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

Recently, a friend queried me regarding my reference to my Yak. I guess the best way to remind my loyal readers about that reference is to reprise a variation of that old Tibetan Yak joke.

Once upon a time, a mountain climber came across a Tibetan husband and wife sitting outside their yurt in the Himalayas. He noticed an interesting aroma emanating from the yurt. He just had to ask what it was and he received the following reply from the wife.

"Well, while my husband was out hunting, I decided to make his favorite dinner. Yak. I basted, I rubbed and I put his favorite dish into our oven. However, if you don't watch the progress carefully, you can burn it and it makes an awful smell. But, since I did watch and tend the dinner carefully, what you smell is a well-prepared dinner of baking Yak."

So the answer to the query is that if you prepare the Yak well, the wonderful aroma is from the baking Yak. So, I like to refer to my aching back as my baking Yak.

But I digress. Yesterday, college football was very interesting, The MSU Spartans were home against the Penn State Nittany Lions. However, about halfway through the 2nd quarter, the game went into an extended weather delay due to an electrical storm that lasted nearly three-hours. Ultimately, the Spartans defeated the Nittany Lions 27 - 24 to move their Big 10 record to 5 - 1 and 2nd place in the Big 10. That loss dropped the Nittany Lions to 4 - 2 in the Big 10, behind the Spartans who play @ Ohio State next week @ 12:00 p.m.

Speaking tangentially of the OSU Buckeyes, they were drubbed by the Hawkeyes of Iowa, 24 - 55 in a game that puts the Buckeyes playoff hopes in peril.

The Wolverines of Michigan were also delayed in the "Big House" in Ann Arbor by that same electrical storm. They ultimately prevailed over the Golden Gophers of Minnesota, 33 - 10. That gives the Wolverines a 4 - 2 record in the Big 10 as they prepare for their next opponents, the Terrapins of Maryland next week @ 3:30 p.m.

Yesterday we mostly didn't do much as we watched the morning lineup on MSNBC and then did some reading and listening to music. Mary made a nice brunch of chopped vegetables and vegan cheese to accompany our morning's activities. In the early afternoon, I tried a new recipe for chocolate-chip cookies. They turned out OK, but the recipe is not a keeper.

Dinner was more pedestrian, consisting of vegan hot dogs on poppy-seed buns after we returned from an afternoon stop @ JWs.

We then repaired to the media room and watched Dirty Dancing for the umpteenth time and liked it once again. By the end, the fur-children had had their final out and Mary went off to bed as I fell asleep in my La-Z-Boy. I'm up now, as you can discern.

Today, Mary plans to spend some time in her kitchen while I watch pro football and read. I chose a book about the man who self-proclaimed himself, "The Greatest!", Muhammad Ali. I've just started, but it is a nice companion piece to the book we just read for our book club about Malcolm X. Mary is the book czar for our next book club meeting and she chose to have us read books about people who have done great or memorable things.

The current temperature is 48° under foggy skies. Today, the high is expected to reach 52° with a 50% chance of showers after the sun rises @ 7:24 a.m. and long before it sets @ 5:31 p.m. Mary and I suspect that the fur-children will take some time to internalize the change from EDST to EST and they will be expecting their breakfast and dinner on their old schedule. We'll see.

Oh, by the by, I mamaged to reset my Citizens Eco watch to the correct settings. Ciao.