Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be, across the nation and across the world. It is just after 1:00 a.m. in "The City."

We have a current temperature of 68º under cloudy skies. With a wind-speed of 7 mph, it feels like 68º. My DTS shows 70º.

We are currently not experiencing any rain, but we have a 60% chance for additional precipitation around 4:00 a.m., so once again, no watering will be required today, That's assuming that the rain event occurs. In addition, there is a 60% chance for T-storms in the hours after sunrise. We shall see.

The sun will rise @ 6:38 a.m. and set later @ 9:03 p.m.

In what may be some of the last games in baseball during this shortened season, the 7 - 2 Cubs defeated the 2 - 7 Pirates for the series-sweep with a final score in 11 innings of 2 - 1. The Cubs just couldn't put any runs on the board and wasted another outstanding pitching performance by starter LHP Jon Lester. Instead, the win went to RHP Jeremy Jeffress in relief as Javier Baez got a walk-off single to drive in the winning run in the 11th. Tonight's game against the 3 - 7 Royals begins in Wrigley Field @ 8:15 p.m. EDT as RHP Alec Mills goes for the Cubs. Mills has a 1 - 0 record this season.

My beloved 3 - 7 Red Sox fell to the 7 - 1 Yankees in NYC 7 - 9. The game featured a 4 for 4 performance by the X man, Xavier Bogaerts, who hit two home runs. 3rd baseman Rafael Devers also went yard. The Sox have a day off as they travel to Tampa Bay for Tuesday's game, which is supposed to begin @ 6:40 p.m. EDT against the 4 - 6 Rays with 1 - 0 RHP Nathan Eovaldi starting the game. Given the Covid-19 pandemic numbers in Florida and the hurricane, who knows.

The 5 - 5 Tigers fell to earth yesterday, as they lost both ends of a doubleheader to the Reds, 3 - 4 in game one, and 0 - 4 in game two. The Tigers are supposed to be home on Tuesday night to play the 2 - 3 Cardinals, but the Cardinals are reporting Covid-19 cases of their own, so whether 0 - 1 LHP Matthew Boyd will start that or any game versus the Cardinals is up in the air.

Elsewhere, I got up later than Mary yesterday. I subsequently learned that she had purchased an internet pattern for some knitted leg-warmers, fed the fur-children, and gotten our breakfast juices and vitamins set up before I arose. We had a brunch of vegan hot dogs with a side of Coleslaw and watched another episode of The Man in the High Castle,

I started another crossword puzzle but did little else. I watched as Mary prepared a new to us recipe in the slow-cooker that should have taken 2 1/2 hours to cook, but which by around 6:30 p.m. necessitated a different meal plan altogether for dinner. That turned out to be TLT sandwiches on rye bread, minus the tomatoes with a side of jalapeno potato chips. While the casserole looks great and will become a meal later today, it took more like five hours to finish cooking. While we waited, we watched the season finale of season two of Downton Abbey.

Two cups of dry rice become four cups of rice when cooked. Add the peas and soy curls and you get a full slow-cooker.

But, you also get two meals from this recipe. We hope it tastes good.

Many years ago, Adam made a meal we dubbed his Rice Concoction. As always, when you use two cups of rice, you need four cups of water which Mary mixed with her homemade vegetable broth. In addition, Mary added a fifth cup of water to hydrate the soy curls that were part of the recipe. However, she also had to add additional water before the cooking was done.

Today, since I don't have to water, I can finish that crossword puzzle, do some recreational reading, and whatever comes to mind. I expect that Mary will be reading and knitting with yarn from her stash. She was saddened the other day when she went by the location of our local needlecraft store, The Needlesmith, and found that it had succumbed to the business downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and closed up shop. Now, Mary no longer has a go-to place for any emergency needlecraft things nor a place to just drop into and browse the fine yarns that they sold. Ciao.