Good morning or good evening, wherever y9ou may be. it is just past 2:00 a.m. in "The City."

Where do I begin, to tell the story of...Oops, I was channeling the theme song from the movie, Love Story. When I was younger, it was a great date flick because it was both syrupy and sappy., the kind of movie guaranteed to get a date to snuggle against the nearest person, hopefully, me.

At any rate, I think it is time for all of us to have something or someone to cling to, something or someone to help us all feel better about the state of the world. I like to think that song lyrics can be found in just about any place. So maybe...

But I digress. We have a current temperature of 43° as we drop down to our overnight low of 38° before rising later today to the high temperature of 39°. That's about all the good news from the National Weather Service (NWS) for this morning. As the day progresses, we will see showers this morning, and then the weather forecast goes downhill from there. We had that Small Craft Warning in effect for the "Big Lake", but that expired @ 1:00 a.m. this morning.

Unfortunately, the NWS has updated their forecast for Ottawa County to include a Gale Warning from Holland to GH, that includes wind-speeds building from our current 16 mph/13 knots, to Gale Force wind-speeds of 35 knots and above! Those wind-speeds will be accompanied by wave-heights growing from 3' to 6' up to as high as 9' to 12' on the "Big Lake"! That warning will be in effect from 10 p.m. tonight until 7:00 a.m. Monday!

In between now and then, the forecast also calls for showers later this morning and then a deterioration to a Winter Weather Advisory and that Gale Warning. In this case, because of that Winter Weather Advisory, it seems that there is a chance for 3' to 5' of snow with a the possibility of 6' in some places. That snow will be heavy, wet, and slushy and naturally produce hazardous driving conditions for the return to work commute Monday morning. I'll be safely in bedas the sun rises today @ 7:49 a.m. and before it sets later @ 5:13 p.m.

Well, the college football g-ds were not able to give the Michigan Wolverines a win over the Ohio State Buckeyes. The Wolverines were crushed, 39 - 62, with the OSU QB tossing five TD passes and adding to his Big 10 record of 41! So much for the Wolverines playing for the Big 10 championship next week against the Wildcats of Northwestern. The Wildcats won their game over the Fighting Illini of Illinois, 24 - 16, to stay atop the Big 10 West. Instead, the Wildcats will play the Buckeyes next week in Indianapolis.

The Spartans of MSU tried to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but they outlasted the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers, 16 - 14. A bowl bid is up in the air as of this writing.

We made it to Holland yesterday in spite of the inclement weather. We had a short respite after visiting a store in Holland and buying a quart of Holiday Nog, after which we traveled to the Kerstmarkt across town to pick up a way-cool Christmas ornament that incorporates some hot-peppers and salt in a clear-glass ornament. It should look great on our new tree.

While we were @ the Kerstmarkt, Mary used our camera to take some pix of the market and its surroundings. Here are some of those pix in no particular order.

A nice assortment at the booth where we got our new ornament.

I think that Mary just liked the weaving.

Looking east from the Kerstmarkt towards downtown Holland, MI

Lest you think that I forgot, I finished the outdoor Christmas decorations yesterday. Mary took some pix of the outcome of my efforts.

Looking eat from the PE.

Looking west from the PE.

We tried a combination of the methods that Mary and I thought would secure our Santa Claus banner to our flag pole. So far, they seem to be working.

Today, we should be able to get in the morning walks with the fur-children and then settle in to do some indoor decorating and reading. Mary has a plan to make a vegan meatloaf for one of our meals. If we get up late, brunch.

No pro football for me today and that's OK. Ciao.