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

I just finished my latest set of yak exercises before starting this blog. I believe that they will help overall and so I am being diligent and doing my part three-times per day.

The NWS is reporting a current temperature of 60° under partly cloudy skies. My DTWS with its FPMS is reporting 60° and my view out the WW does indeed show that the skies are partly cloudy. Later today, the NWS is forecasting a high temperature of 76, also under partly cloudy skies.

Wednesday and Thursday the NWS is forecasting a 50% to 60% chance for T-storms as high temperatures reach into the 80s! We then get a respite from precipitation on Friday according to that same NWS, before T-storms/showers return over the weekend.

Once we got the morning safari done yesterday, Mary had me fire up the grill and make some grilled ears of corn and grilled sausages while she worked on the index. Sadly, one of the ears of corn had a genetic defect that wasn't detected until it was husked. That defect made that particular ear unfit for human consumption. Still, it was a delicious lunch.

Later, she allowed me to chose the dinner menu, so I opted for vegan-a-roni. With some assistance from Mary, the meal once again turned out delicious. Today's meals? As yet, unknown.

I have to water today and also get around to those activities in the man-cave that I meant to get to yesterday. No hurry, I'm still retired.

I did finish reading The Case of the Bygone Brother, by Diane Burton in a personal readathon yesterday as Mary watched Contact on Amazon Prime TV. I was in a zone and finished what has to be the smallest print book that I have read in a long time. I liked the book overall, so maybe I"ll try another in Burton's Michigan-based series about female detective Alexandra "Alex" O'Hara who lives and works in the fictional lakeside town of Fair Haven, MI. She mixes in lots of Michigan references to Detroit, GR, and our own GH. What's not to like?

Sports news yesterday had its share of thrills.

The 2nd place Cubs took it to the hapless Baltimore Orioles by a final score of 8 - 0 to sweep the Orioles and give the Cubs' new left-handed starting pitcher, Jose Quintana, his first win in a Cubs' uniform. Quintana used two home runs apiece from Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo and solid hitting from Ben Zobrist. Willson Contreras and Ian Happ to notch that win while recording 12 Ks for the day. A great beginning for Quintana. The Cubs are now one game over .500 @ 46 - 45 in the NL Central and travel to Atlanta to meet the Braves tonight @7:35 p.m. Let's hope that their recent success continues for several more games.

The Tigers improved to 41 - 49 in the AL Central with a 6 - 5, 11 inning win over the Bluejays yesterday. While the Tigers are still not a good team, they are still showing some life, as they stay firmly in 4th place, ahead of that other team from Chicago. The Tigers travel to Kansas City tonight to meet the Royals @ 8:15 p.m.

My beloved Red Sox split a day/night doubleheader with the Yankees yesterday in the AL East, losing the opening game 0 - 3, and winning the second game by 3 - 0. So, they stayed atop the AL East with an overall record of 52 - 41, three games better than the 2nd place Rays. The Sox welcome the Bluejays tonight @ 7:00 p.m.

The Caps easily handled the Quad Cities River Bandits yesterday afternoon with an 8 - 0 win. The Caps now have an MWL East record of 17 - 6 and lead the 2nd place Ft. Wayne TinCaps by 1.5 games. The Caps are home again tonight @ 7:00 p.m. to once again face the River Bandits.

I'll get to that watering today along with assisting Mary with her indexing. She has a question about one portion of a catalog she is indexing that I may be well qualified to answer.

Otherwise, I have to go to the library to sort out why they show me as having a book that I turned in last week and for which I got a sign-off on my Beachcomber's Book Bingo card. I will be starting my last book for my swag later today, time permitting.

The sun will rise today @ 6:20 a.m. and set tonight @ 9:20 p.m. Yes, my friends, the days are once again growing shorter. Sigh. Ciao.