Lace

A colleague, Jerry Bayne , asks a question I hear a lot: My Asolo boot laces keep coming untied no matter how tightly I knot them. Would you know of a trick to make the laces less slippery to each other? I'm thinking maybe I should rub them with a rosin bag. Outdoors Girl , who has cursed many an untied lace in her time, responds: I feel your pain. Ever since shoemakers switched from flat laces to rounded ones, laces have been at loose ends. You'd think that boots costing more than $150 would tie themselves.

I think I'm pretty safe in saying that sangria is the hottest cool drink of summer 2009. You can't exactly call this fruity wine punch trendy - it's been around too long - but it goes perfectly with the foods that are trendy right now. That means every Latino restaurant and tapas bar in the area is offering its variation on the red wine and fruit juice theme. (Not to mention non-Latino cafes and wine bars.) No other mixed drink that I can think of can be made so many different ways. These days you can use red, white or sparkling wine.

Cats might make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside when they cuddle in your lap and purr. But when they start attacking your sofa, your thoughts may not be so kind. Scratching is natural for cats. But indoors, that basic tendency can cause havoc for you and your home. At least you have some options for encouraging your cat to scratch where it will be harmless. Scratching is useful for cats for several reasons. They do it to mark their territory with both visible and scent markers, and to sharpen their claws.

Tombstones sprout like mushrooms in the Center Stage orchestra pit, seeming to grow loose and wild among the grass. We don't even notice them at first. Instead, the audience's gaze lingers on the artifacts of Victorian gentility crammed into a rooming house in Brooklyn in 1941: the lace tablecloths, crocheted doilies, cut-crystal decanters. If there was a grandfather clock in the Brewsters' sitting room, it would chime decorously. But once we notice that cemetery, it's hard to focus on anything else.

In her 17 years as Center Stage's artistic director, Irene Lewis' forte has been delivering the unexpected. It's no coincidence that the motto for Baltimore's largest regional theater is "Smart. Bold. Alive." So it's more than a little surprising that Center Stage is opening its 45th season this month with Arsenic and Old Lace -- a 1939 farce that is a fre quent staple of high school drama clubs. The play is about two sweet, spinster sisters who have concocted a recipe for homemade elderberry wine that literally is a killer.

Younger men cower in the doorway of the lingerie store, but 74-year-old Chester Taplette practically gallops across the leopard-print carpet. He's been staking out this Frederick's of Hollywood in Glen Burnie's Marley Station Mall for weeks now, "scheming," he says, about which lacy item to buy for his Annie on their 48th Valentine's Day as husband and wife. And because Annie has been his partner in every decision for nearly half a century now, why would he exclude her from this one? The 67-year-old follows a few steps behind her husband, her head swaddled in a scarf to conceal the curlers in her hair.

A HUSKY BLACK MAN DRESSED garishly in drag -- blue wig, frosted lipstick -- raps and fries chicken on what appears to be a makeshift plantation as African-American children dance around him, sucking on chicken bones. The scene is from "Fry That Chicken" by Ms. Peachez, a music video that in the last two months has been downloaded more than 600,000 times on Youtube. The song has also received spins on urban stations. It was preceded by an even bigger hit: DJ Webstar & Young B's "Chicken Noodle Soup," which for months has been a mainstay on black radio and in clubs, the video a favorite on Youtube and MTV. The nonsensical song even spawned a dance -- a shuffling, arm-flapping jig that grinning black kids perform in the video.

It's play season at county high schools. Here is the schedule: Atholton: Harvey -- Nov. 9, 10, 11 at 7:30 p.m.; Nov. 12 at 3 p.m. Centennial: The Odd Couple, female version -- Nov. 15, 16, 17, 18 at 7:30 p.m. Glenelg: True Colors -- The 80's Musical -- Nov. 16, 17, 18 at 7:30 p.m. Hammond: Arsenic and Old Lace -- Nov. 9, 10, 11 at 7 p.m.; Nov. 11 at 2 p.m. Howard: The Music Man -- Nov. 16, 17, 18 at 7:30 p.m. Long Reach: Night of January 16th --...

Andrew Davis isn't interested in glorifying the military. At least not the part of the military that fights wars and sends people into battle. Nonetheless his latest film, The Guardian, marches to a military drumbeat of sorts. Its focus is on the U.S. Coast Guard, specifically the Guard's rescue swimmers, whose job is to fish people out of the ocean before time and tide take their deadly toll. The movie, Davis' 14th as a feature-film director, stars Kevin Costner as a mythic rescue swimmer looking to pass the torch, and Ashton Kutcher as a rough-around-the-edges recruit.

This fall, black is the new black. Color is out. (Give or take a splash of red.) Dark is in. Black, always in fashion, is this season's must-have color, says Michael Fink, a Saks Fifth Avenue vice president and women's fashion director. "Next to the drab grays and browns currently saturating the market, black looks positively uplifting." Some shoppers are skeptical. One of them is Catherine Hamilton, a 35-year-old who lives in SoWeBo and works in sales. Black is ordinary, she says. "Every season women are looking for something special, something that will pop, something that will make them look great.