Short Shorts

My husband and I will be traveling with friends in Italy and France. I have been told that it is not appropriate to wear casual pants for sightseeing. Is this true? P.J., Riverton. Casual pants will virtually always be fine for general sightseeing in those countries. There may be situations where you would feel more comfortable in a skirt or tailored slacks, but they'll be the same situations you'd have at home, and you'll recognize them. In many countries, the sense of casual style is more formal than it generally is in the United States, and perhaps that is what led to the "casual-pants caution" you received.

Mob underboss Joseph S. "Skinny Joey" Merlino may be more worried about his girlfriend than his Sunday arrest on drunken driving charges that could revoke his federal parole. And with good reason. It may take a while for the U.S. Parole Commission to act, but not the woman he cares about. When Merlino was charged with driving drunk on a suspended license at 2:48 a.m. Sunday at 4th and Shunk streets, he was with a young woman, about 20, in a black halter-style top and short shorts - not his regular girlfriend.

You bought red short shorts in April, confident this would be the summer of the tight tush. But here it is July 4th and your bum is still too bootylicious. Or maybe that trendy midriff tank doesn't look quite right because your tummy is too tubby. And then there is that high-cut bikini. Whew! One extra french fry and even a perfect bod can test that two-piece. Sometimes you can use fashion to camouflage imperfections — an A-line skirt for pear-shapes or illusion sleeves for saggy arms.

Dining outdoors is one of summer's greatest pleasures - except when it rains. And it's rained a lot lately, especially on the weekends. Rain can be a real spoiler if you're heading to one of the Delaware River waterfront's five outdoor restaurant/clubs for lunch or dinner. I know, because I got caught in storms twice down there. Two other nights, I shivered as the temperature dropped sharply between appetizer and coffee. The Beach Club, Rock Lobster and Kokomo Bay Cafe offer dining with nothing but the sky for a canopy.

The fretting begins in February, when the Valentine's Day chocolate is gone. Step up the aerobics, you tell yourself. Four times a week. No excuses. In April, the thick sweaters go into storage and the melting snow reminds you summer is just around the corner. Four times a week, you pledge. Again. Suddenly, it's here. The sun. The warmth. The kind of weather that demands short skirts, sleeveless tops and - yikes! - a swimsuit. Are your thighs ready? Your arms?

Call me old-hat if you want. I passed up some bodice-ripping romance audio, some rah-rah sports collections and the Princeton Review's vocabulary builder for some classic short stories. And I'm not sorry. In a mushrooming industry, where every company seems to be trying to find its niche, two relatively new firms are mining the treasure trove of short classics and putting out some top-notch recordings at not-bad prices. If the classics are stuffy - and that's arguable - Rick Spencer's approach is anything but. His recordings, on the Spencer Library label (800-934-6000)

Being big in the NFL is not all it's cracked up to be. Each year, more little guys are popping up on team rosters, guys 5-9 and under who held on like rabid chihuahuas during training camp and found a spot against all odds. The Super Bowl champion Washington Redskins had 10 such players when they began the season, including 5-7 Ricky Ervins, 5-8 Darrell Green and 5-9 Heisman Trophy winner Desmond Howard. The Lions had eight, including 5-8 Barry Sanders. The Oilers had six, the Rams five and the Eagles four.

Shane Fisher thought he got a real bargain: a $202,000 three-story house in Lansdowne - $29,000 less than list price - that he could live in and that had two upper floors he could rent. Yet today, Fisher finds himself still scrambling to finance tens of thousands of dollars in unanticipated expenses, including $60,000 in renovation-cost overruns he says could have been avoided if settlement had not taken almost a year to complete. The house he put his deposit on 20 months ago was a short sale, in which the lender accepted less than the balance owed on the mortgage.

Just because you're a woman of color doesn't mean you're blessed with perfect, miniskirt-worthy skin. That's the basis behind Rittenhouse Square makeup artist Ursula Augustine's latest offering - Golden Stockings, a sugar-based airbrush tanning system that gives legs a sheer panty-hose sparkle. Augustine uses the tanning spray on women of all ethnicities, but, she says, her more frequent customers are brown-skinned ladies in search of beautiful, bronze limbs. "My legs had such a nice, even tone," said Chi-Chi Enigwe, a 5-foot-10-inch Mount Airy publicist the color of dark chocolate who tans so she can rock white hot pants with pride.

Rookie hazing At least there was one reason for the Phillies to laugh after a missed opportunity to clinch their fourth straight division title at home. Costumes hung in seven players' lockers, meaning it was time for the annual rookie hazing. Pitchers Vance Worley and Antonio Bastardo sat at their lockers, staring at the scandalous police outfits they had to put on. "Delaying the inevitable, gentlemen," Ryan Howard said as he walked by. Domonic Brown, John Mayberry Jr., Brian Bocock, Mike Zagurski, and David Herndon also donned costumes.