No new experiences can be had sitting in my den. I haven’t been outside for a few days except to get the mail and newspapers and fill the feeders. Last night I noticed two strings of lights on the deck rail were no longer lit so I went out and unwound them from the deck. It was cold, and I wondered why in the heck I was doing that. I didn’t have an answer but once I started I needed to finish. Now only half the rail is lit, and I’m wrestling with the half full, half empty concept.

We, Gracie and I, have to go out today. She is out of canned food, my trunk is filled with trash and I need to go to the pharmacy. It is an ugly day, cold and cloudy. Rain is expected tonight. It is a perfect day to hunker down, but that will have to come later.

I diligently read two papers every morning. When I write that here, I always get comments about reading on-line and why aren’t I. That’s easy to answer. I like the feel of the paper, the sound of the pages and all the small pieces of content. It takes me a while to read both papers. I skip over international news in the Cape Times as I had already read it in the Globe. I pick and choose what to read on the sports pages. I am first and foremost a baseball fan, but I have a while to wait before it resurfaces. I read football stories if they are about the Patriots. I am not such a football fan that anything else is of interest except I did read about Rex Ryan cleaning out his office even before he was fired on Black Monday. In college I seldom missed a home hockey game, but I don’t like hockey, never have. It was the pre-game festivities which drew me in college. I do like basketball, but I haven’t followed the Celts the way I used to.

The last thing I do in the Globe is the crossword puzzle. The last thing I do in the Times is the cryptogram. The puzzle gets finished. Sometimes the cryptogram doesn’t and that drives me crazy and frustrates the hell out of me. I tend to ball up the page and toss it. That makes me feel just a little bit better.

This morning I finished both of them.