A Mid-Summer's Night Burger

Barbara came for dinner tonight on this dark and stormy day. We have torrential rain and flooding... and at one point the thunder was so loud, I jumped and grabbed Barbara's hand.

The thing about living in NYC is that there can sometimes be too many choices. You can literally choose any cuisine -- Ethiopian anyone? -- and have it delivered.

But being the all-American girls that we are, we reverted to Gracie's and had burgers. Here's our system: We order one cheeseburger deluxe and one cheeseburger. Barbara had cheddar; I had American. I also ordered sauteed mushrooms for mine. We split the fries, Barbara gets the tomatoes and we split the lettuce. The deluxe comes with two onion rings -- yup, we each got one.

We drank lemonade and listened to the rhythm of the falling rain, telling us just what fools we've been. Remember that song?

So now we're all caught up and set our next dinner date for August 13. I recycled the Rockefeller/cannibal book to her -- along with a photograph I found this week of Barbara that we know pre-dates 1986. I took the photo of her, sitting in my office, and my ashtray is there with butts in it and I stopped smoking in 1986. Barbara doesn't remember the hairstyle, the scarf or the sweater she's wearing.

And the rain continues...