NO BROCCOLI: Former President George Bush barred...

NO BROCCOLI: Former President George Bush barred the media when he spoke at a guests-only packaging convention in Anaheim last month. Last Friday, George and Barbara Bush ate with little fanfare at Fashion Island’s Ritz Restaurant in Newport Beach, as guests of Ford Motor Co. executives. Not that the couple went unrecognized. They chatted with nearby diners and signed autographs. . . . George Bush ordered liver and onions, Barbara Bush the sauteed Dover sole. They also left with a doggie bag.

NAME GAME: Anaheim’s Arena Football team will announce its new nickname and logo Nov. 14 (C1) from six finalists--the Piranhas, Beach Dogs, Commandos, Crush, Americans and TigerSharks. . . . Commandos? Former Irvine Mayor David Baker, part of the team’s ownership group, says it has potential: “We talked to the National Guard about getting some tanks out here. It would be great, just like a Raiders game.” . . . The team begins play in May at The Pond.

SISTERS BY SEA: Cynthia Coad of Anaheim doesn’t speak Polish. Maria Gutawska speaks almost no English. But for nearly 50 years, the two have corresponded by mail--through a series of translators. . . . It started when Coad, as a Girl Scout, sent a CARE package to Poland. The teen-age Gutawska, now a pharmacist, wrote a thank you. They met briefly in Poland five years ago. . . . “We’re as close as sisters,” says Coad, a retired college professor. Coad is a guest at the CARE 50th anniversary commemoration Wednesday at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove.

CART PATROL: When Costa Mesa residents complained about renegade shopping carts all around town, the city started rounding them up. Now who’s complaining? The supermarkets. Their managers say the city, which charges them $12 for each cart retrieved, doesn’t give them enough time to collect the abandoned vessels. . . . But Mayor Joe Erickson responds: “The stores have just been doing a really poor job. We’re sending them a message.”

TONIGHT: Jazz-pop singer Harry Connick Jr. at 8, Bren Events Center, UC Irvine.