My apologies to Poe, but those words really sum up what the day has been like here today. It poured rain off and on last night and today has been wet and drizzly all day. What more could you ask for to herald the arrival of fall. Nothing like a wet, drizzly, overcast, cool day to bring home the arrival of that precursor to winter.

One thing that really irks me about this weather is that the paper delivery guy always throws the paper down on the front sidewalk where all the water flows. Thus, even though he bags the papers, the plastic bag just fills with water and the result is a soggy mess.  His predecessor was wonderful – he always put the papers on the front porch.  Not so with the new guy. You can tell when the old guy subs for the new guy because all of a sudden the paper starts appearing on the front porch. I guess I shouldn’t complain – at least the paper gets here. Does your delivery person do any better?

It occurs to me that perhaps I should ask a different question first: do you even subscribe to papers in the physical form? I find that I use both online and paper versions. The preferred form  depends on why I read that particular paper and how often I read it.  I find that online versions of papers work OK except for crosswords and comics. Crosswords because I am not a fan of the electronic entry forms I have used. It is more acceptable to me to print the puzzle and then fill it in with pen. Then I don’t to have to be tied to a computer to fill it in. Crossword puzzling is a time as available thing for me and the opportunities tend to be hit and miss, with more misses if I have do it on the computer. I like my comics in print because I tend to be a clipper. I like to cut out and pin on my bulletin board any comic which strikes my fancy. It just isn’t the same to me when printed on the laser and then clipped and pinned.

In any case, it was late this afternoon before the papers got dry enough to get to my beloved crossword puzzles. I always try to do the New York Times crossword every day. I then do others if the opportunity presents itself. I find that the NYT crossword is always interesting and I like the ebb and flow in difficulty that matches the week. Monday is usually trivial and then it gets harder and harder, culminating in the Saturday beast. But then Sunday comes and the puzzle can be easy or hard, but always fun.  You can probably tell I’m an addict.

Well, I’m off to my now dry NYT crossword!