Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 2:30 a.m. in "The City."

We have a current temperature of 50° that feels like 45° due to the prevailing 14 mph winds. The skies are cloudy, but the rain seems to have moved through. Later today, the high is forecast to be 49°, also under cloudy-skies. The sun will rise @ 7:24 a.m. and set later @ 5:31 p.m. I'm not sure if the Gale Warning from the NWS regarding the wind and waves came to pass, but it did rain quite a bit yesterday. Naturally, the fur-children were reluctant to go out. We finally took them for a very short walk right after lunch during a semi-lull in the rain.

I did not get to watch the Bears yesterday, but, I was able to listen to part of their rout of the hapless Buffalo Bills, 41 - 9. Yes, the Bills are that bad, as many of the points the Bears scored came off of turnovers.

I had the misfortune to watch a portion of the Lions game @ Stan's in Spring Lake as we returned from our trip to the big-box home-center in Norton Shores. More on that in a bit. The Lions looked pitiful, as their $27 million QB looked like he was lost on the field. By the by, Stafford is in his ninth year in the league and is the highest paid player in the NFL. Since I am a relatively new Lions fan, I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that the fault may lie with the Lions' offensive coordinator, Jim Bob Cooter,. who calls the plays. Fortunately for Bears fans, the Lions denied permission to allow the Bears to interview Cooter for their offensive coordinator position.

In addition, the Lions head coach, Matt Patricia, whom the Lions hired from the staff of Bill Belicek of the Patriots, looked like the second coming of George Halas, as he let Cooter call screen passes, short runs, and other trick plays in an attempt to avert defeat when the game was already out of reach. Nothing worked, as the Lions lost to the Vikings, 9 - 24. Stafford was sacked 10 times, a Vikings record. Last years Lions' head coach, Jim Caldwell, was fired after a four-year stint. His record last year was 9 - 7, but his teams never beat the top -tier teams en route to an overall record of 36 - 28 under his guidance.

Recently the Lions traded one of their wide-receivers, Golden Tate III, to the Eagles. Tate has been a reliable target for Stafford and when I saw that trade, I knew the future was not good for the Lions. Oh well, as a Die Hard Cubs Fan of long standing, I know futility when I see it. So, "I'll wait til next year."

I mentioned our trip to that big-box home-center. We traveled there to get a new Christmas tree, as our old tree became a front-porch decoration, sans lights, when it was determined that I couldn't get the lights to work and also because it was too small for our growing collection of ornaments. It will go up when Mary's Halloween/Thanksgiving display comes down and is retired for the year. That's after Thanksgiving.

I did make a new version of vegan sausages yesterday, apple/sage, with some assistance from Mary. The recipe called for cold mashed potatoes and dried apples. She had mashed the potatoes and assisted in the drying of the apples for that recipe the day before. Her efforts on the potatoes and some tofu cubes were evidenced in the kitchen clean-up that I did early yesterday morning. At any rate, some of the sausages and the leftover potatoes became our brunch yesterday. The sausages are a keeper. The potatoes too. They came from my gardening efforts over the summer.

Today is the day that our new dishwasher gets installed. Our local electric provider, the Grand Haven Board of Light and Power, (GHBLP), offers a $15.00 rebate for Energy Star™ appliances like the new dishwasher. So maybe I'll apply for that "Free" money. Nevertheless, it is time to upgrade from our current dishwasher, which is way past its lifespan.

Today should be a good day to walk with the fur-children since it will be dry, but windy. I am otherwise without things to do. Ciao.

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