Yesterday I had this exchange in an on-line forum.

Rachel: Dinner...Hopefully soup.

Me: Really, this early in the fall?

Rachel: What is with people and assigning food to seasons? I have soup year round. And it was canned soup.

I have been known to crank open a can of clam chowder any time of year if I'm eating alone and don't feel like bothering. But I'm never "hopeful" about it. And I think, despite her question about seasons, that Rachel understood that I thought she meant homemade soup. That is something to hope for.

People don't "assign foods to seasons"; the rhythms of nature assign foods to seasons. At least before Mr. Birdseye, Mr. Campbell and Chiquita's refrigerated railcars started blurring the natural food seasons.

This morning I went down to the farmers' market. The last of the locally grown sweet corn was looking shabby, but the tomatoes looked great, and there were lots of shell beans and zucchini. Fifty years ago my grandmother would have started canning her tomatoes and beans. The "winter" squash are just beginning to show up. Butternut, Acorn and their ilk have thick skins that allow them to keep over the winter down in the root cellar. The potatoes, parsnips, turnips and rutabagas would also keep over the winter under a bed of straw out in the barn.

Lentils and green peas can be dried now and then reconstituted when fresh are no longer available. It's time to can the peaches as this year's crop dwindles and later the late season Winesap and York apples can go down to the root cellar.

When it gets cold enough, game can be hunted and livestock slaughtered. We eat turkey at Thanksgiving, roast beef and goose at Christmas and lamb at Passover/Easter because that's when they are available, or were before Mr. Swift. People didn't assign those foods to those seasons, the natural order did.

Sure, a bowl of hot soup is great on a cold day, but that not why it's a winter food. Soup is a "winter food" because that's when you have the makings – and not much else to eat. There are bones, root vegetables and dried herbs for stock to make it flavorful and dried legumes, rice and wheat preserved as pasta to make it filling, fresh meat and preserved vegetables to add nutrition.

Asparagus and strawberries that have actual flavor are spring foods. Corn-on-the-cob isn't worth eating if it wasn't grown down the road and picked yesterday. That only happens for two months in the late summer.

Last winter I made a batch of ham stock. I used some of it to make a lentil and sausage soup. I froze the rest. I could probably use it now to make a fabulous soup of fresh vegetables. But, that's not what fresh vegetables are for; they are for eating and enjoying as they are. The stock will come out after the first frost and after I have put up the remaining green tomatoes as relish. That's when it will be time for winter foods. Nature tells me that.

One of the advantages of downsizing the house after the kids moved out was upsizing the garden. I had always wanted a big English-style border garden and now I have one. Five years ago this space was a jungle of weeds and weed-trees. I layed-out the plan and did all the planting, but, to be honest, the heavy lifting was done by guys with machines.

Besides lots of herbs and a few tomato plants, it's all flowers and ornamentals. And except for weeding and dead-heading it's no longer much work save for the fall clean-up and planting a few annuals in the spring.

And on insanely hot days, like today, we can sit in air-conditioned comfort and enjoy the view with Sophie the cat.

I am sitting here alone in the house, as I usually am this time of day. But I feel lonelier today because Jillian is out of town until tomorrow night. Let me explain the origin of the terrible feelings I get when she is away from me.

We had been going out on dates for just three weeks when Jillian headed off to her freshman year at Duke. We dated only each other during those three weeks but there was no way, after such a short time that I could ask, nor that she would have agreed, to not date. Besides, one of the reasons she chose Duke was that a guy she dated some during her senior year was going to be a junior there, as well. Nevertheless, I was really smitten with her and did not want to lose her. It was worrisome.

That was hard enough to ponder and then I got this delightful stomach punch. Way back then, there was this interesting contest for the Freshman Duke and Duchess. Each dorm picked a candidate whose headshot was then plastered all over campus for everyone to vote on. Jillian got nominated. And then she won. The prize for the Duchess, as I recall, was a bouquet of flowers and the opportunity to be hit on by every upper c|assman looking for fresh meat. And I got to say "congratulations" with my whole body shaking.

I don't think she had a date with a freshman the whole first semester. But, she also had mostly first dates, thank goodness. This was when she developed her distain for frat boys. She had one date with a senior on the football team who went on to be a starter on the undefeated Dolphins team of 1972. She found him dull and shallow. And, she only had one date with the old boyfriend.

All this time, we are communicating by mail (at least one letter a day) and one weekly three-minute phone call. It was somewhat reassuring to me that she would write me reviews of all her dates and that they were mostly scathing. Still, she was there and pretty and in demand.

Just before Thanksgiving, she invited me to be her "escort" for her pledge formal that neatly coincided with my winter break. And she stopped dating other people.

But, we still had two and a half more years of an LDR to survive without benefit of email, webcams (btw, why did Rory and Logan not take advantage of that technology instead of texting?) or cell phones. And it was wrenching. And, even after we got married, Jillian had to spend her next two summers in France doing research for her PhD. She came back three weeks early the second summer because she couldn't stand any more separation.

After that we made a rule. If one of us had to be out of town for more than two nights for a conference or a meeting, the other came along. We had to break that rule a few times, but having both sets of parents in town made it easy to dump the kids when they came along. Since the kids have flown we have never broken it.

For me, though, not having her here for just one night brings back all the feelings of emptiness, longing and dread I began experiencing over 40 years ago. She gets back at 6:00pm tomorrow. I'm making virtual hash marks on my virtual dorm room wall. By the minute.

Jillian loved to tell this story; that is, until everybody had heard it and told her to stop.

It was four days after our wedding and the second day of classes.

Jillian had graduated college and was beginning graduate school. But, being 19, she could easily have been mistaken for a freshman. The walk home to our apartment from campus took her along fraternity row and she could tell from his body language, as he came up to her, that Frat Boy was going hit on her.

Some experiences at college had taught Jillian a healthy disrespect for Frat Boys.

You couldn't really blame Frat Boy for trying, though. She was the same pretty girl with long blonde hair, blue eyes and perfect legs that had turned my head at the Fourth of July party three years before. Except that, instead of the white Keds, khaki Bermudas and white blouse with a Peter Pan collar she had worn then, this day she was wearing flat sandals, tight denim shorts that barely covered her butt and a green halter top.

Frat Boy came up on Jillian's left shoulder and fell into pace with her. "Hi," he said. Jillian gave him her sweet little smile. "Do you mind if I walk with you?" he asked.

Jillian's mother is Australian and Jillian had picked up enough of her accent to sound vaguely "British". It made her sound as if she wasn't-from-around-here, even though she was born here. When Jillian wanted to sound even more exotic she tossed in some idiom. "I shouldn't mind it at all," she answered. Frat Boy was smiling now, too, and probably trying not to drool.

Then Jillian stopped, turned toward Frat Boy, disengaged her left arm from under the notebooks she was carrying and wiggled the third finger in front of Frat Boy's face, "I'm afraid my husband would mind, though. Terribly," she said as she turned and walked away. She regrets not being able to turn and see the look on Frat Boy's face. But, she thought it would ruin the effect,

When she told me the story later that day, she said that more than the compliment of being hit on, more than the pleasure of deflating a Frat Boy, the best thing about the encounter was that it was the first time she had the opportunity to say, "My husband." I still think the answer is "A".

It's the 4th of July. There are thunderstorms about. That combo always evokes this memory for me.

Backstory: Jillian's and Debbie's future fathers met in Perth, AU when they were both seaplane pilots in WWII. BFF and all that. They were in each others weddings and all that. In 1949, Ted and Bert became the proud fathers. Bert/Debbie lived in Marin County, CA. Ted/Jillian lived here in the Horse Capital of the World.

In 1966, the California Girl caught the fancy of some 22 y/o proto-hippie. Do the math. Faster than you can say "Daisy Miller", Debbie was on the plane to bucolics-ville. Unlike the mid-sixties California Girl stereotype, Debbie had short curly brown hair and was not skinny. However, she was very pretty and had "attributes" that tend to attract 22 y/o of all ages. Jillian, on the other hand was taller, skinny, just as pretty, had blue eyes and long blond hair to below her shoulder blades.

July 4th was a big night at the swim club. Live band, magician, fireworks, big cook-out... Jillian, naturally, brought Debbie. Gary and I were there stag (still a word?) because his girlfriend, Susan, was on vacation in Michigan and my girlfriend, Susan, was at a family reunion in New Hampshire. They were best friends, too. Very confusing.

Thunderstorm. Electricity blown-up. Gary and I were friends of Jillian from school and church. The four of us took off in Jillian's car to find food. And light. We ended up just off campus at a little Itallian place with the cliche red/white cheeked table cloths and candles in the reeded chianti bottles. There's a McDonald's there now! True.

We had pizza. Jillian drank iced tea with a lemon wedge. As we were getting ready to leave, Jillian ate the lemon wedge. Not just the pulpy part. She ate the rind and everything.

Debbie went back to Marin, left college after her freshman year, moved to a commune in Oregon, had 5 kids and weighed 275 when last heard from.

Jillian and I married in 1969.

I am partial to thunderstorms on the Fourth of July.

Rory says that to Richard after he tells her that Cole Porter wrote the Yale Fight Song. Actually, he had been writing songs since he was 11 but he had only had one published before he wrote Bingo, Eli Yale. Then again, he had just turned 19 and was starting his sophomore year at Yale. Eventually he wrote 800 songs, most of them for hit Broadway musicals. You can Wiki his biography and bibliography. I'm not going to repeat all that here. What I'm going to do is tell you why he is the greatest writer of English-language songs ever.

There are very few people who wrote both the words and music for songs in "The Great American Songbook." George M. Cohan, Irving Berlin, Frank Loesser and Cole Porter. That's pretty much it. Steven Sondheim has some lyrics on the list but they are from shows for which he did not write the music.

Cohan's song are now all dated. Give My Regards to Broadway and I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy are around in commercials; You're a Grand Old Flag gets a work out on the Fourth of July. That's about it.

Irving Berlin wrote the songs for three Astaire/Rogers films, the songs for Annie Get Your Gun, and White Christmas, Easter Parade and God Bless America. Off the top of your head, hum a Berlin song that isn't on that list. When was the last time a Berlin show, other than Annie Get Your Gun, was revived or even performed as a high school play? If you guessed "never", that's pretty close. Berlin, for the most part wrote disposable Tin-Pan-Alley songs.

Frank Loesser and Steven Sondheim wrote the lyrics to some very famous songs, but not the music. On Broadway Loesser was a one hit wonder with Guys and Dolls (generally regarded as the best Broadway musical of all time, but still..). As much as I love Company and Follies, hum me a Sondheim song that isn't Send in the Clowns. Sondheim's music is there to carry the lyric but isn't often melodic or even memorable.

So that brings us to Cole Porter who between just Kiss Me Kate, and Anything Goes, is probably being performed on stage somewhere every day of the year. The poor man suffered the two worst bio-pix ever made, but at least there was enough interest in him to make them. He had range, emotionally (from Night and Day to You're the Top) and subject matter (I Love Paris to Don't Fence Me In). And he could double entendre at least as well as Larry Hart. This is one of the least blue verses from In The Morning, No (it's a duet, female in italics):

"Are you fond of swimming dear?
Kindly tell me, if so.
Yes, I'm found of swimming, dear,
But in the morning, no.
Can you do the crawl, my dear?
Kindly tell me, if so.
I can do the crawl, my dear,
But in the morning, no.
When the sun through the blind
Starts to burn my poor behind
That's the time when I am in low.
Do you use the breast stroke, dear?
Kindly tell me, if so.
Yes, I use the breast stroke, dear,
But in the morning, no, no--no, no,
No, no, no, no, no!"

In conclusion, I'd ask you to remember this advice Cole gave us in1941, "Don't inquire of Georgie Raft, why his cow has never calfed. Georgie's bull is beautiful, but he gay."

This week on the Gilmore Girls forum we are discussing episode 7.5 (because it reruns this week) and episode 1.6, Rory's Birthay Parties (because we have started over at the beginning and this is week 6).

In the opening scene of 1.6, at Friday night dinner, Emily tells L&R that after dinner they are to go around the house and put a Post-It on items they would like to have left to them in the elder Gilmores' wills.

Both L&R think it's creepy and weird and go all eewwwwww. Why?

Admittedly, given the single grandchild staus that Rory holds, it's a superfluous excersize. Everything goes to her, anyway. But, just as the Palladino's later mocked elementary school musicals with an adult in the lead role because they had seen one, here they are unfairly mocking a common and practical practice in many multi-sibling families.

I have two brothers and three sisters. When our parents decided to down-size from the huge house and yard they no longer wanted to occupy, they had us all over for the very Post-It event depicted in 1.6.

We had different colored slips and we tagged the things we wanted to have. Interestingly and, perhaps, amazingly, very few items got more than one tag. If there were two, a coin was flipped. If there were more, straws were drawn. Only one item had six stickies.

In the 1930's our paternal grandmother acquired 12 huge fiestaware dinner plates in bright southwestern colors. Grandma had given them to my father when they closed down the summer cabin after my grandfather died. We only used them on Thanksgiving when we were kids. All of us wanted them. The only thing that all of us wanted.

When the folks moved to the smaller place, things they didn't want/need went to the sibling who had chosen it. There is a detailed list of who eventually gets what they still have, including the fiestaware.

In multi-sibling families, the Post-It concept is sound and the mockery was misplaced, is all I'm saying.

And as the named executor of our parents' estate, I am extremely pleased that I will not have to referee fights about who gets what. And, I am happy for the opportunity to cheat my youngest sister out of the fiestaware.

Our girl in Istanbul, Burcu, posted this quiz today on her blog and I thought it would be amusing to compare and contrast her high school girl's answers (at saxa246) with mine.

1. Are your parents married or divorce? Married

2. For how long? 62 years

3. How old are they? mum - 85, dad - 86

4. Do you think heaven exists? Yup

5. Ever run away from home? Nope.

6. Favourite place? Paris

7. Favorite time of the day? Early morning.

8. Favourite website? Where's Fluf

9. Would you ever have plastic surgery? Nope

10. Are you homosexual? Nope.

11. Ever kiss someone of the same sex. Nope

12. What do you wear to bed? My PJ's.

13. Ever done anything illegal? Yes.

14. Been arrested? Thankfully no.

15. Fired a gun? Yup.

16. Shot someone? NO!

17. How many illegal drugs have you tried? Drugs? None.

18. Did you get caught? Doing what?

19. Hair color? Light brown tinged with white.

20. Short or long? Kinda short.

21. Eye colour? green

22. Favourite saying? No!

23. Ever wore pajamas to Cl@ssor work? Nope..

24. Do you like The Lord of the Flies? Yuck!!!

25. Do you like The Lord of the Rings? Could care less!

26. Harry Potter? Who?

27. Future childrens name? Fat chance!

28. Do you snore? Not often

29. Do you sleep with stuffed animals? No.

30. Do you like to sleep in? Never in my life!

31. Gold or silver? Make new friends and keep the old.

32. How long did your longest phone conversation last? Over 3 hours.

33. With who? My girlfriend now wife.

34. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? One food? Pizza!

35. Ever go scuba diving? Nope.

36. Ever change a lightbulb? Yeap, many.

37. City, Beach or Country? A city by the sea

38. Sleep with your bedroom door open or closed? Open.

39. Where did you eat last? Here at my computer.

40. Are you allergic to peanut butter? Nope.

41. Are you an artist? Nope.

42. Musician? No way

43. Athlete? Nope.

44. Bookworm? Yeap!!

45. Writer? I write a lot but me a writer? I don't know.

46. When's the last time you cried? Can't remember.

47. Why? Dunno.

48. Do you read other people blogs? I like blog-hopping very much,yes!

49. Do you talk in your sleep? Nope

50. Window seat or aisle? Window seat.

51. Ever met anyone famous? Many, many.

52. Do you feel that you've had a truly successful life? Yes, so far so good.

53. Twirl your spaghetti or cut it? Twirl.

54. Are you ticklish? Very.

55. Ever bite someone? Yes.

56. Ever push all the buttons on the elevator? No

57. Ever makeout in an elevator? Yes...

58. How long do your showers last? 5 mins tops.

59. Are you self-conscious? Extremely

60. Ever have a crush on a teacher or coach? Nope

61. Ever drunk so much you threw up? Yes. Many years ago.

62. Do you drink alcohol on a regular basis? Yes.

63. Do you smoke? Nope

64. Smoke a pack a day? ?!?! I DON'T smoke!

65. Do you drink alot of milk? No. But I love cheese.

66. Ever stay out all night without getting caught? Nope.

67. Have you ever given money to a homeless person? Yes.

68. Have you been in love? Oh my yea!

69. Do you bite your nails? Still.

70. Have you tried sushi? Ugh..

71. Escargot? Nooo..

72. Caviar? Love it.

73. Have you ever ridden in an ambulance? Yes, but not as a patient.

74. Police car? Yes

75. Fire engine? Yes. My uncle was a fire chief

76. Ever had the chicken pox? yes

77. Can you tango? no

78. Ever been to Niagara Falls? Many times

79. Europe? yes

80. Germany? Huh? Germany is in Europe!

81. Africa? no

82. Mexico? Yes

83. Last gift you received? Wallet

84. Last sport you played? Croquet.

85. Been on a blind date? Nope.

86. Dated someone with more than 10 years age difference? no

87. Been fired? no

88. Thing you spend a lot of money on? Cameras

89. Where do you live? Within my means

90. Where were you born? Rochester, NY.

91. Last wedding attended? My daughter's.

92. Have you ever been married? For 38 years.

93. Divorced? Nope.

94. Most hated food? Liver

95. Last person you text messaged? My son

96. Saying what? OK

97. Favorite regular drink? Fresca.

98. Favourite person? My wife

99. Least favourite person? Anybody employed by Rupert Murdock.

100. Current Crush? Kate Beckensale.

Have at it. :lol:

If you went into a nice restaurant on Princes Street in Edinburgh, Scotland and ordered "tea" or "afternoon tea" this is what you'd get: A pot of tea, a tray or pastry stand of little sandwhiches, fancy cakes and scones, clotted cream, marmelade and jam.

If you ordered "high tea" you would get shepard's pie or a plate of eggs, sausage and pork&beans. But no tea!:shock:

In the Scottish midlands and northern England, "high tea" is the name for the meal we call "supper". It does not mean a tarted-up version of "afternoon tea", which is pretty tarted-up to begin with.

If you went into a nice restaurant on The Strand in London and ordered "high tea" you would either get a blank stare or "afternoon tea" while being mocked endlessly back in the kitchen as an ignorant American.:lol:

What the little girls in 7.3 are having at the Dragonfly is afternoon tea. Fancy and snooty, yes. But not "high." And Emily would have known that.:evil:

About a week ago, swim asked me, very politely these were not her words, what an old curmudgeon like me was doing hanging around the GG Forum with a roving gang of teenaged girls. I told her I would blog on that topic. But, I have kept putting it off because, frankly, I can't figure out the answer. I know a lot of facts about my relationships with women, but I don't really understand the cause and effect for any of it. So, what I thought I would do is put down some of the facts and let you all tell me what you think the answer to swim's question might be.

I'm going to start with now and move back in time because I think it will flow better that way. First, I have been in a monogamous relationship with my wife for 40 years. Second, and she was the one who pointed this out to me years ago, my best friends have always been women. The former work colleagues with whom I still have lunch frequently and email frequently are all women. But, even in high school my friends were women.

When I was too hearing impaired too practice medicine any longer, but still able to function otherwise, I went into the health plan business as what is called a physician executive. One of the things I enjoyed about the work was identifying women in entry level positions who had potential and mentoring them up the food chain. My best work was probably taking the recent college grad call center temp up to Director of Marketing in three years. There were many others to whom I gave responsibility at a level they had never thought themselves capable of and flourished with it.

That I know of, there are four of my former female patients who are now doctors who have said publicly they went into medicine because of me. Two are even pediatricians. I have former male patients who are now doctors but none of them have ever said that to me, much less publicly.

I'm skipping college because the first year I was in an exclusive relationship that ultimately faded away. We'd still be friends except the depth of the friendship freaked her husband. The Susan thing is a whole blog in itself. And the summer after my freshman year is when I fell in love with the girl I married three years later. So, back to high school where I think this thing started. (In junior high I don't think I spoke two words to a girl and if I did, those words would have been "um er" * deep blush *. I was developmentally behind not only my female school mates, but also behind the girls in the year behind me because I had been skipped in elementary school. Bad Idea. Never skip a boy.

We moved the summer after I finished 9th grade. I voted against that, but nevertheless. So, of course, I know no one and as socially awkward as I was, the prospect of making friends was pretty slim. At the beginning of the second semester I turned 15 and a couple of months later the oddest event of my live occurred.

So that I would "make friends", I was required to go to church youth group every Sunday night. I didn't make any, of course. One Saturday we took a field trip to The Big City to see a road show production of The Sound of Music. At supper in some cheap restaurant, I was talking to a couple guys about where we were going to sit during the show and a very pretty girl sat down across from me and said "I want you to sit with me." We went to the same high school but I was morning session and she was afternoon that year; I'm not positive that I knew her last name. But on the bus ride home she said "I want you to be my boyfriend."

Okay here's weird. I was a sophomore a couple of months into being 15. She was a junior a few months away from turning 18 (she started K a year late). For half of our 18 month relationship she was 18 and I was 15. And, of course, when she graduated, she dumped me like so much manure.

Needless to say, senior year I was not much interested in any kind of relationship. I dated and hung out with girls I knew from church and/or school I discovered the blond sophomores table. And I think it was that year that I learned how to communicate with girls on a strictly collegial level. It helped, too that I was the editor of the school paper with a female associate editor and associate editor of the yearbook with a female editor. And all that spring I was falling in love with Susan and trying to figure out if I dared risk it.

Just as additional background for your analysis: I have three younger sisters. My mother trained as an RN but after 6 kids in fewer than 9 years, she never worked outside the home. Both my grandmothers worked, one as a nurse, the other as a farm wife. I have two aunts who always worked - teacher and nurse (It was the 40s & 50's. Those were the realistic professional choices for women then).

One last thing. This is what my associate newspaper editor wrote in my yearbook: "You have to stop being so sarcastic!!! You can't keep telling people to 'drop dead' just because they don't agree with you."

So, Why Am I Here?