This just in: apparently Maureen Dowd returns from book leave in two weeks! Tomorrow the last of her replacement columnists, McSweeney's alum and "Assassination Vacation" author Sarah Vowell, will step into her broadsheet shoes and fill her column inches on the New York Times opinion pages, filing four columns in all. A note of interest: Vowell is the third woman to stand in for MoDo, following Stacey Schiff and Patricia Nelson Limerick, breaking the all-male op-ed streak that was ushered in by MoDo stand-in Matt Miller, and which was the subject of some rumblings about how it might not be enough just to employ male op-ed writers who really, really like their wives. No word on whether one has anything to do with the other but regardless we'll be happy to have our MoDo back (even though we're sure Vowell's column will be delightful).