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

It is officially here, the Wild Card contests open tonight in Major League Baseball. The Blue Jays and the Orioles square off @ 8:00 p.m. in a battle of 2nd and 3rd place teams from the AL East, to determine the Wild Card winner for the AL. The winner of that game plays the Texas Rangers on Thursday, 10/6, while my beloved AL East champion Red Sox meet the AL Central champion Cleveland Indians. that same night.

Tomorrow night, the NL Wild Card teams, the Mets, and the Giants, face each other for the chance to face the Cubs on Friday, 10/7,  @ a time to be announced. Also on that same night? the NL West champion Giants and the NL East Mets play, also @ a time to be announced. Confused yet?

Good trainspotting yesterday. @ 12:40 p.m., locomotives 2019 and 2057 rolled through on the RSTL heading south in the lead of eight CHCs, six DBTCs, one DWTC and one GTC.

I had to wait until 4:14 p..m. to view those same locomotives heading north. In tow were 19 CHCs, 15 DBTCs and three DWTCs, all fully laden judging by the shaking of the manse.

Mary was upstairs getting bleary-eyed as she had to pick up the pace on the index that was originally due Monday of next week, but which the publisher called from India to ask if she could have it ready by this Friday, as the author will be attending a conference in a few weeks and they need to get the book into print. As is all too often the case, lack of prior planning on their part constitutes an emergency on our part. I have had to stop my planned and unplanned activities to assist. Sigh, I 'm retired?

The current temperature is 56° under mostly cloudy skies with just a hint of fog. Today's high has been forecast by the NWS to be 74° under partly cloudy skies. I had plans to get the weed killer on the lawns of the vast PE, but with the sewer construction @ our neighbors and the 80% chance of T-storms on Wednesday afternoon, I am putting that on hold. The weed killer needs 48 hours of no rain to be effective. Plus, with the need for my services on the index, I just don't have the time. Sigh.

We did take a long walk with STWD yesterday morning because we needed to get out and about. In between the appointment at the chiropractor and the safari, we had a nice lunch of vegan ham sandwiches and leftover scalloped potatoes. Dinner followed a post-chiropractor stop @ JWs. Mary crafted a very tasty faux tuna casserole for that.

I did get in a few minutes of time with the girls yesterday morning, but not as much as I desired. I worked a crossword from the Grand Haven Tribune and read more from The Wright Brothers too. It is likely that I'll be soloing to the book club meeting @ the Tri-Cities Historical Museum on Wednesday afternoon as Mary soldiers on with the index.

Once the sun rises today @ 7:46 a.m. today, we'll get to the morning safari long before we see the sunset @ 7:20 p.m. All of the above activities will leave little time for pleasure reading and playing with the girls. Ciao.