dustylil

If Lorelai had not kept in contact or not told Christopher where she and Rory were living one would think that an appropriate response to her telling him over the years that the door was always open to him would be Christopher saying, "Yeah? Well what of when you first left your parents' home? I didn't know where you had gone! I was worried sick!" . Instead he gave a mumbled apology and said she was right. Is there any evidence that Christopher didn't know Lorelai and Rory had left Hartford?

Oh I get that too, shron. I merely thought it was morally indefensible on his part. Perhaps Sherry came to feel that way as well - maybe that is why she left him holding the baby :) I agree. Rather than waxing poetic on all the things he could buy for Lorelai, he should have been focussing on his own flesh and blood. At the time, Rory seemed to be an afterthought. I hope Luke's lawyer raised his insistence on paying 12 years of child support to the custody judge. That seemed far more significant to Luke's commitment to being in April's life than any letter from an ex-fiancée.

Of course the senior Gilmore felt this way. And it was to their enormous credit. But Richard and Emily were no longer supporting Lorelai and Rory even before Rory was even a toddler. Lorelai was doing that. But with respect, what has that to do with Christopher's ongoing obligations to his child?

I am not so sure about subtle digs directed towards Lorelai, shron. In the pilot Richard at their first dinner asks Loreai - in front of Rory - Back to Jess for a moment. Undoubtedly, the school should have contacted Luke about the absenteeism. But Luke should have had more than an inkling of trouble. As far back as the Poes episode, three episodes before Jimmy Mariano meandered into town, Luke should have suspected Jess must have been skipping school because he now knew he was working more than a full-time workweek at Walmart. Why didn't he immediately call the school after he left the awards ceremony? Or later when he and Lorelai discussed Jess' activities and she mentioned the possibility of not attending school to him? Luke chose not to believe the evidence in front of him and not to take any action. Not that much - if anything - could have been done to save Jess' senior year, of course. But some kind of action plan for going forward might have been devised.

Very true. And yet - based on what we saw in the first episode - both Richard and Emily viewed Christopher as a respected and successful businessman. At least Straub and Francine thought he was a bum ;)

That would have resulted in too many Canadians involved in the Dragonfly :)

Christopher was willing to marry Lorelai. Once that was no longer an option, he wasn't willing to make any sacrifices - like getting a job and supporting his daughter. So while I can see Richard respecting the initial grand gesture, I would have thought he would have noted the absence of any substantive involvement in Rory's life. And judged Christopher accordingly.

Christopher - once, as a teenager - offers to marry Lorelai and then gets a free pass on duty and responsibility for the next couple of decades. What a sweet deal! Sure. Luke when he was lumbered with Jess. Lorelai once she had taken out the Chilton loan. Paris after her Harvard interview freak-out. Lane with her honeymoon twins. Sookie with her third and utterly unexpected pregnancy. It is likely I missed a few.

I don't think the Dragonfly was all that close to downtown Stars Hollow. I doubt road apples would be a problem.

I agree. Richard lived his life as he wished to. Other people came a distant second to his needs and comforts. And for someone who put so much emphasis on duty, his defense and praise of Christopher continued to astound me. When had Christopher ever done his duty to his elder child?

If horses were so important to the feel of the Dragonfly, I would have thought they could have made arrangements at a local riding stable that would have been able to provide a range of rides for the inn's clientele, rather than just rely upon Cletus and Desdemona. And while the horses themselves may have provided a certain ambience, I wondered about the location of their own lodging. Being in close proximity or downwind of the stables might well change people's opinions about the charm of these equine amenities :) Sookie may well have been an utterly fabulous chef. But she was also supposed to be in charge of the kitchen - something she proved both unwilling and incapable of managing. She couldn't be bothered to set up and organize her kitchen, wouldn't plan ahead for contingencies, declined to train her staff to deal with her absences, broke agreements regarding staff hiring, or refused to recognize financial realities regarding dining room meals to be served. Food services management is tricky and risky enough without a total disregard for the realities of the field. It is all well and good to go to want to go to the Dragonfly for its great meals. But what if the meals are unavailable because the chef hasn't trained her staff and made arrangements to prepare them while she is off on maternity leave or for some other reason? Or if a customer wants to visit again sometime later but finds the Inn out of business as a result of an inability to manage costs?

It was my recollection that Lorelai and Rory didn't have a full breakfast (eggs, pancakes, sausage, etc.) on a weekday on a regular basis. Instead they had coffee and muffins, danishes and suchlike at Luke's. So they wouldn't need to be there at quite an ungodly hour. Of course, they really didn't need to be there at all. Coffee and baked goods could be managed at home. I thought Michel was hired by Mia. Perhaps she was fond of his French snootiness :) In his defense he did do well with some customers, including - oddly enough - children. Also, he had formal hotel industry training so that may have come in handy in setting up and managing administrative systems and procedures. And if Lorelai was nutty enough to go into - and stay in - business with Sookie, then asking Michel to be an investor didn't seem like lunacy to me.

Mine too. I particularly liked when Timothy kept a notebook for his father of all the gifts that had been brought to the house and services provided to the family when his father was ill with emotional exhaustion. No fanfare, no "aren't I a fine son" on his part. Just the preparation of a detailed log of the kindnesses done, knowing it was something that his father could keep and reflect on.

But journalism is a graduate program at Columbia. So at that point in time of no great significance to Rory. I wonder why Emily's alma mater Smith was never in the mix. It was I believe every bit as prestigious as Vassar and Sarah Lawrence. I

Why the heck couldn't Mrs. Forrester make them a good breakfast- she was a stay-at-home Mom and had only Clara who was of grade school age cluttering up the place? Think of how differently things could have turned out if only the pair of them had had a decent meal before heading off to classes :)