It may have been the order of Denny's nachos (blameless in themselves) that I shared with Sue for this night's repast, but the summer evening sits heavily on my chest like a bushel of used rocks. I need caffeine, insulin--something.

We are watching the twins while their mother cavorts at her 20th high school reunion. They are well behaved girls, but culture shock hit me when one of them asked where we kept the "spins." The spins? I said, "I don't even know what you're talking about." "The spins," she insisted. When I finally understood that what she was looking for were the SPOONS, I felt considerable relief. The last thing I wanted or needed was "The Spins"--and the sense that we might have such on hand in the house filled me with a wave of nausea. (Actually, I used to get The Spins quite a lot until I found the Saranac line of beers, and did not veer from their gyroscopic stability throughout a long night of drinking. )

And we all thought regional accents were dead. Hardly. These girls are now living in Tennessee, and they must find our harsh upstate nasality just as incomprehensible as all this talk of "spins." If so, they have shown the good manners not to make fun of us. After all, we've ALL heard Southern speech--but, not for nothing, who can make sense of a UTICA accent? He would truly have to think who he is.

"Cogito, ergo sum."
--Rene "Cheech" Descartes (1596-1650)