Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 3:00 a.m. in "The City."

I stuck it out until I saw and heard, Cubs Win!, Cubs Win, Cubs Win! The Cubs had fallen behind early in spite of Jon Lester's best efforts. However, with two men on in the bottom of the 6th, the Cubs LF Chris Coghlan tried to call a time-out that was not recognized. Instead, he turned back to face the Cardinals' flamethrowing young pitcher, Carlos Hernandez. Coghlan was forced to take an emergency swing. His emergency swing single drove in two runs and moved the Cubs ahead until the top of the 7th when the Cardinals tied the score @ 3 - 3 with a pinch-hit home run.

The Cubs had two outs in the bottom of the 11th inning with the bases loaded and Anthony Rizzo @ bat. He was gifted with a walk-off walk that scored the winning run for a Cubs victory over the Cardinals in an N. L. Central game, 4 - 3. That's 10 in a row for the Cubs and gives them a 1st place, 13 game lead over the Cardinals, with a division leading record of 72 - 41. The Cubs and the Cardinals play again this afternoon @ 2:20 p.m.

The Tigers were off, so their status of 2nd place in the A. L. Central remained unchanged. However, they are now 4 games behind the Indians, who won over the Angels, 14 - 4, The Tigers play the Rangers in Arlington, TX tonight @ 8:05 p.m.

My beloved Red Sox fell once again to the Yankees, this time by a score of 2 - 4 in an A. L. East matchup. The Sox are still in 3rd place with a record of 61 - 52, 3 games behind the Blue Jays, who won over the Rays, 7 - 0. The Sox host the D'Backs tonight @ Fenway. Game time is 7:10 p.m.

The Caps are not doing very well, as they lost to the 3rd place Lansing Lug Nuts by a score of 2 - 4, just like the Red Sox. The Caps have a Midwest League East record of 21 - 23, just barely good enough for 4th place, 9.5 games behind the division-leading Bowling Green Hot Rods. The Caps and the Lug Nuts play again tonight @ 7:00 p.m.

We have a current temperature of 78° under fair skies. T-storms may or may not begin later this morning @ 5:00 a.m. with a 25% chance. Later today, the T-storm activity increases to 60% @ 3:00 p.m. as the high-temperature climbs to 80° with 81% relative humidity. That's about the time that Mary and I are set to visit the chiropractor.  I may get the chance to try out my new umbrella.

All of that is my way of saying that I should not have to water today and I can continue my reading of Bad Country, by C.B. McKenzie. This book was his debut novel published in 2014. I have his follow-up effort entitled Burn What Will Burn, published in June of this year, waiting on the shelf. McKenzie has won awards for both novels.

I finished three crosswords from the Grand Haven Tribune as well as the papers themselves yesterday while Mary was working on the index. I had finished my highlighting early yesterday morning. Our lunch was vegan SPTL, sandwiches. For the uninitiated, that means Spicy tomato loaf, lettuce, and garden-fresh tomato sandwiches with a cucumber salad using the last of our garden semi-fresh cucumbers.

After lunch, I placed the hangers on the wall in my office for the car drawing I referenced in yesterday's blog. I like how it looks on the wall kitty-corner from the Mickey Chevrolet print just above my bulletin board. I hope you agree. Even if you don't, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah!, as it is my office.

Dinner was one of Adam's all-time favorites and one of mine too, spaghetti roll casserole. I had taken the initial chance of placing the 40 plus year-old mushroom shaped casserole dish on the counter for Mary to espy in a not so subtle effort to spur her activity in the kitchen. The word espy is one often used in crossword puzzles, but not often elsewhere. That casserole dish was a shower gift to Mary @ her bridal shower about 43 years ago. I enjoyed it to the last morsel.

Today, Mary has her regularly scheduled chat @ 2:00 p.m. and more indexing to do. I have nothing on my agenda except reading and the morning safari with the intrepid one. It was so hot and humid yesterday morning, that Sugar and I made it as far as the newspaper office and back before Sugar's energy reserves were spent, Mary started out with us, but she walked all the way to the Baker's Wife downtown for some fresh bread. By the time she returned she too had used up her energy reserves. The bread was a loaf of marble rye that became those terrific sandwiches.

The sun will rise today amidst those possible scattered T-storms @ 6:47 a.m. It will set later @ 8:50 p.m. The cloudy skies will probably preclude the viewing of the Perseid Meteor Showers that are occurring nightly. Ciao.