Sunday Morning Rituals

What is it about Sunday Morning. A quiet time. No rush and maybe a third cup of coffee. Brunch with friends and jazz music is always welcome. There is something that was part of my ritual for years and years and now it is fading away. The Sunday Paper. Don't get me wrong, they are out there, but I find I don't rush out to get them like I did. Oh when I am on vacation I still snag a copy of The New York Times, but it is now more a luxury at anywhere from $5-12 depending where I am picking up my copy. It still has the best bang for your buck. Unlike the local papers in Seattle and Portland that have become nearly two-thirds ads these days. Most people used to buy them for the TV listings, but even those are going to the wayside. There are now versions for the Kindle and ipod. But oh to look back and see what they were. They were pillars of the weekend and had my attention for several hours. Never got to the crossword puzzles, but such great writing. Sad to know that the USA Today is now ahead of The New York Times in circulation. Times do change.

The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. West Coast founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850. It is the largest newspaper in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest by circulation and the 19th largest daily newspaper in the country.

Delivering Oregonians was my first job as a kid and I did it with pride. Earned many a trip to Disneyland and Dad would always help in the rain and snow. Woody was my boss and he was a hoot. I read the Oregonian for years and it was sad to let go when I moved to Seattle, but I will tell you this, the Seattle Times has nothing on The Oregonian. Now the New York Times is a whole different story. What a treat.

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded, and continuously published in New York City, since 1851. The New York Times has won 104 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization. Its website is the most popular American online newspaper website, receiving more than 30 million unique visitors per month.

Although the print version of the paper remains both the largest local metropolitan newspaper in the United States, as well the third largest newspaper overall, behind The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, its weekday circulation has fallen since 1990 (not unlike other newspapers) to fewer than one million copies daily, for the first time since the 1980s. Nicknamed "The Gray Lady", and long regarded within the industry as a national "newspaper of record", the Times is owned by The New York Times Company, which also publishes 18 other regional newspapers including the International Herald Tribune and The Boston Globe. The company's chairman is Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., whose family has controlled the paper since 1896.

The paper's motto, printed in the upper left-hand corner of the front page, is "All the News That's Fit to Print." It is organized into sections: News, Opinions, Business, Arts, Science, Sports, Style, and Features. The New York Times stayed with the eight-column format for several years after most papers switched to six columns, and it was one of the last newspapers to adopt color photography. The New York Times was made available on the iPhone and iPod Touch in 2008, and on the iPad mobile devices in 2010. Ah, you can't stop progress!

All of the papers are slowly dying it seems and I am guilty of not buying them like I used to, but I do still have a ritual and that is every Sunday morning from 7-9:30, I turn on the TV and sit back and watch with pleasure and coffee in hand, CBS Sunday morning.


The program was originally conceived to be a broadcast version of a Sunday newspaper rotogravure section, most typified by the Sunday New York Times Magazine. The format was originally aired six days a week, with the weekday version named "Monday Morning," "Tuesday Morning," etc. The weekday broadcasts were originally anchored by Bob Schieffer (Kuralt eventually took over the daily role, and was for a short time joined by Diane Sawyer as co-host). However, the weekday show's then-limited 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. ET air time (the long-running Captain Kangaroo was entrenched in the 8 o'clock hour) hampered its ability to compete with NBC's and ABC's rival two-hour morning shows, though it expanded to an hour and a half in 1981. The Sunday version, however, survived, and remains in its original form.

OF NOTE: 30 years ago today, Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time on the CBS Evening News. Just an observation.

Many thanks to Google Images and Wikipedia for helping with information on this post.

Who Knew and Follow Up

Apparently Friday, March 4, was facebook Defriend a Friend Day and I’m wondering why the hell I wasn’t aware of such a great event. A blog I read let me know this and I have blatantly taken Bill's words and redone them a bit as I don't have his gift of gab to be honest.

It may be because I am going there less and less and only have like 50 facebook friends {four or five or six of whom are always teetering on being defriended by me at any time} and I am tending to pay less to no attention to that particular form of incredibly annoying social media {Please, tell me, have you been "poked" recently? Not I}.

I’ve been asked before by {real} friends why I have so few facebook friends — given the fact that I’m now a world famous {in my fevered imaginings} blogger.

And my answer is always the same — If I’ve never frickin' met you, how can we be friends?

Besides, most of the real friends I’ve got I connect with via phone, text or email and I just don’t really like what facebook is doing with my private information all that much, so why would I want to have a bunch of imaginary friends whom I no doubt would have even less in common with than my real ones? Plus, if we have not talked since high school, maybe there is a reason for many of you.

But at the same time, my time on facebook has brought a few people closer and that is wonderful. It also has shown me that trying to do a blog and facebook is just a bit much.

Anyway, while writing this post it got me thinking . . . . . that maybe I’ll head on over to my facebook page and defriend some more. Thus by the time I go to be tonight I will be down to 30 and by end of week, perhaps the plug will be completely pulled.

Better late than never, right?

Amazon Fresh Update: Wrote a message to them and they are passing along to the Transportation department. Next delivery is going to include a bouquet of flowers as a thank you for my time. Mind you, I basically cut and pasted my post so I was balanced and fair. Oh what fun!

A Week Of Posts!

Yes folks, I took the week off from the blog and took a few hours today and decided to catch up and so here you go. Covers everything from Ya-Ya weekend to Mt. Rushmore's birthday to an update on Amazon Fresh. Enjoy and enjoy the weekend.

Amazon Fresh Flop

You know I just love Amazon Fresh and it makes grocery shopping so easy and I don't have to deal with those nasty shopping carts people sneeze on and do icky things on and kids sit on and well, I just love not having to schlep all the stuff up. The last two times have shown cracks in their system. My delivery on February 20th was due between 9-10AM and by 10:20 nothing. I called and found out the driver knew he was running over an hour behind and yet no calls. Got order finally at 10:35am.

Tonight, I had a delivery due between 8-9pm. I am limited on my deliveries because I have to be here to receive the delivery. Well, I am hanging around and at 8:40 there is a knock at my door and another very quickly. I get to the door to see a delivery guy pushing the plastic crates toward my door and heading down the hall. I call him and he said he was leaving them. NO WAY! He had not called at the front door and two knocks in less than a minute does not mean I am not here. He was short with me and acted like I was putting him out. Not right.

I love Amazon Fresh but Safeway is really promoting their delivery and asking for me to retry them. I have to wonder if Amazon Fresh is growing too fast or losing their grip on customer service. How frustrating. I am going to give it one more try and see what happens. Be it a miss delivery or poor delivery, Amazon Fresh needs to see that there are cracks in their system and they need them to get fixed or they will fall to the wayside.

Happy Birthday Mt. Rushmore

OK, so I have to fess up and share that for years I thought Mt. Rushmore was a natural rock formation. Seriously, it is too funny that up until I did a paper on it in Junior High School, I was totally in awe of how not one, but four of our presidents just happen to be on a rock formation in South Dakota. Today is Mt. Rushmore National Memorial birthday. Opened in 1925 it is amazing.
Carved into the Black Hills of South Dakota are the iconic faces of four former presidents of the United States--George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. These men were chosen to represent the first 150 years of American history and America’s cultural heritage.

The idea came from Doane Robinson to promote tourism in South Dakota and his idea was wildly successful--the park attracts almost 3 million park visitors every year. Gutzon Borglum designed the sculpture. Though he passed away before its completion, over 400 workers helped bring his vision to life.

Today visitors come to appreciate this colossal man-made creation, learn about the design and construction process, appreciate its significance as a symbol of the American history of “monumental” leaders, and to learn about the natural and cultural history of the Black Hills region.

OMG - It's March

Funny how you are going along and suddenly realize that it is nearly spring. YIKES! Add to that I learned this day I will be off to Phoenix next Wednesday, the 9th for like 10 days. Not a real fan of that city. We'll see but if it goes over 80-85 the bitch barrier is going to be breached. Seriously, I am not a heat fan at all. Heck, I have the fan on up here in the emerald City and we are in the 40's.

Using this week to use up all the left over foods in the cabinets and frig/freezer. It is making for some interesting meals, but at the same time it is opening doors to options I had not thought of before. I decided to get rid of all the old stuff that has been hanging and just keeping what I use and then add that which I will continue to use. I had stuff in the fridge which had not been touched in way too long. Thankfully all in jars so no icky science experiments going on. The freezer is clearing out and opening up for some new items and the cabinets are clearing for a good scrub. I do love spring cleaning. It so needed to be done. There are also a couple of projects that have been lingering for too long and need to be wrapped up. Between the multiple boxes I need to ship off to friends with trinkets I want to pass along to the scrape books that are begging for my attention. All will be tackled in the coming months.

Signed renewal and so will be staying here another year (#7 if you are counting) and well, it is time to dump any and all stuff I have not used since moving here. Seriously, why even think of moving it again in the future if I have not used it in over six years.

Visit Our National Parks - They Are Gems!

Old Faithful Geyser
March 1, 1872 ~ Yellowstone became the FIRST National Park
The Lower Falls is just spectacular!