Pain at the … Newspaper

In this week’s paper (and last week’s and the next two weeks) is a notice that we have to increase the rate of our subscriptions from $65 to $72 effective April 1. This increase is about 10%, painful but necessary.

Then on Tuesday I received a notice from our printer that the cost of newsprint is going up to combat the tariffs being implemented (we get our newsprint from Canada).

I swear – I feel like I can’t catch a break. 

After making the difficult decision to raise our rate 10%, tariffs reflecting a 25% increase are imposed. And I don’t think these rates will go down if/when the tariff issue is resolved. I’ve been in business over 15 years and I’ve never seen a reduction in production costs.

Makes me throw up my hands in disgust.

So I really appreciate the support of our subscribers; it really makes a difference to the bottom line of the paper … which, sadly, is becoming narrower.

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The Goldsworthy family, like many others in the Crescenta Valley, loves its pets. We have three dogs – Molly and Olivia (two female German shepherds) and Kona (a male, old Jindu). Of late, for some unexplained reason, the two shepherds have been getting out of our enclosed yard and running amok in the street. They’ve been digging under a fence to escape. I’ve been called a good number of times because “the dogs got out again.” Most recently, I found them on a rainy Monday and put them in my car to drive them home. Of course, since it was raining the dogs were f-i-l-t-h-y.

This necessitated my cleaning the interior of my car, which I did on Saturday. Part of that cleaning process meant taking my car to the local drive-through car wash to use that vacuum and to get the car washed. So I was gone about 30 minutes.

The same time I was gone Steve went to get a haircut. I brought the dogs in before I left – not only my three but my son’s dog, who was visiting. 

When I got back home the carpet on my stairs was destroyed – totally torn up. Steve and I of course blamed my son’s dog; my three had been locked in the house on previous occasions because the girls were getting out and we never had a problem with anything being destroyed. But we also knew that most likely the shepherds (Kona is so old he wouldn’t know how to tear up the carpet) helped my son’s dog in his escapades.

After Steve returned home and surveyed the damage, he quickly called CV Flooring, which came out on Tuesday and put in replacement carpeting on the stairs.

Though not averted, at least the tragedy was contained.