Suzanne

"There is no precedent--it's just us." They didn't ask to be pioneers, but the Golds, an upper-middle-class Jewish family from New York, find themselves in uncharted moral hot waters in Jonathan Tolins' "The Twilight of the Golds." A meditation on ethics, opera, freedom of choice, and the future of the species sheathed in snappy comedy, this original production from the Pasadena Playhouse is a seamless mesh of script, performance and staging.

The TCM Classic Film Festival is screening several vintage blockbusters this weekend in Hollywood, including “The Great Escape,” “My Fair Lady” and “Giant.” But peppered among these classics are films that don't have such high profiles, including Ernst Lubitsch's final film “Cluny Brown,” from 1946; Mel Brooks' 1970 comedy “The Twelve Chairs”; and the offbeat 1973 Al Pacino-Gene Hackman buddy drama “Scarecrow.” ...

This somewhat formulaic novel from the Bantam New Fiction series traces the lives of three friends from the 1960s, when they were classmates at a New England college, to the mid-1980s. During their school days, Elizabeth, Claudia and Suzanne were typical flower children who unabashedly reveled in sex, emancipation from their parents' inflexible morality and idealism. Later on, adult problems encumber them.

RANCHO MIRAGE -- Suzann Pettersen, who runs turns 32 on Sunday, is tied for third midway through the third round of the Kraft Nabisco Championship, the LPGA's first major of the season. Pettersen has been runner-up in this event three times but has never won it. She's a six-time member of the European Solheim Cup team and has a one major title, the LPGA Championship. Pettersen, of Norway, finished her round of five-under 67 with birdies on the last four holes. "I played really solid today," Pettersen said.

"Are We There Yet?," which premieres Wednesday on TBS, is a sitcom sequel to the 2005 theatrical feature of the same name (mostly bad reviews but pretty good box office). Terry Crews stars as Nick, who has married Suzanne (Essence Atkins), who has two children, Lindsey (Teala Dunn) and Kevin (Coy Stewart). Nick has a best friend named Martin (Christian Finnegan), and Suzanne has a best friend named Gigi (Keesha Sharp), both of whom are around all the time, in the sitcom way of things.

"I'm so lonely I can't help wishing I were still single," sighs Suzanne, 33, who owns a small dressmaking business. When she met Joe, who is seven years younger, "I knew I was in love," she recalls. Still, to make sure they were right for each other, they decided to live together for six months. "By that time we were positive we knew each other well," she adds. "We had the most lavish wedding and honeymoon. How could we have been so wrong?"

Dwarf twin boys have been born to a dwarf couple in what Methodist Hospital officials say is an extremely rare occurrence. The twins were born Thursday by Caesarean section to Suzanne and Joseph Was of Helotes, Tex. "We're the happiest parents in the world. I'm proud the kids are dwarfs," said Was, manager of a convenience store. Joseph Michael weighed 6 pounds, 1 ounce at birth, and Jacob William weighed 4 pounds, 14.5 ounces.

EVENTS SASSAS, the Society for the Activation of Social Space Through Art and Sound, will host a listening party featuring music favored by writers and artists Stephen Prina, Michael Ned Holte and Catherine Opie at the Lloyd Wright-designed home of Suzanne and David Johnson in Brentwood. Dinner and drinks will be served. Location is given upon purchase of tickets. 4 to 8 p.m. Sun. $125 per person. (323) 960-5723; http://www.sassas.org.

ON the ledger sheet of life, it's not clear which of the two L.A. couples in Kate Robin's "What They Have" is more in the black. Both are attractive and artistically ambitious. Both are striving mightily for that ever elusive balance between self-actualization and self-acceptance. And both love to talk ad nauseam about where they're at. The play, which had its world premiere Friday at South Coast Repertory, is made up almost entirely of navel-gazing chat. In fact, the slightest of ambivalent feelings can launch an army of words on the different shades of emotional gray.

Donna Jackson of Kernville is interested in opera memorabilia and would like to know about clubs or similar organizations she could get attuned to. Would some of you be Godunoff to get into the act, or will Jackson just have to Lohengrin and bear it? For her husband, Sylvia Weishaus of Studio City needs stretch jeans, the type that have some spandex added to the cotton ; his old ones are wearing out, and he will not wear any other type.

The leaderboard after the first round of the Kraft Nabisco Championship was showing international colors Thursday. South Korea's Na Yeon Choi, Norway's Suzann Pettersen and England's Jodi Ewart Shadoff were tied for the lead at Mission Hills Country Club after shooting rounds of four-under-par 68. Meanwhile, down in a tie for 22nd place, Michelle Wie was displaying her own colors. Wie, who has made only one cut this year, dyed her hair pink, purple and turquoise and was happy with her even-par round of 72 at Rancho Mirage.

Chefs Alice Waters and Suzanne Goin are pairing up to host “Lunch Matters,” a fundraiser to revamp the lunch program at the Larchmont Charter School in West Hollywood on April 21. The event will raise funds to rebuild a kitchen where the school's lunches will be made using seasonal produce from the school garden and local farms. The lunches will be incorporated into the curriculum to complement nutrition and cooking classes as part of the Larchmont Charter School's Edible Schoolyard program.

Want to get up close and personal with your meat? It would be hard to find a better opportunity than one of Jar chef Suzanne Tracht's classes at Huntington Meats in the Original Farmers Market. Huntington owner Jim Cascone and butchers John Escobedo and Robert Ore will lead you on a detailed tour of pork , including varieties of hogs, breaking down a whole pig into primal and retail cuts, an explanation of grading and sizing.  At the same time, Tracht will serve dishes including braised pork shank, pork belly and pork tenderloin salad with arugula and crisp lardo.

"Three Weeks in May," the famous 1977 work by artist-activist Suzanne Lacy that mapped rape cases across Southern California, will now have a permanent home at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. The Hammer said Wednesday it has acquired the piece, which Lacy created with artist Leslie Labowitz over a three-week period in 1977 near L.A.'s City Hall. The museum said the piece was purchased through its acquisition fund. Lacy created "Three Weeks in May" to raise awareness of rape cases.

Ever wonder what made Suzanne Collins come up with the idea for "The Hunger Games"? It's a pretty terrifying story: Teenagers are set loose in the woods and forced to fight to the death. Hmm, maybe that year Collins' dad spent in Vietnam has something to do with it. Her next book may shed some light -- although it will be an unusual light. "Year of the Jungle" is an autobiographical book about the year Collins was in first grade and her father was a soldier in Vietnam. But it's a picture book.

Call it the H&M effect, or fast fashion. Americans are buying, and discarding, clothes more quickly than ever. On average, each of us throws 54 pounds of clothes and shoes into the trash each year. That adds up to about 9 million tons of shoes, jackets and other wearables that are sent into the waste stream annually, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Traditionally, the options for dealing with that waste have started with an R: Reduce, reuse or recycle. But a clutch of designers, some of them high-end, are pursuing a different tack.

Pungent steam rises from a boiling pot of a mugwort tea blended with wormwood and a variety of other herbs. Above it sits a nude woman on an open-seated stool, partaking in a centuries-old Korean remedy that is gaining a toehold in the West. Vaginal steam baths, called chai-yok, are said to reduce stress, fight infections, clear hemorrhoids, regulate menstrual cycles and aid infertility, among many other health benefits. In Korea, many women steam regularly after their monthly periods.

Ancient grains may sound like something you'd find in a museum or at an archaeological site. But these days, they're turning up in the bread aisle. At markets from Whole Foods to Vons, shoppers can choose from a growing number of breads made with so-called ancient grains, including quinoa, amaranth, spelt and Kamut (a patented variety of wheat). Claims about the breads abound: They're said to be packed with whole grains, protein, omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants, and they're supposedly safe for people with wheat allergies or gluten intolerance, also known as celiac disease.

EVENTS SASSAS, the Society for the Activation of Social Space Through Art and Sound, will host a listening party featuring music favored by writers and artists Stephen Prina, Michael Ned Holte and Catherine Opie at the Lloyd Wright-designed home of Suzanne and David Johnson in Brentwood. Dinner and drinks will be served. Location is given upon purchase of tickets. 4 to 8 p.m. Sun. $125 per person. (323) 960-5723; http://www.sassas.org.

With all the hype surrounding the opening of "The Hunger Games," it wouldn't be surprising if your 7-year-old was as psyched to see the dystopian sci-fi drama as your mother-in-law. But the "games" of the title here spotlight kid-on-kid homicide, so choosing this PG-13-rated film as a date with your youngster might not be the best parenting move. If your child is approaching puberty though, Suzanne Collins' trilogy of books centered on the futuristic world of Panem, might have already been assigned as required reading by his or her middle-school English teacher.