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

What a reversal of fortunes. The Cubs used a terrific offense and timely relief pitching on Friday to power their way past the AZ D'backs 8 - 3, despite John Lackeys serving up a gopher ball. Last night, the same team took the field and Jon Lester was locked in a left-handed pitching duel with the D'backs Patrick Corbin until the top of the 6th.

At that point, the D'backs Adam Rosales singled to lead off the inning. Then, following a groundout that moved him to second, the Cubs intentionally walked Paul Goldschmidt to set up the double play. Instead, recent D'backs' acquisition from the Tigers, J.D. Martinez, drove a double off the right-field wall to spark a four run rally and the D'backs never looked back en route to a 6 - 2 win. That loss dropped the Cubs to 60 - 55 and tied them with the winning Cardinals for 1st place in the NL Central. The Cubs and the D'backs play their rubber game today @ 4:10 p.m.

The Tigers are still not a good team in spite of a late rally that included a walk-off home run by Justin "J-Up" Upton, that gave the Tigers a 12 - 11 win over the Twins and a solid hold on 4th place in the AL Central with a record of 53 - 63. The Tigers and the Twins play again today @ 1:10 p.m.

My beloved Red Sox trounced the Yankees yesterday, 10 - 5. Rookie left-fielder, Andrew Benintendi, hammered two three-run home runs, as he continued his August surge. The Sox were also assisted by a strong start from pitcher Drew Pomeranz. The Sox now lead the 2nd place Yankees in the AL East by 4.5 games. The Sox and the Yankees are the featured game tonight in Major League Baseball's Sunday Night feature game @ 8:05 p.m.

The Caps fell to the Loons yesterday in an MWL East game, 0 - 3. The Caps are still solidly in 1st place with a 2.5 game lead over the 2nd place TinCaps and they welcome the kids to "Family Day" today @1:00 p.m. against those same Great Lakes Loons.

I spent a large portion of my day in the kitchen yesterday making a batch of my world-famous squash-kale soup to which I also added celery, green peppers from our garden, and mushrooms. My brief sample indicates that my earlier harvest of the kale proved that I still have it. I also used my new kale stripping gadget that sped up the process, a little.

I was also able to use the food processor to chop the onions, the celery, and the green pepper to speed up the process. However, the soup-making activity is still labor intensive, but worth the effort.

I followed up my soup making by sauteeing another green pepper and quartering tomatoes that were combined from our gardens with the spice blend that I also created. Mary assisted with the sauce preparation. The spice blend was combined with tofu to make a vegan bolognese sauce for the penne pasta that along with some garlic bread became a tasty dinner. We traveled to JWs for a quick libation and Ginger was free to roam the manse. She did great and it looks like her new-dog anxiety is a thing of the past. In fact, I took her crate to the man-cave to seal the deal.

Oddly, while STSD, Sugar the Sous Dog, got bored with the kitchen activities and went upstairs to sleep after a few snacks, her understudy at the sous dog position, Ginger, was there the whole time and provided much-needed assistance/support. I bottled and froze five quarts of my world-famous soup.

Also worth y of note, is that I stood in the kitchen for nearly three hours and got my usual lower back ache but did not aggravate my hip flexor tendonitis. The short walk to JWs accomplished that after my kitchen stint. Go figure. I guess that that is information that the physical therapist will find useful during my Monday appointment.

During most of my kitchen efforts, Mary was upstairs printing out the final pages for the latest index. I'll be assisting with that later today. I hope to be sitting for that. With luck, I'll also be able to read the weekend edition of the Grand Haven Tribune and work the crossword puzzle contained therein.

The weather yesterday produced a morning shower that will preclude my watering today and also foster the growth of the veggies in the gardens of the vast PE. Our tomatoes are nearing the end of their productive period, but the green peppers are doing fine. The cucumbers are still producing prodigiously as are the kale and the zucchini plants. Our potatoes are also nearly ready for harvest.

We have a current temperature of 60° under clear skies. Today's high is forecast to reach 77° under mostly sunny skies with relative humidity. The chance for additional precipitation today is only a paltry 10%. However, the chance yesterday was only 20%, so.

The sun will rise today @ 6:48 a.m. and set tonight @ 8:49 p.m. Ciao.