Yasser Arafat just emailed me. If you've never met him, he's a great guy. Very funny. Knows some really great Jewish jokes. But the last few years have not been kind to Arie. And he's getting invited to a lot fewer parties since he developed that unfortunate bladder control problem.

Plus, arthritis has greatly slowed him down as well. He's in desperate need of hip replacement surgery, but the PLO HMO is refusing to cover it.

And he used to make a mean time bomb, but the way his eysight is now, forget it. The last thing you want to do is mix up the green and red wires on those things.

Anyway, he was worried about me and wanted to know if I had gotten out of Baghdad okay.

I assured him I was fine. I had put on a dress (not something I normally do in public) and fled with a bunch of other refugees. And with this mustache, I blended right in with all the other Iraqi women.

So I told him that so far, at least, I was safe. Going to the ladies room, however, does tend to arouse some suspicion.