New Yorker

Whenever I visited my friend CB, I used to love reading her New Yorkers in the down time when it was polite to leave my hostess alone to get on with it.

Last Christmas I asked my husband for my own subscription, the paper kind. He obliged.

Because it is delivered to Argelès-sur-mer and we spent months in Geneva, they piled up.

I tried reading them in order but now I read oldest-newest, except when I just grab at one. So much for system. In any case, at two a week I'm getting caught up.

Some go in the bathroom, which as a reading room can be christened "The New Yorker Room." We tend to leave the magazine open to which article each of us is reading. At the moment I think Rick is on Niki de Saint Phalle and I am on the Civil War in Spain in the 1930s. We will ask each other, "Did you see the article on ..."

While I tend to read cover-to-cover, he tends to pick and chose.

When we are done, they go to our friend Lydia, who says the magazines are slowing her book reading. I have the same problem, because some of the magazines are next to my bed which I will pick up in place of a book.  She then passes them on to another friend.

By fall, when we go traveling and back to Geneva, they will pile up again. I'll come back to treasure trove around Christmas.

Yes, I could read them on line, and I do use a Kindle to read books. But I want the gloss of the paper, the crinkle of turning the page, the ability to fold a page over, and look at the pile of unread material knowing there are delights to come.

Great Christmas present it was...2017 is coming, hint, hint, hint Rick.