Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just before 1:00 a.m. in "The City."

Well, like Buckles the Dog, a character from the comic strips, I missed Santa Claus again. I was awake with GTWD and STWD, but alas, I must have been tending to them when the Jolly Old Elf came to our house. Oh well, I'll get him next year.

Our current temperature is 35° per the NWS and 37° per the DTWS. Later today, after the sun has risen @ 8:15 a.m. and well before it sets @5:15 p.m., the high temperature is forecast to reach 36°. The good news is that there is no serious threat of precipitation in the forecast until around 7:00 p.m. tonight. Then the forecast from the NWS calls for the chance of precipitation to rise from a low of 15% to a high of 95% by 6:00 a.m. on Monday with rain and winds @ 22 mph plus. The precipitation quickly ebbs on Monday to 15%, @ 10:00 a.m., but the winds continue throughout the day. However, the forecast also calls for a high of 52°. I'm not sure how typical the 52° forecast for Monday is, but I'll take it. By Tuesday, as the sunrise and sunset begin to slowly edge apart in minute increments, the high temperature will be no more than 29°.  We'll bounce around in the low to mid-30s until at least New Years Day.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I consider the first day of spring to be the dates that pitchers and catchers report to the annual MLB spring training camps. The Cubs and the Tigers do not have dates posted yet, but my beloved Red Sox are asking their pitchers and catchers to report by February 13, 2017. That's just 50 days away, but who's counting? The Caps, AKA the West Michigan Whitecaps, open their season on April 6, 2017, with a game @ 6:35 p.m. against the South Bend, IN Cubs.

We had a good day yesterday reading, working crossword puzzles, piecing together the butterfly jigsaw puzzles, and enjoying the light traffic here in the Tri-Cities area as we traveled to Spring Lake and then to our favorite watering hole for dinner. Mary noted that many people in the greater Tri-Cities area have an annual ritual of going to the Tip a - Few Tavern for a pre-Christmas gathering so this may become our annual pre-Christmas activity too.

I took a picture of the jigsaw puzzles in progress to give you a feel for the difference in this type of puzzle that has no formal edges to help with assembly. Eight puzzles of the original 19 remain to be assembled, some small and some larger.

Today we plan to stay inside with the exception of the trips outside to take GTWD and the intrepid one to their backyard area. I'll be assisting Mary in the kitchen as she chops, makes various sauteed ingredients, and bakes, boils and mixes many ingredients for our Christmas dinner. I'll continue reading my pulp-fiction novel when I'm not otherwise engaged. Dinner will be later in the day.

Otherwise, there are no specific plans for today. Mary will be in her kitchen enjoying life with her sous dogs and yours truly underfoot. I believe that a new book will be arriving today or soon for the next indexing project. I only have to highlight in one color for this one. Ciao.