City Slickers

Andrea Clark stumbles from a bed she's barely slept in, wearing the smelly jeans and shirt she had on just a few hours earlier, to do a job she's paying to do. "Let's go check for babies," Clark, 32, tells her mother as they make their way to the nearby corrals and hundreds of pregnant sheep. It's 2 a.m. The air is crisp and the women are tired. But if they came to Pachy Burns' ranch hoping to be pampered or to spend relaxing nights under the Big Sky, they've driven down the wrong gravel road.

Ardent fans of the NBC comedy "Will & Grace" might be aware that Eric McCormack, who plays Will, went to Broadway last year as a temporary replacement in the lead role of scamp Harold Hill in Susan Stroman's revival of "The Music Man."

"I like mine fried good and brown. I like mine fried upside down. Ham 'n' eggs. Flip 'em, flop 'em, flap 'em. Ham 'n' eggs." --Los Angeles Breakfast Club's anthem * Long before golf and tennis became the preferred recreations of Los Angeles' elite, horseback riding in the forested oasis of Griffith Park was the favorite pastime for a group of fun-loving civic movers and shakers who collectively became known as the Breakfast Club.

Close the polls. Take the tally. After an unprecedented 17 intersectional games involving teams from the region, the winner by a whisker is the City Section with nine victories. All of which is absolute, indisputable proof . . . of nothing in particular. But it's more than a little surprising. Cleveland's 49-12 drubbing of Calabasas and Crenshaw's 33-6 defeat of Crespi on Friday pushed the City past the Southern Section, 9-8.

The current main stage attraction at the Palm Springs Desert Museum invites us to return to those thrilling days of '60s yesteryear, when art was hot in Northern California. Three masters of the era are updated in "Collaborations: William Allan, Robert Hudson, William Wiley." All came to public attention as innovative participants in a movement called "Funk"--an against-the-grain, bumptiously regional style associated with UC Davis.

The event: A boot-stompin' Country Hoe-Down benefiting the Centennial Farm at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. Staged Saturday by the Centennial Farm Foundation, the event drew 600 city slickers who dressed in everything from 10-gallon hats to broomstick-skirts. Down on the farm: During the cocktail reception, guests roamed the 3-acre farm--which about 40,000 Orange County students visit annually--viewing 10-day-old piglets, 2-month-old kids, horses and Holstein bull calves.

Three-year-old Samantha Thomson of Simi Valley got to see something Sunday that suburbanites don't see every day--sheep being sheared. "The jacket is coming off," observed Samantha, as herdsman Bill Langer completed the job of shearing a 120-pound sheep. "It's funny watching her reaction on something like this," said Linnea Thomson, Samantha's mother.

Living in the country can mean spectacular views, a sense of solitude and wide open spaces. It can also mean impassable roads covered with 6-foot snowdrifts, a hanging cloud of smoke from ditch-burning operations and an unwelcome visit from a herd of wandering cattle. In other words, country life is different from city life. Realizing the differences, Larimer County Commissioner John Clarke set out to educate, if not warn, prospective residents of the county's rural areas.

What do you serve at Easter dinner? If your roots are in the Mediterranean, probably lamb. Apart from lamb's religious associations, it's a natural for a springtime feast because it's always available at that time of year. If you have New England ancestors, you may repeat the Thanksgiving turkey; but if your ancestors came from northern Europe, the meat is probably ham. Seasonality has everything to do with it.