Hideaway

Like most Americans I was shocked that Osama bin Laden was hiding in an expensive compound less than a mile from the Pakistani military academy. I thought he had been hiding in Donald Trump's hair! Marc Raim, Baltimore

The Rumor Mill is a sweet little hideaway restaurant, tucked back in an alley just off Main Street in Ellicott City. Matthew Milani opened his 30-seat restaurant in 2007 — its full name is The Rumor Mill Fusion Bar and Restaurant. The fusion refers not to Milani's cooking style but to the wide selection of house-infused vodkas and, to a lesser extent, rums featured at the restaurant. There are expected flavors like vanilla, pear and strawberry but plenty of left-field concoctions like soy sauce, cucumber, Thai chili and pickle.

Jim's Hideaway's slow-pitch softball team recently attended the Bud Light Nationals in Steamboat Springs, Colo. Among 100 teams from all over the country competing, Jim's Hideaway -- the only Maryland team -- finished seventh.Team members are Ernie Temple, Pat Guthrie, Mike Spake, Mike Kirby, Lane Woods, Leroy Downin, Kevin Lieberman, Tim Heppding, Dino Rowley, Danny Knopp, Rusty Gardner, Tim Arrington and coach Bobby Gentile.The team average for the two-day tournament was .565, with Arrington batting .692, Spake .690, Rowley .652, Lieberman .650 and Temple .644.

Like most Americans I was shocked that Osama bin Laden was hiding in an expensive compound less than a mile from the Pakistani military academy. I thought he had been hiding in Donald Trump's hair! Marc Raim, Baltimore

There has been a whole lot of shakin' going on at the Honeymoon Hideaway, where rock and roll king Elvis Presley once stayed -- and neighbors want it stopped.The city of Palm Springs has gone to court in a bid to bar commercial parties and functions in the spaceship-like home where Presley and his bride Priscilla spent their first married days in May 1967.Second only to Graceland as a mecca for Elvis fans, Honeymoon Hideaway is at the center of a legal storm over commercial use of former celebrity homes located in residentially zoned areas, including estates once owned by Elizabeth Taylor, Liberace and Cary Grant.

Rosemary Conroy says she lives in a treehouse. Not really. But she has good reason to feel that way when she looks out of her casement windows onto treetops and hears, but does not see, children playing in the yard of nearby Calvert School. Conroy's airy hideaway is one of 36 units at the Gardens of Guilford - a gracious, 1923 Spanish-style complex nestled among old trees and flowering bushes in North Baltimore's Canterbury-Tuscany neighborhood. The white stucco walls, terra cotta roof tiles and U-shaped courtyard with red-tile steps and wrought iron railings are distinctive in a neighborhood of Tudor-style townhouses.

The first thing you need to know about Jimmy and Barbara Judd's garden is that it's not exactly your average back yard. Unless, of course, your back yard is more than a dozen stories off the ground, and overlooks the Inner Harbor, Camden Yards, Little Italy, Canton and other points east, west and south.But the views, stunning as they are, have a lot to compete with in the 1,400-square-foot terrace space that meanders around three sides of the Judds' penthouse apartment in Scarlett Place. Multiple levels, layered plantings, eclectic statuary, unusual flowers and subtle lighting give the mostly long, narrow spaces all the mystery and panoply of an Italian hideaway.

YOU NEVER FORGET your first crab fluff. Mine came, like a balloon in the Macy's parade, out of the kitchen at Bud's Crab House in Highlandtown in 1976. (I guess this is the silver anniversary of my first crab fluff.) It looked like a swollen, brown softball with claws and legs. You could start a pretty good argument over how to make a crab fluff, but, from what I remember, Bud's short-order cook stuffed a soft-shell crab with crabmeat, dipped the whole thing in some kind of thick batter and launched the concoction into a deep fryer.

After a run of 16 straight weeks, Alexandra Ripley's "Scarlett" will drop from the top of Sunday's New York Times best-seller list. The new No. 1 will be "Hideaway" by Dean R. Koontz.Also, the long-delayed paperback version of Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" is scheduled to be out in the spring.

HIDEAWAY.Dean R. Koontz.Putnam.384 pages. $22.95. Had Hatch Harrison not died, neither he nor his wife, Lindsey, would have ever had a second chance at life. For the past 4 1/2 years, both had been too busy mourning the death of their 5-year-old son even to think about getting on with their own lives. xTC But their car's crashing into an icy river, and a miraculous effort by Dr. Jonas Nyeborg and his resuscitation team, changed all that. Now just two months after the accident, this second chance has so filled the couple with a love of life that they decide to adopt a child.

Rosemary Conroy says she lives in a treehouse. Not really. But she has good reason to feel that way when she looks out of her casement windows onto treetops and hears, but does not see, children playing in the yard of nearby Calvert School. Conroy's airy hideaway is one of 36 units at the Gardens of Guilford - a gracious, 1923 Spanish-style complex nestled among old trees and flowering bushes in North Baltimore's Canterbury-Tuscany neighborhood. The white stucco walls, terra cotta roof tiles and U-shaped courtyard with red-tile steps and wrought iron railings are distinctive in a neighborhood of Tudor-style townhouses.

Stone Cellar Located under Ellicott City's Blue Point Grille, the Stone Cellar is an unlikely live music hideaway. Even though there's casual dining upstairs, the stone-walled basement pumps up the volume and rocks way past midnight. Where --9445 Baltimore National Pike, Ellicott City Web site --stonecellar.com Call --410-461-4990 Notable --Be prepared to get the boot at least 30 minutes before the usual 2 a.m. The bartenders close up shop for the night immediately after the music stops about 1:30 a.m. This may be a blessing to those who've had a little too much to drink or an annoyance to hardcore partiers.

Caroline Benson's mantra is "This was all a cornfield." y She uses it often as she shows visitors around Knightly Farm, near Easton, where she lives with her husband, Charles, their dog, a horse and 20 peacocks. The fabulous gardens in back of the house -- once a cornfield -- lead the eye down to the water's edge, a quiet creek called Leeds. "The house is a long way from the water by Eastern Shore standards," explains Benson. "We needed a way to get there." The solution was a classic English parterre garden in four parts.

It used to be that the homes of the rich and famous were known for their Picassos and Renoirs, their hand-made Persian carpets and their priceless European antiques. Now, the new artwork of the higher-priced homes might be the glassed-in sunroom. Real estate experts say the elaborate additions have grown more popular in recent years because of the recent growth of the sunroom market. Homebuilders and contractors report growing interest in such rooms and say prices can range from $12,000 to more than $1 million.

At the airport in Birming-ham, England, the officer looked at our German and U.S. passports and asked what our destination was. "Isle of Man," I answered. "Oh, do you have family there?" she asked. "No, we're just going for vacation," my husband, Rolf, said. "That's rather odd, isn't it?" We must have looked confused, because she added: "Well, foreigners just never go there unless they have family." It seems she was right. Only two U.S. addresses had been entered in the guest book at our B&B since 1989--- and both belonged to Rolf.

Just as every child ought to have a playhouse, every adult deserves a hideaway -- a garden folly, a gypsy caravan, a clapboard cottage in the woods. As Jane Tidbury writes in her engaging book Little Retreats (Clarkson Potter, $30), the urge to escape to a tepee, turret or moss-covered woodshed lingers into adulthood, becoming "stronger as the pace of life quickens and the distance from nature increases." So if your practical house, the one chosen because of proximity to good schools, makes you yearn to be off in the wilds, you're in luck.

A Baltimore County detective tailed a pair of suspected burglars Monday into Glen Burnie and helped arrest them on charges of breaking onto two apartments on Hideaway Loop.Detective Robin Sweeney had been tracking the men as suspects in a series of burglaries in Parkville over the past few weeks when she followed them to the apartment building in the 400 block of Hideaway Loop about 12: 30 p.m.After she concluded that the men had broken into apartments there, she flagged down Anne Arundel County Officer Anthony Mills, who was patrolling the area, police said.

Just as every child ought to have a playhouse, every adult deserves a hideaway -- a garden folly, a gypsy caravan, a clapboard cottage in the woods. As Jane Tidbury writes in her engaging book Little Retreats (Clarkson Potter, $30), the urge to escape to a tepee, turret or moss-covered woodshed lingers into adulthood, becoming "stronger as the pace of life quickens and the distance from nature increases." So if your practical house, the one chosen because of proximity to good schools, makes you yearn to be off in the wilds, you're in luck.

It's such an ironic twist. For Walter and Gerrie Kupper, a weekend hideaway isn't at the Jersey shore - it comes 200 miles from home at Baltimore's Inner Harbor, 10 stories above street level in a Harbor Court condominium. "We go to the city for peace, to get away from the noisy [New Jersey] suburbs!" said Gerrie. Visitors to one of Baltimore's most luxurious addresses enjoy complimentary parking on adjacent Barre Street and enter a lobby with marble floors, crystal chandeliers, wall tapestries and a uniformed doorman.

YOU NEVER FORGET your first crab fluff. Mine came, like a balloon in the Macy's parade, out of the kitchen at Bud's Crab House in Highlandtown in 1976. (I guess this is the silver anniversary of my first crab fluff.) It looked like a swollen, brown softball with claws and legs. You could start a pretty good argument over how to make a crab fluff, but, from what I remember, Bud's short-order cook stuffed a soft-shell crab with crabmeat, dipped the whole thing in some kind of thick batter and launched the concoction into a deep fryer.