Good morning or good evening,wherever you may be. It is just passing 3:30 a.m. in "The City." With a pre-sunrise temperature of 31°, that drops to an overnight low of 25° before the sun rises at 7:58 a.m. In addition, the daily forecast for today calls for a high of 33° under partly cloudy skies this morning, which give way to partly sunny skies in the afternoon. Thursday, the National Weather Service is calling for a high of 35° under mostly sunny skies.

If the reports from the winter meetings are true, the boys in blue snatched the prize player from this year's free agent class. Jon Lester, a left handed pitcher with appearances in the World Series™, has inked a deal for $155 million for six years, with an option for seven years. That comes on the heels of signing Jason Hammels, a right handed pitcher, for $20 million for two years, and acquiring catcher Miguel Montero from the Arizona Diamondbacks. As the Yankees have proven, big spending can win a pennant and a World Series™, or not. As the boys have proven, spending money on an outfielder who can hit, or a pitcher who turned out to be more promise than reality can easily backfire. As for my beloved Red Sox, Lester was a dream, but the money talked and that other stuff walked. That other team from Chicago traded for Jeff Samardzija, former boys pitcher, and once the ace of their staff. He never had good luck on the north side.

In trainspotting, it turned into train-hearing. The southbound run went through at around 10:30 p.m. last night, and the northbound train went through around 2:00 a.m. The noise was not that of long trains.

Today, I am doing that editing for Mary. Surprisingly, she is slightly ahead of schedule on this index. It does mean that I'll have to get up earlier to get started. I was supposed to get that index yesterday, but like many things in the indexing world, schedules are subject to slippage. However, we are still on time, schedule wise.

In addition, Mary received word that another book is in the pipeline. It is purported to be about 400 pages. That's in addition to the one I just finished highlighting a few days ago. That one is due Monday. I just got the highlighter ink off of my hands.

I got in some time with the girls yesterday, and that always makes me feel good. Before that, I had noticed while I was downstairs for lunch, that the kitchen needed sweeping. That led me to seeing that Sugar's couch needed the cover washed, the sink in the downstairs bathroom needed its drain cleaned, and the carpets downstairs, and up, needed vacuuming. When Sugar the Weather Dog and I were out for our morning constitutional yesterday, I noticed a piece of her fur coat falling off. This time of year, with temperatures fluctuating, and as the ins and outs of daily life in Sugar's world come into play, and in spite of brushing, Sugar sheds. I love her anyway. She is the "Cutest dog on the planet."

So before the sun sets on me at 5:11 p.m. I'll being saying Ciao.