Jasmine

If this were a storybook, the first character we'd meet would be Angela Shelf Medearis. Can you find her in the crowd at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington? Don't bother searching up on stage where incoming first lady Laura Bush is introducing a handful of men and women to the TV cameras and microphones. Medearis is down in the audience - the 40-something grandmother who lives in sweat pants, bakes mouth-watering peach cobbler, and has a voice that sounds like it's stretched over a chuckle.

SOME OF THIS may sound familiar, but bear with me. Eight years ago, when Deborah Garland lived in the 2200 block of Prentiss Place, she made an early morning run to a 24-hour Giant food store to pick up some items for a co-worker's departure party the same day. She returned around 4:30 a.m. to find drug dealers selling their wares in front of her door. Garland decided she'd had enough. She moved her family from the East Baltimore block to a quiet, integrated, middle-class neighborhood on Plainfield Avenue in Northeast Baltimore.

Two weeks ago we asked you how many books the mayor lets slip away before finally getting one from "The Keeper of Wisdom." Jasmine Grayson of Owings Mills did the math correctly and came up with 11 books. Thanks!

Kathleen Wilsbach knows their personalities well. Rowan is dignified and smart, Palmer's a little aloof, and Jasmine, well, truth be told, she's a bit of an opinionated prima donna. Years spent in the company of her furry housemates has taught Wilsbach that rabbits aren't the docile cottontails many believe them to be, but creatures with personas as distinct as their feline and canine counterparts. "People are starting to perceive them differently and realize they're animals with a lot of personality.

"I read Disney's 'Aladdin' and he had a monkey named Abu. Aladdin wanted to marry Jasmine and Jafar wanted to marry her, too. Aladdin broke Jafar's staff and made him become a genie. Aladdin got to marry Jasmine. Aladdin freed his genie and they lived happily ever after."-- Ricky RuszinOur Lady of Hope/St. Luke's School"'The Cat in the Cage and Other Great Stories for Kids' by Jerry D. Thomas is a collection of stories. One of my favorite stories in this book is 'Cat in a Cage' when the little girl was going to get food for her bird.

IT'S BEEN A WEEK of sadness and joy.Jasmine, our aged, rotund retriever, passed on Tuesday. We adopted her four years ago, after her lifelong companion, Eastport yacht broker Jim Mann, left her an orphan.During the last few months of Jim's illness, Jazzy had been passed around from household to household, as her mangy skin condition and aromatic presence kept most of Jim's family and friends from appreciating her innate loveliness.Her shortcomings didn't discourage my family from giving her a home.

Jasmine L. Gunthorpe, a community activist in Harlem Park, one of the city's poorest neighborhoods, died Tuesday of an aneurysm at University of Maryland Medical Center. She was 43 and lived in Rosemont in West Baltimore.At her death, the former welfare recipient was executive assistant at Harlem Park Revitalization Corp., where she had worked since 1995.Ms. Gunthorpe was a driving force behind Harlem Park Academy, a community-based school that was created in 1997 by the school system's New Schools Initiative.

BaseballCardinals: Re-signed P Lance Painter, P Mark Petkovsek, C Tom Lampkin and C Danny Sheaffer.Indians: Named Gary Kuby pitching coach and Dave Keller coach at Triple-A Buffalo.Mets: Agreed to terms with C Todd Pratt and IF Luis Lopez.Rangers: Agreed to terms with C Bill Haselman, who had been acquired from Red Sox in November.CollegeAlabama: Named Jackie Shipp defensive line coach.Fort Hays: Named Jeff Leiker football coach.Loyola, Ill.: Women's basketball coach Keir Rogers resigned.

X-rays tell the story of her life: healed fractures across her arms, legs, ribs and neck, fractures so numerous that the question "How many?" seems cruel and absurd.At 9 months, Jasmine Pass might not have a major bone that hasn't broken at least once.Look at Jasmine and you see eager, intelligent eyes -- eyes that follow everything that moves.Look again and you see a child spending life in a molded shell, a child who can break at any moment, a child who is handled like china."She'll have fractures her whole life," said her 38-year-old grandmother, Ellen Paylor, who cares for her in a narrow Baltimore rowhouse on North Lakewood Avenue.

They stood in line quietly, some clutching children in their arms, waiting to file past five caskets lined in white crepe and adorned with tiny angels. Many left wiping tears from their faces.Hundreds of mourners circled the large lobby of the March Funeral Home on Wabash Avenue yesterday, waiting to pay their respects to the four children and a mother run down and killed by a car early Thursday morning in Woodlawn.Baskets of flowers and armloads of stuffed animals arrived steadily, as the people of Baltimore and the surrounding area poured out their hearts to a devastated family.