Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 12:30 a.m. in "The City."

I just returned from a short safari to the back forty with the fur-children. The rain had stopped, unlike when Mary was out with them earlier. I'm hoping that this trip will forestall a trip later this early morning.

We have a current temperature of 52° under cloudy skies. Later today, the high will only be 45° with rain changing to snow as the day progresses. In addition, the wind is expected to blow @ 23 mph. That is a breeze compared to the rough conditions that predominated in the counties south of here and in Chicago. Tornados touched down all over the midwest.

We dodged most of the severe weather conditions and STWD only repaired to her hide-e-hole for as long as the storms were threatening. She stayed outside with Mary long enough earlier last evening to get her business done and then she came in to get her treat. Ginger seems unfazed by thunder or other weather anomalies.

I did it, I made another of my world-famous apple pies yesterday in preparation for our book club meeting today. I think this may be my best one yet. I won't know for sure until we cut into it later this afternoon, but if appearances mean anything, it will be superb. Here's a picture of that pie so that you can judge from afar.

I spent some time reading in the media room last night and then fell asleep. I awoke and then Ginger hopped into my lap. She seems equally comfortable in my lap or Mary's. Sugar likes to be a lap dog too, but we have to be in the La-Z-Boy in order to facilitate that activity.

We heard from Adam earlier yesterday. It seems he is feeling better. He has bought another toy, this one a Fiat. I think it is yellow with a roof that retracts to allow it to be a safe alternative to a convertible. I don't know much else, but he says it is a fun car.

I talked to the people at the cable company yesterday about the fact that our internet was out, again. They said that they did not have an outage report in our area, so they scheduled a service call. I canceled that appointment when the internet came back a few minutes later. It turns out that a large part of the East Coast had an outage yesterday, so they just didn't have it in their system yet.

Today, I have to go to the drug store and talk to them about the price that I was shown in an email that I received. It should be a lot lower, as it was the last time I had these same prescriptions filled. Go figure.

Otherwise, we have the book club meeting, and I have more reading in my latest pulp fiction novel, The Midnight Bell by Jack Higgins. I like the characters in this series, so I feel like I am right there with them. I also have to put the final coat of paint on the mirror for the bathroom. We opted to repaint the old mirror rather than buy a new one. I feel as though I just saved us anywhere from $100.00 to $200.00 with my efforts.

Mary has plans to do some cooking and crafting.

The sun will rise this morning @7:20 a.m. and set @ 6:34 p.m. Ciao.