Remember the Aesop's Fable about the Man, the Boy and the Donkey? A man and his son started out for market with the man riding the donkey and people jeered, saying he should let his son ride, so they switched. Then people mocked saying the boy should let his father ride, and they got confused. So they both got on the donkey and then the criticism was that the poor donkey was overloaded with both of them on. So they tied the donkey's feet together and hung it on a pole that they carried on their shoulders. More mockery. As they crossed a river on a bridge the donkey kicked one of its feet loose, causing the boy to drop his end of the pole and the donkey fell into the water where it drowned because it was too hampered to swim.

So I'm trying to plan a brunch for next Sunday. Usually I do things by myself but I've had offers of help and this is a busy week and it seemed like a good idea. But the menu keeps changing according to what people want to bring and what they like to eat and now I don't know what I'm doing, and one of my friends is mad at me because I yelled at him online. I hadn't realized that CAPS meant I was yelling. Is there a Chicago Book of Style for online writing? Anyway, that's why I thought of the man, the boy and the donkey.

No more help, please.

I went to a dinner party last night and the conversation was lovely: light and glancing and eclectic . Couple of thoughts: one friend said she knew an 82-year-old woman who used "cool" as a favourite epithet . She thought that was neat. Better than "super" I agreed.

I commented on my friend's healthy appetite . She's a vegetarian and piles her plate with health. When her plate was taken away I noted that she had eaten the design off the (blank) plate. Another dinner partner commented on that old joke, so old that it's new again. (like me)

That got me to thinking. We're careful to change our hair style and to buy new clothes and read current books and do all those things that advertise how hip we are. Au courant, as they say. But language and old jokes and expressions can give you away if you're not careful, that is, if you don't want to be given away. ( I wouldn't mind being auctioned off.)

Of course, I'm going to give you a couple of examples. I used to invoke a Certs ad when meeting someone I hadn't seen for years. The memory of the former, young face has to blend in with the contemporary, older face confronting one. I think that's why people say "You haven't changed a bit" as they absorb the two images, past and present, into one. I used to describe this process as "Two, two, two Certs in one" as per an old commercial. but that commercial is no longer seen so people don't know what I am talking about. So I have resorted to, "You haven't changed a bit."

When chlorophyll was first discovered, not discovered, but when it came to the attention of the general public, products containing chlorophyll were recommended for erasing bad breath. I used to refer people to goats: "Just think what the goat would smell like if it didn't eat chlorophyll." No one knows what I'm talking about now. So I use the method of analogy to apologize for my excess weight (not excessive, but there). I say, "Just think what I'd look like if I didn't attend Weight Watchers."

You had to be there.

The thing is, I've been there, for so long.