Footnotes to the TV series
LORELAI: Oh, well, I brought pizza if you guys are hungry.
PARIS: I have to take my retainer out first.
An orthodontic retainer, a custom-made device, usually made of wires or clear plastic, that hold teeth in position after surgery or any method of realigning teeth.
RORY: These [allergy tablets] expired in ’98.
LORELAI: So, what, I should take four?
Even though the allergy medication expired five years ago, a 2012 study found that antihistamines actually last decades after their expiry date, and can still be safe and effective ten years after expiration. Lorelai should probably just take them as normal.
ZACH: Dude, can you chill out about your freaking elevenses ’til we get this song straightened out?
BRIAN: I’m hypoglycemic. If I don’t get something in my system, I’m gonna crash.
Hypoglycemia, the medical term for low blood sugar. Hypoglycemia may result in headaches, tiredness, clumsiness, trouble talking, confusion, fast heart rate, sweating, shakiness, nervousness, hunger, loss of consciousness, seizures, or death. It is usually caused by taking medications used to treat diabetes, such as insulin.
People sometimes use the word in a non-medical sense, to mean that they feel a bit faint or dizzy because their blood sugar has dropped due to not eating for a while. This is called “postprandial syndrome”.
LORELAI: No, see, Alex and I talked about everything we plan to do and how he expected to dress and how I expected to dress, and we coordinated to the point where I knew each piece of clothing I had to bring, down to the Spice Girls necklace I plan to wear Saturday morning for breakfast because we agreed to keep it a little whimsical.
RORY: So, not your Jonas Salk necklace?
Spice Girls, previously discussed. [Necklace pictured].
Jonas Salk (1914-1995), virologist and medical researcher who developed one of the first polio vaccines.
EMILY: And then she just brushed me off with a wave of her regal hand. Not even a word, just a . . . like I’m her cabana boy. Next thing you know, instead of just walking out of the room, she’ll make me bow and back out. Imperious attitude, she never gives it a rest. I schlepped her to the doctor the other day – by command, not request – and the elevator operator there greeted us nice and friendly. Her doctor’s on the second floor and by the time we got there, that operator was in tears.
In North America, a cabana is a hut, cabin, or shelter at beach or swimming pool, often part of a resort. They can be quite elaborate or luxurious. The word comes from the Spanish for “hut, cabin”. A cabana boy [pictured] is a young male attendant who serves guests from the cabana – typically, these young men are treated like servants by the wealthy, and will be willing to do many little tasks for them in the hopes of receiving tips or favours in return.
Schlepped: Informal American English, meaning “walked or proceeded somewhere in a reluctant manner, typically in the fulfilment of some unwanted burden or duty”. It is from the Yiddish shlepn, meaning “pull, drag”.
Trix moved back to her house in Hartford in January 2003, citing health concerns. It’s only early February, and she is already driving Emily up the wall, treating her like a servant.
Note that Trix had a doctor’s appointment, as a reminder that her health needs monitoring. By the way, Trix previously said that she couldn’t abide women driving, so how did Emily transport her to the doctor’s office?
LORELAI: And the second thing is, you need to tell me why you’re sitting like that.
SHERRY: Maureen told me that Howard Stern said that if you squat, it makes the baby come out faster.
LORELAI: Okay, as long as you have a sane reason from a reliable source.
Howard Stern (born 1954), radio and television personality, comedian, and author. He is best known for his radio show, The Howard Stern Show, which gained popularity when it was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2005. His show attracted a lot of controversy and was considered vulgar and outrageous.
Despite this, and Lorelai’s understandable disdain for Stern as an authority on medical issues, squatting is actually recommended as a safe and effective position to give birth in.
LORELAI: What are you doing?
RORY: Xeroxing … Sherry had some status reports she promised to fax to people by tomorrow but she didn’t bring enough, and so I’ve been trying to find a Xerox machine. I finally conned someone in ICU into letting me use theirs. I haven’t found a fax machine yet, but –
Xerox, previously discussed.
Fax [pictured], short for facsimile, is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device. The original document is scanned with a fax machine, which processes the contents (text or images) as a single fixed graphic image, converting it into a bitmap, and then transmitting it through the telephone system in the form of audio-frequency tones. The receiving fax machine interprets the tones and reconstructs the image, printing a paper copy. First in use in 1865, before the invention of the telephone (it used telegraph), fax machines were ubiquitous in offices in the 1980s and 1990s, but have gradually been rendered almost obsolete by email and the internet.
This particular winning anecdote is a complete nonsense – Rory wouldn’t need to make multiple copies of the document in order to fax it to multiple people. The fax machine would only need one document, and she just needs to find one of those. They are commonly used in hospitals, even today.
However, in true overly entitled Gilmore style, Rory has no compunction about going into the intensive care unit to demand use of their Xerox machine. At night! The Emily is strong in this one.
Lorelai is eating a sandwich and watching TV when her labour pains begin. We know it’s a pepper sandwich (I think this means a bell pepper or capsicum sandwich, which sounds weird?), because it was mentioned in an earlier episode. There is a cut, and then we see her at the hospital registry, filling out forms on her own.
She has come to the hospital by herself (presumably in a taxi) and there’s nobody to help her with the paperwork or offer support, not even Christopher. To add poignancy to this, there is a young man standing behind Lorelai with a bunch of flowers for someone, but there is nothing for Lorelai.
MAUREEN: She’s at Boston Memorial.
A fictional hospital, presumably inspired by Massachusetts General Hospital, the largest hospital in the state, and a 5 minute drive from Beacon Hill, the area that Sherry and Christopher seem to live in.
LORELAI: Okay, then, it’s settled. We’re not staying at any place that wasn’t built for Napoleon the Third’s doctor or doesn’t have a Chagall in the bathroom.
Napoleon III, born Charles Napoléon Bonaparte (1808-1873) the first President of France from 1848 to 1852, and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew of Napoleon I, he was a popular monarch who oversaw the modernisation of the French economy and filled Paris with new boulevards and parks. One of his doctors was the surgeon Félix-Hippolyte Larrey; he owned a small castle, but I have been unable to learn if he had a house built for him.
Marc Chagall [pictured], born Moishe Shagal (1887-1985), Russian-French artist. An early modernist, he was associated with several major artistic styles and created works in a wide range of artistic formats, including painting, drawings, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramics, tapestries and fine art prints.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 