Just got back to my room, following a visit to the Bath House at the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs.

If you’ve never been to the Arlington, it’s best described as stuck in the 1950’s; the bath house is probably stuck in the 1930’s, judging by the age of the copper pipes, the tubs, and the peeling paint.

It’s delightfully institutional, and a bit cheesy. But there’s just something that screams ‘must-do’ about it.And frankly, it is a screamin’ deal when it comes to the pricing.

Had ‘The Works’:

- A soak in a tub full of hot spring water, agitated by what looked like a small outboard motor.

- Followed by a steam in one of those old-fashioned steam cabinets in which your head sticks out, like something out of a Daffy Duck cartoon

- Followed by being wrapped in hot (HOT) towels, full body, but with a cooling chilled towel for the face and head

- Follwed by a sitz bath, which was, well, like sitting in a bowl of hot water

- Follwed by  needle shower, loved it

- Followed by a 20-minute massage.

That’s a lot of stuff., especially for $60! The best spa deal going.

 I’ve found that hydrotherapy of some sort, even just a hot shower, is so crucial before a spa treatment, and loved all the water. The steam cabinet was really warm, and I was getting a bit over-heated as well as a tad clastraphobic. Loved the hot towels, loved the massage.

I’d love it if the folks who owned the Arlington would bring the whole hotel, including the baths, into this century — even bringing up to, say, 1995 would work.

Having stayed there a few times before, the rooms are so in need of an update, the cuisine is SO in need of an upgrade, and the facilities in general just need to be freshened up, from top to bottom.

Sometimes, change can be a very good thing, and with all the improvements going on along Bath House row, the Arlington could — and should — be the jewel glittering at the top of the street.

Have you been to the Arlington, and ‘taken the waters?’ Or perhaps you’ve tried the other baths in town?

Let me know what you’ve experienced!

That's the verdict after more than 430 readers filled out the form letter to MLGW chief Joseph Lee in my March 6 column. Hundreds of you wanted to be on the Edmund Ford Payment Plan, apparently available only to this select city councilman, who racked up $16,000 in utility bills. (Ford narrowly avoided cut-off Tuesday by paying his bills in full.)

On Tuesday, I mailed the e-mailed form letters to Lee. While I'm overwhelmed by the response - stop! My portion of the letter sending period ended Tuesday, but feel free to print out the form letter and mail it directly to Lee yourself.

The Guest Diva and metro columnist
Wendi C. Thomas

That's the verdict after more than 430 readers filled out the form letter to MLGW chief Joseph Lee in my March 6 column. Hundreds of you wanted to be on the Edmund Ford Payment Plan, apparently available only to this select city councilman, who racked up $16,000 in utility bills. (Ford narrowly avoided cut-off Tuesday by paying his bills in full.)

On Tuesday, I mailed the e-mailed form letters to Lee. While I'm overwhelmed by the response - stop! My portion of the letter sending period ended Tuesday, but feel free to print out the form letter and mail it directly to Lee yourself.

The Guest Diva and metro columnist
Wendi C. Thomas

I heard today about a fun thing for parents and kids to do together Friday night: Head over to TheatreWorks, near Overton Square, from 7 until 9 p.m. to see excerpts from "The Ugly Duckling" performed by the hip, fun company Voices of the South, for FREE. They're doing a promotional video, and want to pack the house. Call 726-0800 or e-mail voicesoul@aol.com to let them know you're coming.

I also heard this morning you can actually eat lunch at the Rendezvous on weekdays, even though they're only officially open for lunch on Fridays. Is that true? If so ... here I come!

What other Memphis scoops do you know about? Things only an insider would know, or free stuff you can't believe is free? Share and we'll build a Diva data base ...

I don't know what it is about this year and fathers.

As regular readers of this blog know, I lost my dad at the end of January. Then earlier this month, one of my best friends from Florida, Steve Spears (who writes an excellent blog called "Stuck in the '80s" at www.stpetersburgtimes.com) lost his father.

Then late Saturday night, one of my best friends here in Memphis, Cindy Williams Morse, lost her father. Cindy's dad, Larry Williams, may be a familiar name to many readers of The Commercial Appeal. He spent more than three decades at this newspaper, doing a variety of reporting and column writing jobs.

Unfortunately for me, Larry had retired from the newspaper before I came to work here. However, he was also involved in the Memphis Gridiron Show for many years, including the first few after I became a script writer and cast member.

Thanks to Larry, I learned a lot about longstanding traditions at both the CA and the Gridiron Show. He helped me develop a better appreciation for the history of both institutions.

He was also quite a comedic talent. Larry and his partner in crime, the late Terry Keeter, used to do a bit in the Gridiron Show every year featuring a fortune teller called "Swami Rivers." It always kept the audience entertained, even when some of the jokes were repeated year after year.

Terry and Larry had a way of working on stage together that was just plain funny. I remember one of the video clips from an old show in which one of them would look at the other, just as the other would look away. It doesn't sound like much of a sight gag, but they made it hilarious.

Even more importantly, Larry was a real gentleman. If Keeter was the shot of whiskey in a boilermaker, Larry was the beer you drank afterward to smooth off the rough edges.

They'll both be missed. And if a sandbag suddenly and mysteriously drops on the stage at this year's Gridiron Show, I guess we'll know they didn't like the script.

The conventional wisdom on Freddie Francis - who died Saturday (March 24) at the age of 89 - is that he was a superb cinematographer and an adequate director.

I won't dispute that; there's no doubt that his black-and-white CinemaScope photography on 1961's "The Innocents" (to cite just one example) is so ravishingly beautiful it can take your breath away, while his 1970 directorial effort "Trog" (again, to cite just one example) - the movie in which Joan Crawford befriends a homicidal yet supposedly endearing subterranean ape-man - is liable to leave you breathless from laughing.

Yet "Trog" has been a favorite movie of mine ever since I saw it in junior high school on the late lamented CBS Late Movie, and if it's a bad movie I guess I'm a bad boy because even just typing the word "Trog" makes me want to watch it again. (I won't have to wait too long: The movie is scheduled to make its DVD debut June 26.)

With 33,000 fundraisers held across the country for St. Jude, you'd think it might be tough to be the "premier" event. Not if you're Marguerite Piazza, the former opera diva and current fundraising juggernaut, whose gala each year draws 'em in. This year, it included a kids chorus complete with disco moves (that's Lil Bird, left, in her chorus t-shirt with her grandparents Gene and Gloria Nobles). Also in Michael Donahue's column today: the Sugar Ball, for the American Diabetes Association, the unveiling of a painting honoring the 50th anniversary of Graceland, a St. Pat's bash, and more Carnival royalty, this time the krewe of AANI. Click the slide show, right, for more pictures.