December, A New Month

Well. we are in the first throws of the month that ends our year and our holiday season. What a year it has been, for most of us anyway!
Most of us have routines that we follow on a day to day basis, and I am no different. My particular routine gets me up aroung 6 AM and I grab a quick cup of coffee and the newspaper. If it is a nice morning outside, I go sit on the back patio to drink and read. But I don't just begin reading. Even that has a routine. I first start out with the Sports page. After all, I have to check to see if the same teams I rooted for yesterday still won and there were no changes!....;-)
After the Sports comes the Comics, Dear Abby, the Bridge column......even though I don't play bridge, I just love to read about the strategies. I actually prefer Cribbage, a dying game if there ever was one.
Our paper is the Las Vegas Review Journal, and with all the sports betting going on in this state, the sports section is a good one. Check it out if you ever get the chance. The Bridge column is great, because not only do you get lessons on strategy, but the author, Philip Alder, loves to throw in a few quotes during the week that are very profound at times. Here are a couple of his included quotes from the past couple of days:
Charles Caleb Colton, an English cleric, writer and collector well known for his eccentricities, said, "When we are in doubt and puzzle out the truth by our own exertions, we have gained something that will stay by us and will serve us again."
Here is another: Thomas Mann, German novelist and Nobel laureate, wrote, "A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth." Pretty profound stuff coming from a bridge column, don't you think?!
Oh, and don't forget the crossword puzzles. After the sports, bridge, etc., the crosswords finish up my first morning routine with a second cup of coffee. I only do the crosswords to bone up and give me fuel for my evening routine of watching Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, and to help me kick some serious booty against my competitve wife!
What could be better? Fresh coffee and the newspaper to start, and a couple of good rounds of game shows to keep the mind sharp. That leaves the rest of the day in between to fill in with other mundane stuff.......like finding the truth.