Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It really is just past 12:00 a.m. in "The City."

Speaking of sports, although I wasn't, the Bulls defeated the L.A. Clippers 83 - 80 last night at the United Center. The Cubs appear to be in pursuit of Jason Heyward, a 26 year old outfielder currently in the employ of the St. Louis Cardinals. He is a free agent, and may be just the player the Cubs need to solidify their outfield following the departure of Dexter Fowler. Stay tuned.

I got all of my chores done yesterday. Now I have time to set up the Christmas tree. In addition, I have some editing to do for Mary on the index for the book I finished highlighting earlier this month.

I did get in some time with the girls early yesterday before STWD and I took the morning walk, while Mary went to Health Hutt for some cooking supplies. When she returned from her outing, I learned that we were off to the local antiques store to pick up our new to us storage chest for the mud room. It needs some paint, but I feel confident that I can accomplish that task. I'm just waiting for Mary to decide on the color.

I made it to my doctor's appointment late yesterday afternoon. The results of the visit were all good, so the doctor said, "Have a nice life, I don't need to see you again." I liked that.

Later yesterday afternoon, Mary and I walked downtown to get something laminated and then dropped into our favorite watering hole for dinner. It was windy, but as Mary likes to say, we held hands and stuck together on the way home and made it safely. There was a John Denver special on the PBS TV station that we watched in the media room. Mary had originally thought she would watch the TV news, but opted to join me instead. It is amazing how the music that was popular when we met and married 42 years ago, still sounded fresh so many years later.

Today, I haven't much on my agenda. No doctors and no chores. I do have some chickpeas to bake into a spicy snack, but Mary did the hard part yesterday, pressure cooking the beans that I had soaked overnight, so mixing with hot sauce and baking them for 30 minutes is easy.

According to my digital weather station located here in the Weather Office of the PE, the current temperature is 48.2°, with relative humidity of 75%. Indoors, the temperature is 69.4° and the humidity is 52%. No rain is in the forecast until Sunday, when the temperature is forecast to be 58°.

The sun will rise today at 8:06 a.m. and set at 5:10 p.m., before the new moon takes over the sky in all of its invisibility. Ciao.