This morning, as I do every morning, I went to the Carolina Cafe, on the first floor of my condo building, for a decaf coffee and poppyseed muffin and the opportunity to spend a few quiet moments doing the NY TIMES crossword puzzle. But the Monday puzzle is always dead easy [it gets harder as the week progresses], and I had finished it even before eating the first half of my muffin. Casting about for something to occupy myself with while I ate the second half, I turned to the Op Ed page. Douglas Copeland, a playwright, had a silly little column of made-up words about this and that, one of which, however, really enchanted me: "Rosenwald's Theorem: The belief that all the wrong people have self-esteem."
Then I plowed through Paul Krugman's column, which managed to make me angry about the US Government's lack of response to China's manipulation of the renimbi [I can't even pronounce "renimbi."] But at the bottom of the column was this absolutely lovely piece of Found Art: "Ross Douthat is off today." My heart swelled. I thought to myself, Ross Douthat is off every day! How wonderful that the NY TIMES has finally recognized that fact.
These are hard times. You take your pleasures where you find them.
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Have you always been that good at the puzzles? I just started doing them, due to a friends constant nagging, a week ago. Monday took me at least an hour...second puzzle ever.
"These are hard times. You take your pleasures where you find them."
Depressing times indeed Professor. Moments of mirth and merriment are as thin on the ground as unicorn pooh lately
What's the point of drinking decaf coffee? It's like smoking a denec pipe or drinking dealc beer..
The simple answer is this: many years ago I fell asleep at the wheeel, drove off the road, and would have been killed had it not been for a fortunate green verge. The Sleep specialist to whom I went, after many tests, told me that I was not getting enough REM sleep because my facial twitches during sleep jolted me to less deep levels of sleep. She told me to stop drinking caffeinated cofee, which was rather difficult, but which I did. Ever since, I have drunk decaf, which, made from beans, is really as good in taste as regular coffee. It seemed like a small sacrifice to stay alive.
I have to say that I've been impressed by Krugman lately. He seems to have made use of Douthat's absences lately to start a fine run of form, spitting fire in a rather impressive manner. It's just a newspaper column, but Krugman is doing just about as much as he can. The fact that he's doing so at the expense of Douthat's column inches makes it all the sweeter.
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