Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 9:00 a.m. in "The City."

Some of you may be wondering why I didn't write a blog yesterday. My first inclination to explain that lapse away was this;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQgQoEczSAI

But that seemed too callous, so I'll explain it by saying that our human-children came for that aforementioned visit and that's what distracted me. That may or may not be true, but for now, it is the explanation I'm giving.

We have a current temperature of 27°on our way to today's high of 32° under cloudy-skies this early a.m.and sunny skies this afternoon. The sun rose this morning @ 8:04 a.m. and it will set later @ 5:09 p.m. The daylight hours will be getting shorter for another 11 days and then it will be the winter solstice on the 21st of this month. That's when the daylight hours will be at their shortest. Then we'll see more daylight hours each day as we approach the spring and summer solstices. Soon, SAD, that's the acronym for Seasonal Affective Disorder, will be a thing of the past and it will be all sunshine and light from then onward.

We'll be bidding a fond farewell to our children this morning as they head back to their home in The Windy City, Chicago, IL. As many may recall, that moniker, The Windy City, came not from the weather conditions there, but from the windy nature of the politicians who call that city home.

Today, we plan to hit the kitchen for some cooking and baking. Mary will be going to the grocery store while I am cooking and then she will reclaim her kitchen while I get back to reading and enjoying the holiday season. I finished my last novel, If Beale Street Could Talk, by James Baldwin and I was awed by Baldwin's ability to tell a story.

Later tonight, I'll once again torture myself, as the 8 - 4 Bears welcome/challenge the visiting 11 - 1 L.A. Rams. The Bears regular starting QB, Mitch Trubisky, will be returning to the lineup following an extended stay on the sidelines nursing an injured shoulder. I may be a transplanted Michigander, but I have too many years as a Chicagoan to be a complete Lions fan. That and the fact the the Lions suck this year, as in most years. You can take the Bears fan out of Chicago, but you can't take Chicago our of a Bears fan. That would be like asking me to give up on the Cubs. Not gonna happen!

Otherwise, not much is happening today. So with that, I'll say what I have to say, with this link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9434BoGkNQ

Ciao.