Reading the newspaper

Tom and I recently subscribed to the weekend editions of The Salt Lake Tribune.  We haven't had a "real" newspaper in the house for years.  We subscribe to the NY Times online.  I love the Times, except that it makes me feel bad that I don't live in New York.

I wanted a local newspaper, because I never know what's going on locally and my first thought isn't to look online.  This morning, I looked through the paper after a breakfast of poached eggs, steamed spinach, toast and orange pieces.  I am better at fixing breakfast than I am at fixing dinner.  It's the whole raw meat scene.

Anyhoo, here are some things about reading a real newspaper that I love and that I didn't know I missed.

1.  The car ads.  I forgot that I have always liked car ads.  They are especially interesting to me since we drive a seventeen year old Avalon, which looks a bit like a serial killer vehicle.  The good thing is it works.  The bad thing is that it looks like a serial killer vehicle.

Do you know you can lease a tiny KIA Rio for nothing down and $159 a month?  Wow.  Nothing down!

We drove a Kia through Maine once, but it was not a comfortable drive, but still, wow!

2.  The comics. Mary Worth and Judge Parker are still part of the comic page!  They have been there since I was a child and I'm way past middle-age. Do you know how few things stay the same over a lifetime?  Almost nothing.  My favorite cartoon this morning was from Pardon my Planet, where a woman is lying on a couch and her therapist is saying, "Let me know if you need someone to listen while you desperately try to convince yourself that everything is going to work out just fine."

3.  It's much better reading about the Sundance Film Festival in the Tribune than in the Times.  More details, more pics.

4.  How would I know that the downtown Shiloh Inn has been bought by Holiday Inn and is going to have a ten million dollar redo?

5.  I like reading George Pyle and Robert Kirby, two writers I didn't look for online.  I always read Ann Cannon.  I would read Ann Cannon if she were a skywriter.

6.  The smell of newspaper print, the rustle of the pages, the black smudge on my fingers.

7.  The Obituaries.  I often miss funerals, because I didn't know someone died.  When you're my age, the obituaries are fascinating.  Plus, I can be really nasty when it comes to the sentimental prose of some obits.  And I have to allow myself some nasty time.

8.  I am mostly crabby about Governor Herbert, who doesn't seem like the brightest star in the sky, but it is better to read facts than to rant my own fictionalized version of him.

9.  The crossword puzzle.  I can do this one.  I'll just admit it right here:  The Times crossword puzzle requires an educational background that I simply don't have.  Tom and I together can't do it without looking up a thousand references.

10.  I can cut out tidbits that I want to have around a bit longer.