Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 4:00 a.m. in "The City."

Sports, that's the ticket. That is if you aren't a Cubs fan. They lost again to the Reds, 3 - 5. They have a record of 52 - 32 in the N. L. Central, still good enough for 1st place. Maybe I shouldn't be worried. But when manager Joe Maddon makes excuses and says that when you get beat by one home run, that it's not an indicator of trouble, I get worried.

Once again, it comes down to pitching. The Cubs have lost 12 of their last 17 games. The starting pitchers are having problems and when the relief corps is unable to put a tourniquet on and win games from lesser teams, then it's time to worry. When the big boppers are not hitting, it's time to worry. When excuses flow too easily, it's time to worry. Sure, the Cubs have may players named to the All Star squad, but they are there because of their fast start, not their current efforts.

They face their next opponent, the Atlanta Braves tonight, and the Braves are not a good team. The Cubs should feast on them. Why have lesser teams beaten the Cubs so easily? According to one of the excuses, the other teams in the league are gunning for the Cubs. So? If you are that good, you should be able to handle those lesser and equal teams. If you keep making excuses, you'll find yourselves looking up, not down. Just saying.

The Tigers finally defeated the Indians, 12 - 2 on the strength of good hitting and solid play. That's the first win in 12 tries. I'm less worried about the Tigers than the Cubs. The Tigers have an overall record of 45 - 40, still only good enough for 3rd in the A. L. Central, but one full game ahead of that other team from Chicago. The Tigers play the Blue Jays tonight.

My beloved Red Sox handily beat the Rangers 11 - 6 to go to 46 - 38 in the A. L. East, 3.0 games behind the Orioles, and in 3rd place. The Sox play the Rangers tonight.

The Caps fell to earth once again, losing to the Great Lakes Loons, 2 - 6. They now ha a Midwest  League East record of 6 - 7 and find themselves in 5th place. They play the Loons again tonight.

Yesterday's much ballyhooed rain event was short lived and amounted to a little more than a sprinkle. Our next chance of T-storms comes Friday at 40% according to the NWS. They show a current temperature of 65° with an anticipated high of 84° under partly cloudy skies.

I am getting closer to my goal for the Beachcomber's Book Bingo 2016. I returned two recently read books yesterday and that leaves me only two "My Choice" books to go, before I get my reward of a nifty bag. I should make it by summer's end. I've started another book, but that is on the back burner while I am on highlighting duty.

Mary went to Holland yesterday and found that the traffic there was as expected, horrendous. She says she wishes that I had something to do there so that I could be her regular wing man for navigational purposes. Alas, I can't think of anything other than reading and that I can do here, along with highlighting.

Sugar and I survived her absence, but while my lunch soup was OK, it wasn't my best effort. I think that my kale and squash soup with a tomato base is much better. This batch of kale,onion and potato soup, with only a vegetable broth base, was/is mediocre at best. Oh well, better luck next time. STSD and I never made that banana nut bread, because Mary ate one of the ripest bananas for her breakfast. Now I/we have to wait for the next batch of bananas to age. Sigh.

I almost forgot, I got the T-shirt from the fine folks at The Awesome Mitten. It is a great shirt and I'll be wearing it later today. Here is a picture as taken by my staff photographer.

I think the model makes the picture. 

I have an O/T appointment later today. I am improving, but therapy is still necessary. Lunch will be at the hospital's salad bar and then it's back to highlighting for me and indexing for Mary. All of that is after the mornig safari with the intrepid one.

The sun will rise @ 6:13 a.m. and set @ 9:26 p.m. Ciao.