How I Use The New York Times

Living in a fog today, my 100 year old mother would be unlikely to flood our telephone conversations with accounts of what she read in?The New York Times?Arts and Leisure section to avoid discussing anything meaningful, something that still rankles me. Yet the importance of reading New York's newspaper of record was ingrained in me at a time when teachers still devoted lessons to folding the paper in sections so as to avoid annoying other subway passengers. If she had the ability to hear and then comprehend, Mom might be shocked to learn that my?Times?subscription has been online at least since I retired in early 2014.As far as I know, Dad read the?Times's?political articles so he could browbeat his colleagues at work, often saying: "Do you know what that bastard (name the then current mayor of New York or President) is going to do?" My paternal grandparents read the times solely for the stock quotations.?

So should it come as a surprise that although I read do the?New York?section for heartrending stories about the psychopath de jour pushing a hapless passenger off a subway platform and into the path of an oncoming train, as well as the political items about the presidential race, that's not where I start.

Even if I'm in a hurry to eat breakfast and get out of the house to go rowing before the wind kicks up on the Charles, I am addicted to doing?Wordle?before anything else. Don't even get me started on starter words, regardless of a friend who insists on starting with "roate,"and my husband who insists it's been proven statistically that "slate" is most likely yield success, which I define as getting the correct answer in three tries. Something I rarely do.?

What I enjoy about doing Wordle via my?Times?subscription is that after it's all over I see "Your?Wordlebot?analysis is ready." Today, despite getting the correct answer in three tries, the analysis rated me a 56 on skill, well below the NYT average of 78. Demeaning, but not enough to deter me from moving on to the Times'?Spelling Bee.

If Wordle involves deductive thinking, the Bee requires an expansive mind, a solid vocabulary, and knowledge of the names of obscure foods, plants, and animals. That's why my husband often attains "Queen Bee," meaning he has listed every possible word that can be made from the 7 letters on the screen, and I do not.?Admittedly, I often find getting the pangram(s) frustrating; the pangram requires identifying a word that uses all 7 letters at least once. As a woman who majored in English, I love the game.

Once a week I read "Sunday Routine," but only after I've finished my word games. This section makes me feel like a voyeur, reading how artsy types cook great big family dinners after checking in on their small businesses in Brooklyn, brunching with friends, and walking their critters through Prospect Park. Spare me the ones who claim to play board games with their families, an activity I hate with a passion.

All of us love learning about other people's problems or what we Jews call Tsuris. Roxane Gaye's?"Work Friend"?contains stories about employers who expect workers to drink bathroom water, purchase non-refundable airfares on their personal credit cards for work trips, and then demand reimbursement when the employee leaves before the work trip, and remote workers who feel it's an inconvenience for a boss to call after a Zoom meeting to debrief.?

Ask me to name my favorite advice column, and I'd have to say I prefer the lighthearted Philip Galanes'?SocialQ's?over the cerebral Kwame Anthony Appia's?The Ethicist, both of which are excellent. "Sadly...the mere existence of our opinions is not a mandate to share them," writes Galanes in response to a reader who wants to tell a co-worker to dial down the cologne. Appias' answer to the manager who asks if it's okay to fire an underperforming employee following the death of his father, after holding off cutting the cord during the father's illness makes sense to me: "...bad employees put a burden on good ones. I can't tell you what would count as a decent post-bereavement interval...but you'll have to balance your firm's needs with your sense of compassion..."

Despite trying to keep this post apolitical, I can't sign off without recognizing?Maggie Habberman?for her sizzling reports of the antics of Donald Trump and other Republicans, and?Frank Bruni?for his way with words. In a recent column about Ivanka Trump, he writes: "For Daddy's current presidential campaign, she sent her regrets. 'This time around,' she said in a statement released the same night he announced his presidency, 'I am choosing to prioritize my young children.' Were they not priorities before?"

As for those sections of?The New York Times?I tend to skip, I'd name the?WireCutter?and the?Food, both of which require supplemental subscriptions. Do I really need the WireCutter to tell me that Birkenstock rubber sandals (the Arizona model) are best for the beach and pool, when I already own three pair, mostly for the safety provided by their non-skid soles? I used to love reading the Food Section, until I realized that I enjoy looking at recipes more than I enjoy cooking.