It's mango season here in the sub-tropics. This means only one thing: total strangers speak to each other and offer up the juicy globes, freely and without constraint. You get on the train, and there, walking up and down the aisles are people trying to give away mangos. Children set up card tables on the side of the road, and sell the fruit for a quarter. I have been known to slip out under cover of darkness and leave bags of them on my neighbors' doorsteps. That's because if we don't we will be drowning in mangos. Mangos are luscious and fragrant, until they hit the ground and immediately rot. I think they start the rotting process the nanosecond the stem detaches from the fruit and it begins its descent. Then the stench of rotting fruit is unbearable and inescapable. Entire neighborhoods reek of rotting mangos, since so much of this city was fruit groves prior to development. There are clouds of fruit flies hovering beneath the trees. Blue jays and squirrels take up permanent residence until the end of the season. From my four trees (three varieties doncha know: two Haydens, one Smithfield and a Keitt) I have made: mango jelly, mango marmalade, mango daiquiris, mango margaritas, mango bread, mango chutney, chicken with mango, green mango chutney, green mango pickles, frozen mango, and green mango pie. The only salvation is that mangos fruit every other year. This year I have too many, next year I won't have enough. But even then, in a month, when the trees finally give up that last, sweet, fragrant fruit, I'll be out in the yard, looking up and asking: Any left? One more? Please? And now, because maybe YOU have too many mangos, here's a little something for you. Mango Upside-Down Cake 2 cups ripe mangoes, sliced 2 tbsp. lemon juice 1 tbsp. butter 1/3 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup shortening 1/4 tsp. salt 3/4 cup sugar 1 egg 1/2 cup milk 1/2 cup milk 1-1/4 cups flour 2 tsp. baking powder Pour lemon juice over mangoes and allow to stand 15 minutes. Melt butter in 8-inch pan or casserole. Add brown sugar and cover with a layer of mango slices. To prepare the cake batter: Cream the shortening, add the shortening, add the sugar and cream together, then add beaten egg. Sift dry ingredients and add alternately with milk. Pour over mangoes and bake 50 to 60 minutes at 375 degrees F. When cake is done, turn it out upside-down and serve while still warm. Serve with whipped cream or a lemon or lime sauce.

Hey! Check this out. The lovely Jodi sent me this link. Another person who thinks in Dylanese and takes pictures of other women's feet. Too scary to contemplate, but in an infinite universe, where anything CAN happen, everything MUST happen.

My sistagirl dragged my sorry ass to an aerobics class Saturday morning. Early morning. 8:30 in the morning, to be exact. She got me by telling me about the music: "It's all, like, BeeGees, and disco and totally '80s. Just twist a bandana around your forehead and find some spandex and it'll be great." And I was all, like, yeah! That WILL be fun. What drugs were flowing through my bloodstream? I hated aerobics classes in the 80s when I could still do them, before my knees just crumbled into bone meal inside some post-sell-date cartilage. I hated disco. I still hate disco. I spent the late 70s and early 80s pogoing at punk bars, and to this day have never once, not even for a minute done the Hustle. And I went to an 80s revival aerobics class. Somewhere in the middle, as I was blowing like a aged cart horse trying to run the Preakness, and folding up with my head between my knees so I didn't pass out, I started cursing my friend. The disgustingly skinny, cute and preternaturally perky instructress kept bouncing past me and saying things like "Keepin' it movin', good work there in the back." If I'd have been able, I would have cursed her, too. As it was I could barely lift my hands to shoulder lever to flip her the bird when her back was turned. I'm going back tomorrow. But that class will be yoga. I am a master at the corpse pose.

This just came across the old ticker. Gregory Peck has died. I'm glad that he was able to see that his portrayal of Atticus Finch won AFI's number one slot as the all-time best movie hero. He was. The character was. Just watched "Vanilla Sky" and Atticus as played by Gregory was the hero's archetype for fatherhood. Well, that just put me on the floor in a big ole pile of wet kleenex. And (this is for you, Lilly) so was the scene where Tom and Penelope re-enacted the cover of Dylan's "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" How come nobody ever re-enacts album covers with me, huh? I could do a mean "Whipped Cream and Other Delights." And David Brinkley has died, too. But the truth is, David never did it for me. I had a crush on ole Chet. And to this day I can't hear Beethoven's 9th without getting all warm and fuzzy, thinking about the black and white nightly news. Of course, that was back in the day when men were men, and newscasters were really reporters and not talking heads. And the news was really news, and not some carefully crafted spin or the celebrity burn-out du jour. Speaking of celebrity burn outs, I had an OJ spotting the other day. Well, I think it was an OJ spotting. It was a big white SUV with heavily tinted windows coming out of OJ's driveway, anyway. And it followed me for about a mile before I turned onto my own little street. Whee.

I'm zooming through the trilogy from Mississippi's finest: The Sweet Potato Queens. This is wonderful stuff and I'm only jealous that I didn't think of it first. Instead, I will just have to become a Mango Queen. Big thanks to my sistagirl Jean Anne who turned me on to them and who is just all set to become the Boss Queen of the Mango Queens, it being her idea and all. For those of you not yet clued in, the books are: The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love, God Save the Sweet Potato Queens and the Sweet Potato Queens' Big Ass Cookbook and Financial Planner. Just finished the Damon Runyon Omnibus, from whence comes my new philosophy of life: "Nothing between humans is ever 3-1. All of life is 6-5 against, just enough to keep you interested." Also on the just finished pile is an amazing, amazing first novel, "Cloud of Sparrows" by Takashi Matsuoka. I see over at Amazon that he has another book coming out in September, and I just can't wait. But of course, the number one beach book will be released on the first day of my week-long beach vacation, so I am all ready for 7 glorious days on the white sands of the Gulf coast, with a suntan-oiled copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Life is good, no? Or at least better than the alternative.

Who are we kidding here? I had pet mice as a teenager, mostly because it made my mother insane. I had a little white hamster, too, and let me tell you, when Igor stuffed his little pouches full of violets, it was adorable. But he fit into my palm. He was an (ahem) domesticated little rodent, as were my little lab mice. We are now watching as a new health epidemic sweeps our nation. Monkeypox, a "mild form of smallpox". And I for one would like to know if that's anything at all like a mild case of pregnancy... But I digress. Where did monkeypox come from? From a batch of prairie dogs that caught it from a Giant African Pouched Rat, while they were all hanging around in Phil's Pocket Pets of Villa Park, Ill., waiting to be sold as pets. Which begs the question, who fucking keeps prairie dogs as pets? And why? They are large, cute rodents known to carry the plague. Hey! As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up. Prairie dogs carry the bubonic plague. Yeah, great fucking pet. For your ex-husband maybe, but do you really want to give one to the kids? And they have teeth. Big old rodent teeth. And they can, as they say so euphemistically on the exotic pet web site, "inflict a deep painful bite." Uh-huh. Right. Which brings me to the Giant African Pouched Rat, a species of which I was blissfully unaware until this week. Here is what the R-zu-2-U web site has to say on the subject: "Giant African Pouched Rats, also called Gambian Pouched Rats (Cricetomys gambianus) are HUGE! The body length can be as much as 10 - 17 inches long from head to base of tail! Their tail is about the same length again or longer. These rats weigh from 2 to 6+ lb. Is this big enough for you? They have an absolutely adorable face, actually rather comical and whimsical in appearance. If you like rodents, they are sure to captivate you in a heartbeat!" Or not. A six pound rat is my idea of a living urban legend nightmare, not a pet. I can understand a snake, even one of those ridiculously large boa constrictors, if you are so inclined, but a SIX-POUND rat? Once again, I find myself asking the eternal question: What is wrong with you people? Am I the only sane person on the planet?

Jun 9, 9:40 am ET NEW YORK (Reuters) - Add "The Shoe Murder" to the chronicles of New York's crimes of passion. A stormy relationship ended up on a Brooklyn street in the early hours of Saturday when a 220 pound woman sat on her ex-boyfriend's chest and clubbed him to death with her size 12 high heeled shoe, police said. Anna Rhinehart, 40, told authorities she attacked Roosevelt Bonds, 51, in self-defense after he punched her in the mouth, knocking out her two front teeth. The passionate struggle to the death began at 3 a.m. Saturday when Bonds saw Rhinehart at a restaurant with another man, police said. "There was a dispute between them and the man was struck in the head and body with a blunt instrument," police spokeswoman Det. Carolyn Chew said. Rhinehart was charged with manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon. "It was her shoe," Det. Chew said. Man, I love the city.