What Better Time for a Show of Patriotism?

Not all party favors at charity events come in little vials and smell like grass or musk or citrus, or whatever are the perfume flavors of the moment.

(Then again, we’ve been loading up on an awful lot of charity-logo T-shirts lately.)

Not in that category are the gifts to be presented to each couple attending the 1994 Ronald Reagan Freedom Award dinner honoring Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on Wednesday.

They will take home exquisite tiny clocks from Bulgari Beverly Hills. Suggested use for the two-inch enameled and gold-plated “Duomo” clock, which retails for $540, is as a bedside item or a traveling timepiece.

The best part is the patriotic angle. The clocks are red, white or blue enamel.

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Monroe Memory: In with the new, out with the old.

The Hotel Bel-Air, which has been operating since 1940, comes of age next week when it celebrates the opening of a fitness center with the usual range of equipment and trainers.

(Don’t be thinking about sneaking in since access will be via private keys.)

Sacrificed to make way for the facility was the “Marilyn Monroe Cottage,” located at the northern end of the hotel, so named for its most famous inhabitant.

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Trainer Trick: As the food-intensive holidays approach, we leave you with one thought.

At the media screening of “Interview With the Vampire,” which was appropriately held on Halloween, Warner Bros. handed each media folk a bag of candy.

As one ink slinger reached into her bag, we overheard this:

“I constantly have the feeling that my trainer is sitting on my shoulder saying, ‘Don’t do it! Don’t do it!’ ”