Gorgeous

New York.--The contest to determine who will preside as mayor during the next four years of this city's accelerating decay is between the incumbent, who is a Democrat, and Rudolph Giuliani, a former prosecutor, who is not. The outcome will not matter much because it is certain to lengthen the ruinous reign of the municipal liberalism that has reduced this decrepit and dyspeptic city to the role of a warning.Still, the campaign merits scrutiny. It illuminates the city's reputation as the nation's thyroid gland, and it illustrates the kind of conditions in which sensible voters will support a third-party candidate who cannot win but who could determine the winner.

Union City's final race ended in a horse ambulance parked on a dusty lot by a maintenance shop some 100 yards from the starting gate of the 118th Preakness Stakes.Inside the white van, a covered 20-foot metal stall, Dr. Dan Dreyfuss prepared the lethal injection that quickly would extinguish the life of the 3-year-old colt, whose right front ankle was bent, broken and bloody. The veterinarian emptied a 100 cc bottle of sodium pentabarbitol into three syringes. He then took a needle and stuck it into the horse's neck, on the left side, finding the jugular vein.

Getting a new home, whether it's a house, condo or an apartment, is usually pretty cut and dried. You go to an office, sign paperwork and the place is yours. No big deal, no fanfare. When Deborah Robertson got the keys to her new condo, a 35th-floor luxury unit in the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago, it was a big deal. Three TV crews, reporters, photographers, family members and dozens of well-wishers were watching. Robertson, of Baltimore, was the winner of HGTV's Urban Oasis contest.

  "Things happen for a reason. " Potomac's Nana Meriwether, the reigning Miss USA, says that a lot. Especially when she talks about the road she followed to her title: two runner-up finishes at the Miss California pageant before being crowned Miss Maryland last year; another second-place finish, this time in June's Miss USA competition; then - finally - the Miss USA crown, but only after the woman who beat her, 20-year-old Olivia Culpo...

One afternoon in 1959, I came home from high school to find my mother in tears. "I have bad news," she said. "Mario Lanza died today." I, too, burst into tears, mourning the end of the golden voice that had made Mario Lanza's movies so popular and that had crowned him as the Enrico Caruso of the 1950s. When he died in Rome, he was 38 years old. Flash forward to several months ago. I made my first visit to Philadelphia. There, I discovered not only the Mario Lanza Museum, but also the Mario Lanza Institute, Mario Lanza Park, Mario Lanza mural and Mario Lanza's birthplace.

Fleming's Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar is one of the Harbor East residents celebrating its 10th anniversary in Baltimore this year. Steak rules here, and you'd be foolish to disobey. I haven't had a more satisfying rib-eye than the one Fleming's recently served me. I loved looking at it and eating every robust bite. Fleming's signature steak preparation involves seasoning with kosher salt and black pepper and finishing with butter and parsley. This makes the beef, USDA prime, both outstandingly flavorful and gorgeous.

"Free Willy"Starring Jason James Richter and Lori PettyDirected by Simon WincerReleased by Warner Bros.Rated PG** 1/2 "Free Willy" has one thing going for it that no other summer movie, not even "Jurassic Park," can boast: 7,000 pounds of shimmering, gorgeous killer whale, surely one of the mostmajestic creatures on the planet.And director Simon Wincer gets a lot of mileage out of Willy, who looks like a torpedo on steroids. We sense the creature's joy as it slithers through the wet stuff, and its rapture as it breaks the surface to do a 360-corkscrew before slam-dunking itself back into the briny deep.

When Simone Pedroni, a 24-year-old Italian pianist, won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition last June, he was awarded $15,000, his own CD recording, a Carnegie Hall debut, professional management and a succession of engagements worth in excess of $200,000.The reward for the winners of the first Chesapeake Youth Symphony piano competition won't be as grand -- $100 and an appearance with the orchestra -- but it still is good reason for young pianists in our area to emulate Mr. Pedroni by repairing to the nearest piano to practice, practice and practice some more.

Barreling along Virginia's back-country roads almost an hour west of Richmond, I'm beginning to doubt we'll ever reach Farmville. It's been nearly three hours since we crossed the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in Washington and plowed down I-95, though the last 30 miles have been lovely. A gothic-looking railroad bridge rivaling a Roman aqueduct crosses the James River, then it's rolling green countryside and woods. But I'm ready to shop. A friend who is about to open an interior design business has heard about Green Front Furniture, an import business in rural Farmville that offers a huge selection of higher-end furniture, accessories and especially Oriental rugs at up to 50 percent off regular retail prices, and she is eager to check it out. I want to cover a roomful of bare floor without spending the equivalent of the national debt.

For a grown-up escape from everyday life, head to Envy Salon in Historic Ellicott City for Tini Tuesdays and Brew & Do Wednesdays. What started as a way to promote new business hours is now a highly anticipated weekly event at the 13-year-old salon. "We basically started it as something to drum up business on a new day of the week we were open, which was Tuesdays," says Leeza Rainey, owner of the salon. "So we started the martini night and found it was super-successful. " On Tuesdays, clients can enjoy a signature hot pink "Envy-tini," which Rainey describes as both sweet and tart.