Lifestyle

By VIRGINIA LINN
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
In September, models draped in Mayan calendar prints dazzled the runways at Olympus Fashion Week in New York City as part of Nicole Miller's spring 2007 collection, inspired by a trip to the Mayan ruins in Tulum, Mexico.

Last fall, more than 18 million viewers a week watched CBS's "Survivor: Guatemala _ The Maya Empire," as contestants lived amid the age-old ruins.

And tourism at Mayan ruins is surging.

More than a thousand years after the Classic Mayas vanished from the magnificent cities they built in the tropical forests of Mexico and Central America, interest in their art, beliefs and traditions has never been higher.

That attention is likely to peak next month when Mel Gibson's $50 million epic "Apocalypto" opens in theaters nationwide.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Comparisons of some passages in William Marvel's "Andersonville: The Last Depot," University of North Carolina Press, 1994, with those in R. Fred Ruhlman's "Captain Henry Wirz and Andersonville Prison: A Reappraisal." The University of Tennessee Press suspended sales of Ruhlman's book pending investigation of complaints of plagiarism and review of the book.

Marvel, p.

By DARREN DUNLAP
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The University of Tennessee Press suspended sales of a book by a Chattanooga adjunct history professor after allegations of plagiarism by a New Hampshire writer.

New Hampshire author William Marvel complained to the UT Press that R.

By JUDIE SCHWARTZ and EVELINDA URMAN
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Evelinda: "These boots are made for walking" ... NOT! My new brown boots are killing me. And you know, I can take a lot of pain.

By DAN VIERRIA
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Will the mustache rise from the stubble? Maligned as the fashion statement of Larry the Cable Guy, the 'stache is itching for a glorious comeback. Blame it on Borat.

Sacha Baron Cohen's character Borat in the box-office hit "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" sports a big, bushy mustache.

By SHARON RANDALL
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Some things are more fun in theory than in practice.

When my husband and I moved from California to Las Vegas of All Places, we looked forward to being "tour guides" for visiting family and friends; showing them ritzy hotels on the Strip; taking them to fancy restaurants; letting them pick up the tab.

By MARK PATINKIN
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
You Know You Have Teenage Boys in the Family when:

_ Their outerwear becomes a hooded sweatshirt, any season, any time of day.

_ You routinely find empty soda cans in the pool table's pockets.

_ The major food groups in the house are Doritos and Domino's.

_ As well as candy with odd names like "Nerds."

_ You come downstairs for breakfast and there are two friends sleeping on couches.

_ You find gum in the pockets of pants that have just come out of the dryer.

_ At the movies, they always order the extra-large drinks _ in cups the size of oil drums _ and an hour later, get a second.

_ Every few hours, kitchen surfaces become mysteriously sticky.

_ They start speaking a new language, using phrases like: "I'm mad souped." "He's diesel." "That's clutch." "He's nasty at lacrosse." "Did you see that guy get wrecked?" And, "That play was money."

_ Tide isn't enough anymore; you need to add Clorox and Shout Pre-soak.

_ There are more poker chips scattered around the basement than confetti after a Super Bowl parade.

_ Your longest morning ritual is no longer the shower, breakfast or newspaper, but walking up and down the stairs saying, "Now you really have to get up."

_ And the response is always, "I can't."

_ And when you finally tell them it's 7:40, and they have to be at school by 8, they say, "So what?"

_ They insist they're not hungry at dinner, and an hour later, eat two bags of microwave popcorn.

_ No matter how many times you tell them to bring up their hampers, they leave them in the laundry area, using them as dressers for months while you keep refilling them.

_ Every trip they take out of the house sparks a request for a $20 bill.

_ And when you do hand one over, you never get change.

_ You keep finding old drinking glasses behind the curtains with congealed stuff at the bottom that won't wash out.

_ Every sweatshirt has thumb-holes cut into the sleeves.

_ You allow them to stay up an extra hour if they turn off the hallway light before coming up, and the next morning, it's indeed off, but every other light downstairs is on.

_ Orange juice is guzzled directly from half-gallon cartons, which, when empty, are put back in the refrigerator.

_ No matter how much the 15-year-old pounds the 13-year-old, the 13-year-old will no longer give up.

_ Half-eaten plates of leftovers that turn to concrete _ like mac-and-cheese _ will always be left un-rinsed overnight.

_ Sometimes, they will even be found in the same state in the sink, directly under a faucet that was never turned on.

_ Suddenly, every kicked-off sneaker in your entrance area is the size of Titanic.

_ Their most commonly used phrase is, "I swear it wasn't me."

_ The second-most-common: "That's so unfair."

_ You periodically hear unfamiliar ring-tones from beneath the couch cushions, because that's where their friends keep dropping their phones.

_ A full cookie jar lasts 15 minutes instead of a week.

_ Same with entire pantry shelves of chips.

_ Every boy who comes in the house has a one-syllable nickname.

_ Bicycles you don't recognize appear in your garage for days, and then, suddenly, are gone.

_ There are piles of trash surrounding, but never inside of, trash baskets.

_ They go to Subway for full meals at odd times like 3:50 p.m.

_ After a sleepover, the basement resembles a maximum-security prison after a riot.

_ And when you tell them to clean up, they say, "Clean up what?"

_ They travel in clusters of no less than four.

_ Televisions are always left playing.

_ And tuned to shows featuring either sports highlights or the World Series of Poker.

_ Every soda can you find has been crushed from the top down.

_ After insisting on lights-out at midnight, you wake up at 3 a.m.

By LEE BOWMAN
Monday, November 13, 2006
Counseling people who are caring for a husband or wife with Alzheimer's disease can delay by an average of one-and-a-half years their need to put their spouse in a nursing home, a long-term study has found.

Researchers studied 406 spouse caregivers in New York City over a 19-year period.

Monday, November 13, 2006
Q: I have seen some recipes that call for chicken (or duck) fat. How is this made? _ Patti Newman, Kentwood, Mich.

I

A: While you can certainly buy both chicken and duck fat, it's definitely cheaper to render your own.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006
A continuing compendium of tips and tricks from Home & Garden Television:

_ To keep cut flowers fresh, change the water often and add about half of a bottle cap of hydrogen peroxide to prevent bacteria.

_ Once or twice a year, apply a little lemon oil or tung oil to the wood handles of tools to keep them in perfect condition.

_ Make a rich holiday treat by substituting eggnog for the milk in hot cocoa/

_ Furnace filters must be changed regularly to maintain the efficiency of your furnace and to prevent dust from spreading through your house.