Side show

ASK FOR THE SAMPLER PACK: If getting holiday catalogs in the mail two or three at a time every day from Labor Day to New Year's Day drives you up the wall, maybe you can ask the Direct Marketing Association to do for you what it did for us: Send them all at once.

The association dropped on our doorstep a very heavy box (all our weight lifting paid off) with 63 catalogs, and a news release proclaiming that we should now be able to meet all our holiday shopping needs from the comfort of our home and office.

We got catalogs for Back in the Saddle (everything -- clothes, dishes, jewelry -- has a horse on it), Fairytale Brownies (as in food, not Girl Scouts), Levenger ("Tools for Serious Readers"), Dancing Dragon ("Purveyors of fine dragon treasures since 1987"), Smith+

Noble window dressings and Vita-Mix.

The most impressive showing was made by Sears, which had 10 catalogs, each with a different theme, one being Leather Connection.

Because our holiday shopping is almost done, however, we decided to find things we want, to help our clueless, and catalog-inundated, friends and relatives. At the top of our list: a custom designed wine cellar from the Wine Enthusiast, and from the Lighter Side, this T-shirt: "I can only make one person happy each day. I pick ME."

A DOG'S LIFE: InStyle.com's latest "What's Hot" list depresses us, for it makes us think that there are dogs that dress better than we do, accessorize better than we do, smell better than we do and eat off more expensive dishes than we do:

-- Wagwear is "minimal, sophisticated" line of clothes, leashes and collars. A featured winter item is a brick-and-green wool turtleneck sweater for $88.

-- Le Chien makes a chain-link collar and leash set in green leather for $165.

-- Le Pooch II conditioning fragrances tame doggie odor at $26 to $250 a bottle.

-- Coach, the company that makes gorgeous leather purses, has begun making stainless steel dog bowls for $58 a pop.

IT'S ALL IN THE DETAILS: Halle Berry says that she and her husband, musician Eric Benet, are in psychotherapy together. They started after a "staggering crisis" hit their marriage around the time she won this year's best actress Oscar for Monster's Ball.

Berry wouldn't discuss with Essence magazine the tabloid reports from around that time that Benet was being treated for sex addiction at an Arizona clinic (the tabs had pictures of Berry at the clinic). She did give the distinct impression that their troubles went beyond the whole "toilet seat up-down" thing.

"All romantic relationships suffer crises. The details of mine, while tantalizing, are not the point," Berry said, ensuring that the details remain the only point anyone cares about.

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