on the water with a foggy mist surrounding us, a common occurrence for this time of year. Fog can be hazardous for the inexperienced boater, and one should not attempt to navigate in it without being familiar with the area and using a compass.Luckily, we made it about five miles down the river before the fog rolled in heavy. Crabbing in foggy conditions can be tranquil, and the sensation is one of floating through clouds comparable to looking out the window of an airplane.

Communist China is 50 years old, which explains its midlife crisis.Pat Buchanan is a 1930s isolationist, a World War II revisionist (same thing), a spent force in the GOP whose followers deserted, a publicity hound shoring up speaking fees and a pawn in the struggle between Ross Perot and Jesse Ventura for the soul of the Reform Party. Stay tuned.London Fog thinks the fog is greener in Seattle.Why must the great battles for freedom of the arts always be waged over third-rate stuff?Pub Date: 10/01/99

Ice and snow gave way to rain and dense fog yesterday morning before offering the Baltimore area a warm respite from days of subfreezing temperatures.It wasn't exactly balmy, but definitely a marked improvement over the snow and freezing rain that caused chain-reaction accidents and major road closures on Friday, and disrupted airline schedules.State and city road crews who had worked around the clock to clear Maryland's roads went home for much-needed rest, and rising temperatures -- warming to a high of 44 degrees at 1 p.m. -- gave a boost to their efforts.

EASTON -- Almost two years after a tractor-trailer slammed into a crowded school bus, Talbot County is still haunted by the fog-shrouded crash on U.S. 50 that killed the bus driver and injured most of his 39 young passengers.Now, any drop in pre-dawn visibility or a coating of snow has parents speed-dialing the school system's weather line for the latest update on a safety-first closing policy that delayed or canceled classes or sent students home early 15 times during the 1998-1999 school year.

The dense fog that has hampered holiday travel this week should ease today as more than 525,000 cars hit Maryland highways on the year's busiest travel day.For two consecutive mornings, motorists and commuters battled thick fog, and visibility was less than a mile for most of yesterday, tying up area roads."

MOUNT WASHINGTON, N.H. -- The Brocken Spectre showed up in exquisite intensity on the highest mountain in the Northeast.The sun had risen over a solid sea of gray-white fog and clouds. The icy, snowy summit had emerged like an island. A blue tint filled crevasses in the rime. The temperature was 17 degrees and wind gusts hit 26 mph. It was a mild day here.To the west, the mountain dome blocked the low parallel rays of the sun and cast its shadow on the fog. Around the shadow's edge was a lightened halo-effect called a glory.

The future looks blue.Well, not blue exactly. It looks Spa. It looks Bay Fog. The future - specifically the millennium - looks Squid Ink.That's according to the Color Marketing Group, an Alexandria, Va.-based nonprofit organization that forecasts color trends.After years of forest greens and earthy browns, "Blue is definitely beginning toinfluence the pallette again," says Color Marketing's Patrice White. "It's an optimistic color ... very soothing."If the 36-year-old agency is on the mark, we'll be buying cars, curtains and can openers in designer variations of Squid Ink.That name may sound alarming, butColor Marketing describes it as "a dark gray-influenced blue, calm and serene like a starless sky at midnight."

HAKUBA, Japan -- The skiers were in the start house. The crowd was roaring at the bottom of the Happo'one slope. And around the world, a vast audience was assembled in front of television sets, ready to watch the Super Bowl of the Winter Olympics.But the men's downhill -- due to be televised live to the United States last night -- was called on account of snow and fog.The first crisis to hit the Nagano Games happened about the time they were handing out the first medals to athletes over at women's cross country.

Editor's note: A classic story of a never-to-be forgotten summer among the islands of Maine.Out on the islands that poke their rocky shores above the waters of Penobscot Bay, you can watch the time of the world go by, from minute to minute, hour to hour, from day to day, season to season.You can watch a cloud peep over the Camden Hills, thirty miles away across the bay - see it slowly grow and grow as it comes nearer and nearer; see it darken the hills with its shadow; and then, see it darken, one after the other, Islesboro, Western Island, Pond Island, Hog Island, Spectacle Island, Two Bush Island - darken all the islands in between, until you, on your island, are standing in the shadow, watching the rain begin to spill down way across the bay.The rain comes closer and closer.

Joe Kokosinski was up just after sunrise in Ferndale on Tuesday: "I was amazed to see a veritable blizzard of 'stuff' in the air that was backlit by the sun ... Is the pollen already starting to fly, or is it the price I pay for living in Central Maryland?" Dr. Ray Hoff, at UMBC, checked the weather data for that day. His best guess: At 19 degrees and a high dewpoint, "it is possible he was seeing ice fog or ice crystals."

Mike Barberry makes a pretty good living raising turf and running the Aldino Sod Farms. But he wanted to share his farm and his success with his community. As a result, last year, he and his son, Patrick Barberry, created Legends of the Fog, a haunted hayride and maze. "Halloween is the second biggest holiday, only Christmas is bigger," he said. "People love to celebrate Halloween because it's non-denominational. And this project enables us to serve people in our community." Legends of the Fog begins with the rules of the hayride, an introduction to the story and a video presented by Barberry in the starter tent.

The Mist, slack yet also bludgeoning, derives from a taut, skillful Stephen King novella about a "white and bright but nonreflecting" fogbank that sweeps through a small Maine town. It becomes increasingly terrifying in its "impartiality" and resistance to the normal influences of weather and environment. A few dozen town residents and tourists hole up in the local food market and discover that the mist hides a menagerie of giant, mutant-like man-eaters. Just as frightening as the fog of inter-species war from the outside is the fog of paranoia inside.

Thursday's bitter early-morning cold triggered rare forecasts for "freezing fog" in Western Maryland. "What in the world is that?" one puzzled Ruxton reader asked. Plain old fog occurs when rising humidity reaches 100 percent, and water vapor in the air condenses into fine droplets - a cloud at ground level. With nothing to freeze onto, those droplets will stay liquid down to 14 degrees. But when they touch a surface at that temperature, they form beautiful, feathery ice crystals called "rime."

We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge in heavy fog and stopped at the overlook for a view of the city. As the September morning fog lifted, I snapped the picture looking back toward San Francisco. Our disappointment when crossing was quickly gone once the scene unfolded. Wayne R. Harman Towson

Reverent Fog Festival The lowdown -- You have no excuses to miss this weekend's Reverent Fog Festival, a free two-day blowout inside and outside the Talking Head Club. The roster of 20 or so bands includes Pissed Jeans, Air Conditioning, First Nation and the Donnar Parker Trio. Kid Congo Powers, a guitarist and singer-songwriter who has worked with Nick Cave and other artists, headlines Saturday night. Power trio Pearls and Brass, a '70s fuzz rock band based in Philadelphia, headlines Sunday.

This has been a truly extraordinary week in the continuing disaster known as Katrina. First, six months after the hurricane laid waste to New Orleans, Katrina survivors somehow managed to stage their signature celebration, Mardi Gras - providing a stirring display of homegrown resilience. Second, Americans got to watch a leaked video of President Bush getting thoroughly briefed on the impending catastrophe the day before the massive storm hit New Orleans and then assuring Gulf Coast disaster planners: "We are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm" - which turned out to be a sadly hollow promise.

TELEVISION 1.American Idol - Tuesday, Fox 2.American Idol - Wednesday, Fox 3.CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CBS 4.Grey's Anatomy, ABC 5.Desperate Housewives, ABC FILMS 1.The Pink Panther, MGM/Columbia 2.Final Destination 3, New Line 3.Curious George, Universal 4.Firewall, Warner Bros. 5.When a Stranger Calls, Sony/Screen Gems SINGLES 1.Check on It, Beyonce (featuring Slim Thug) 2.You're Beautiful, James Blunt 3.Grillz, Nelly (featuring Paul Wall, Ali and Gipp) 4.Be Without You, Mary J. Blige 5.I'm 'N Luv (Wit a Stripper)

Our guide, Johnny, warned us not to have high hopes: Heavy fog and mist frequently obscured the sulfur soup at the bottom of the Poas Volcano crater, near San Jose, Costa Rica. Only a few lucky ones, he said, were treated to this magnificent sight. As we wound our way from sea level to heights of more than 8,800 feet, the weather gradually shifted from warm sunshine and 80 degrees to increasing cloudiness, heavy fog and plummeting temperatures. Our small group, disappointed, took shelter in the Heliconia Nature Store and Cafe Botos for souvenir shopping, hot coffee and prayers for a glimpse of Poas.

Monet's atmospheric canvas, Houses of Parliament, Effect of Fog is about much more than a gothic building dissolving into a ghostly landscape. It's about an artist brave enough to walk the narrow and treacherous ledge between reality and illusion. I first saw the painting, which is now on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art, during a Monet exhibit presented 10 years ago at the Art Institute of Chicago. The museum had arranged a 7:30 a.m. showing for a group of arts journalists before the galleries opened for the day. Because I had previously lingered over the earlier parts of the exhibition, I quickly moved to the final galleries, leaving my colleagues behind.