When you cover the entertainment beat, the craziest - and most mind-blowing stuff can happen at the most random moments. This was like the extra treat you take home in a doggie bag after a great meal.

Or give you a cooking lesson. I remember him doing a kind of play-by-play as he was mixing up our drinks, describing how you put this in - about this much - and then you stir it up like this, and add some of this, and then ...

I discovered Carl Reiner as a kid watching the “Dick Van Dyke Show.” Didn’t know a lot about him back then and I was too young to have watched “Your Show of Shows”. I learned about “The 2000 Year Old Man” during college radio, and his other work beyond that. Still absolutely love pretty much ANYTHING by Mel Brooks, and anything by Mel Brooks usually had the Reiner touch in there somewhere too.

And frankly, I don’t remember much about the interview with him, but that moment at the bar drinking home made egg cream with him - I will NEVER forget that!

And it was delicious, too! That’s one memory that quite literally leaves a good taste in the mouth.

Went to his house to interview him for some upcoming project. He showed me into the living room. We sat on the sofa and talked while I recorded the conversation on my tape recorder. He was very very dear and delightfully funny as I’d expected, me being a longtime fan.

Then he wanted to take a break. “Want an egg cream?” he asked. I said “sure!” He stood up and walked over to the corner of the room to the built-in bar. Stepping behind it, he proceeded to get out the seltzer water and the U-Bet chocolate syrup. Stirred it up in a pitcher with a long-handled spoon. Then he lifted the spoon to his mouth to taste it (that’s the way Mom and Dad did it when they wanted to test how something tasted - what you do when the “recipe” is in your mind or your past experiences). He clearly approved of what he’d just “brewed”. Stuck the spoon back into the pitcher again and stirred some more. Then poured two glasses and we toasted each other with an authentic chocolate egg cream.

And as chocolate egg creams go, it was, of course, delicious. Yet not quite as much so as the very idea of sharing an authentic chocolate egg cream with the likes of Carl Reiner. One that was personally made BY Carl Reiner!

The only thing missing from such an intoxicating moment was Mel Brooks.

So are the late night comedians. If there’s one thing trump actually does well, it’s the part about generating material.

Surprised at HOW MUCH corruption and crime is revealed? Or surprised at how little there actually is that we could sink our teeth into, and about which we can win convictions?

If there’s ANY wiggle-room, donald trump is an expert at beating the rap and wiggling out of danger. Like the snake he is.

I’m one of many, here and elsewhere, who love and embrace Steve Schmidt and other in the Dark Side who appear to have “come into the light.” They certainly sound like they have.

So okay then. All that stuff about forgiveness and not looking a gift horse in the mouth. Fine. But are they REALLY among the converted? I guess we’ll have to see how complete that “rehabilitation” really is. Have they really seen and understood the error of their ways? Have they really reformed from their wretched, cockeyed, wrong-headed, CONservative worldview? Seriously? Only time and the eventual end of the trump era will tell. Because as we all know, republi-CONS certainly can talk a good game.

I’m glad to hear the about-face NOW. But that’s NOW. I’m hard-wired NOT to trust anything republi-CON. Even if it sounds good NOW. I believe souls can be saved, and I believe there are deathbed conversions. But are these REALLY that? Is Steve Schmidt really a changed man? A genuine penitent - or a Trojan Horse?

Is Jennifer Rubin, a conservative who has more recently been vigorously dumping on trump, REALLY among the converted?

How about Bill Kristol? Max Boot? Ana Navarro? And the “recovering” GOPers like the former Congressmen who are now regular contributors on MSNBC? And all those others who say they’ve now switched from GOP to Independent? Are they REALLY among the good guys now? Have they understood and acknowledged the error of their thinking, and reformed? Have they sincerely and legitimately seen the light, and renounced their previous “sincerely-held beliefs”? There’s a bunch of “political asylum-seekers” on this list right now.

But there’s something in me that doesn’t want to let down my guard. There’s something in me that’s not ready to trust. What keeps echoing loudly in my ears is the comment I’m hearing more frequently now that the election’s mere days away, and the poll numbers are tightening: “Republicans always come home.”

Dear Sweet God Almighty PLEEEEZE let us get rid of Steve King!

Dog’s too big to be on our bed but the cats aren’t. They’re on our bed all day.