The sun will be shining tomorrow as the victorious Yankees celebrate their World Series triumph...again. For the 27th time. Reminds me of covering the victory parade thirteen years ago. The 1996 Yankees World Series win.

It was cold and sunny that day, too. Jack Cafferty and I were among the horde of anchors and reporters sitting check to jowl on hastily rigged risers, with City Hall behind us. Just like tomorrow, that is where the Yankee victory parade will end up, with a big celebration on the steps.

Day 52 of our new 6:30 PM newscast. About six weeks now. It’s a kick to do, so different from our News at Ten. Have you had a chance to check it out yet?

Last night Jim, my partner in crime here at PIX, wrote a blog about getting a kitten for his three little boys. Got me thinking about my cat, Jake. Or rather, my son’s cat. We got him from Bide- a Wee in Manhattan, a tiny little orange ball with big green eyes.

The New York City marathon coming up! Mr G is running something like his 28th consecutive one. Okay, he did skip last year, and maybe one other year but my point is he’s run a hell of a lot of marathons. And he’s always among the first…..oh, 20,000 or so to cross the finish line. Just kidding G. Jeesh, he’s so sensitive.

I’ve been to a few marathons myself. Reporting on them. Live, from the comfort of a director’s chair.

Okay, could not pass this one up. Story yesterday about a legislator wanting to ban ‘fish pedicures.’ I never even heard of such a thing before. Apparently, women put their crusty calloused feet into a bowl filled with tiny fish with teeth that literally eat away all that nasty skin around your toes! Hope you’re not having dinner while reading this.

It made me sick, too.

So there I am, looking through my email and see a message from an old friend at Channel 4. He says something like “Good thing it’s not prom season. Read about your spotty face in the Daily News today!”

I know all of you noticed I wasn’t on the air last Thursday night. What, you didn’t notice? Well, let me tell you then. I wasn’t on the air last Thursday night. I got such a crazy allergy, I don’t know to what, that my face blew up, and there were red bumps and rashes all across both cheeks. Worse on the right side.

Well, here I go again. I’m thinking about buying a treadmill. Again. I’ve owned 3 of them in my lifetime, along with an exercise bike or two. You guessed it. Every one of those machines turned into clothing racks within weeks. And yet, here I am going onto various websites, checking out yet another treadmill. As if this time it’s going to be different. This time I am really going to use it. For exercise. Not bras and belts. Right.

A frustrating thing happened on the way to the office.

It has to do with these little monitors they installed in the building elevators a while back. One per elevator. When they first appeared, I was annoyed. I swore I would not waste my few precious moments of calm, reading whatever was flashing on that little screen.

So I’m standing on the corner of 54th and Fifth. I am often standing on that corner, for reasons too complicated to go into right now. The point being, I could not get a cab. Why? Well, as any self-respecting New Yorker knows, you can’t GET a cab anywhere in Manhattan between 4PM and 5PM. That’s when, apparently, all cabs change shifts. Oh, you’ll see plenty of them cruising by. With their off-duty lights on, mocking you. As a longtime New Yorker, I know this, and yet, for some reason (Mercury in retrograde?) I found myself foolishly waving my arm at oncoming traffic.

And then there was the day director Sidney Lumet came to the Channel 11 studios. I couldn’t believe he wanted to use Jack Cafferty and me in one of the scenes of his new movie Night Falls on Manhattan. The man is a god. Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, 12 Angry Men, Network.

When I turned 13 my teeth turned against me. The =slightly= crooked teeth I had up until then, were just that. SLIGHTLY crooked. But somewhere along the way, they started becoming WAY crooked. To the point that my poor parents decided I needed braces.

They asked around and were directed to a dentist who was very inexpensive. Not an orthodontist. A dentist. Who was inexpensive, it turned out, for very good reason.

All this talk about President Obama’s health care plan got me thinking about the kind of health care my brother and I got as children. It was iffy, at best. Because we were poor, my parents could not afford to send us to private doctors. I know they did not have health insurance. They could barely afford to pay rent.

One of the scariest memories from my childhood of things medical was dental care. Nothing like the bright and comforting dentist’s office my son went to as a child. For him, video games in the waiting room, a dentist’s chair shaped like a spaceship, a screen on the ceiling to project the video of his choice, a relentlessly cheerful dentist with a degree in child psychology….and best of all, a dab of anesthesia on a Q-tip to numb the spot on his gum BEFORE he got the novocaine injection. Local anesthesia even for a cleaning, if that’s what your little darling wanted.

Have you seen our temporary set this week? It's the coffee bar used on our Morning News. It is kidney shaped and small, so we all feel quite cozy. The stools are really high, though, and again, I must sit on three pillows just so you can see me. Even then, I look tiny. My chin is practically on the desk. They have taller anchors in the morning! And look at how G looms over me, when he stands next to me! It's hilarious.

Hello everyone. I’ve been on vacation for a week and yes, I have neglected my blog. I was visiting a good friend of mine in Sacramento who had to undergo neck surgery after falling off a horse. She was so lucky. She was wearing a helmet, and fell in such a way that her back and neck were damaged, but not to the point of no return. She has to have a year of physical therapy and wear a neck brace most of the time, but she will be okay. Thank God.

Now, when last I blogged, I was telling you about my trip to visit Mom, when I had to stop because of a pesky thing called a newscast. Let me pick up the tale.

So I get to my mother’s house in Northwest Washington. It’s a lovely little Tudor with a nice lawn, two dogwood trees and big azalea bushes lining the front. The nicest house we ever lived in, as my Dad starting making a bit more money. Lots of mature trees lining the street, close to a Safeway, post office, bank, cute coffee shop where you can buy éclairs and cupcakes, all the things you need to have within walking distance as you grow older. It’s a great neighborhood for my mom.

Had an interesting trip to see Mom this weekend. Took the Acela, and decided to treat myself to the rare first- class ticket. Get to Penn station, find out the escalator at the 8th Avenue entrance is under repair! Not good. I may only be staying 2 days, but I pack like I’m going camping for a week in Yosemite.

I used to be a really light packer, something I took pride in. But for some reason, in the last couple of years, I seem to need more and more stuff. Could all those pills and vitamins and supplements REALLY weigh that much? Well, there seems to be more of them all the time. Hmmm. And do I really need ALL those skincare products and cosmetics? Well, frankly, yes.

What has happened to exercise? I started pondering this after watching an infomercial sent to me by a friend. I will share it with you, but I’m not sure you’re going to thank me. Here it is:

Again, it’s Friday and I do have a recipe for you, but first, let’s talk about a ‘recipe for disaster!” Have you gone to our ”PIX Day In History” on our website?! You absolutely must, if nothing more than to check out the crazy, weird ‘anchor’ hair!

Swimming. Or more to the point, not swimming. This subject comes up for me every summer. I love the beach, but I don’t know how to swim. Every summer someone expresses astonishment about this fact. I’ve addressed this before, but think it is worth talking about again.

I attended an all- women’s college on the East Coast that has a 150- year- old tradition of not permitting any student who does not pass the swimming test to graduate, no matter how good their grades. For nearly two centuries, they never had an issue with this. Until I came along.

Believe me, they tried. It got to the point where the frustrated instructors would whack my fingers, desperately clinging to the side of the deep end of the pool, with sticks, to get me to let go. They kept screaming at me, “FLOAT! ANYBODY can learn how to FLOAT!” Well, not me, apparently. I proved to be too big a challenge, even for seasoned professional swim instructors at a respected center of learning.

Our intrepid Howard Thompson is now doing Feel Good Friday not just on Friday, but sometimes also on Monday, it’s THAT popular. So I figure I can do my Friday recipe on a Thursday, as I am taking tomorrow off. As many of you already know, today is my birthday, so I am going to take a long weekend to celebrate. (And thanks to each and every one of you who took the time to wish me a happy birthday! You're the best.)