Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be, across the naion and across the world. It is just past 5:00 a.m. in "The City."

So far, what a morning,. I went downstairs around 3:00 a.m. to empty the dishwasher and I didn't finish in the kitchen until nearly 4:00 a.m. That's because Mary's adventures in the kitchen required some additional cleanup that I hadn't anticipated. While her lunch and dinner offerings yesterday were excellent, more on those in a minute, the associated dishes themselves required significant attention. Oh well, she cooks and I clean up, a fair trade I think.

At any rate, she prepared a lunch of what the author of the recipe called Southern macaroni and cheese. The only thing southern was probably the collard greens, but that's okay, because the end result was delicious and a definite keeper.

Mary combined the collard greens, some freshly minced garlic, one of my vegan sausages, some Daiya™ cheese sauce and some whole wheat shells to end up here. All of this done while I was at my P/T appointment, which went very well.

First, came the washing and then chopping of the collards.

The vegan sausage was sliced and then sauteed in the cast iron skillet

Then combined with the other ingredients for further cooking.

Until voila, the finished dish.

Dinner too was excellent, a variation on one of Mary's tried and true recipes for homemade barbecue sauce over Hasselback Tofu accompanied by mushrooms marinated in a sauce that is secret to me, but which I liked.

The in-between steps were not important, the end result is what counted.

Now if I could just remember how to place pictures in the appropriate folder the way Mary showed me, I 'd be all set.

But I digress once again. During the morning and early afternoon hours, Doug, of Doug's Landscaping, came by to finish our spring cleanup and spread the new mulch. He did an excellent job of edging and spreading and spared by old yak and my freshly repaired shoulder, so I'm all good with that. No pictures though.

We have a current temperature of 44° that seems to be the low for this morning. Unfortunately, the chance for T-storms this morning is 70% as we reach today's high of 57°. Thursday's high is forecast by the NWS to reach 54°, but with the chance for T-storms increased to 90%. Not surprisingly, there is another Small Craft Advisory in that forecast that runs from 2:00 a.m. Thursday until 11:00 a.m. that same day. Good news, it looks like the opportunity to get our seedlings outside in their greenhouse home is almost here.

Baseball news yesterday was mixed. The now 7 - 9 in the NL Central Cubs rode the great pitching of LHP Jose Quintana through more than seven innings to win one over the 4 - 14 in the NL East Miami Marlins, 4 - 0. The Cubs should beat the Marlins, but this year, you just never know. Another bright spot is that the $126 million man, RHP Yu Darvish, has re-added his two-seam fastball to his mix of pitches to keep hitters guessing, It was one of those clocked @ over 97 mph on Monday night, that hit the Marlins' batter, Cubs' catcher, Willson Contreras and the home-plate umpire. Oh well, I'll take it if he can win baseball games. The Cubs and the Marlins square off once again tonight @ 7:10 p.m. EDT.

My beloved, 6 - 12, 5th/last place in the in the AL East, sent their ace, LHP Chris Sale to the mound against the  7 - 9, 2nd place in the AL East Yankees, and got another loss tacked on to their worst in the AL East record, this time 0 - 8. Sale opined that he was "Flat out embarrassed." Ya think? A man who just got a five-year contract extension that will pay him $15 million this year and then jump to $ 29 million ofr the next four seasons, shold be embarrassed.

Oh well the Sox and the Yankees go at it again tonight @ 6:35 p.m. when RHP Nathan Eovaldi gets the ball from Sox manager, Alex Cora. How do you go from fisrt to worst in just a few months? I dunno, you'd have to ask 2nd year manager Cora.

The now 8 - 8, 3rd place in the AL Central Tigers, are starting to look like they will live up to, or is it down to expectations, as they lost one to the 9 - 6, 2nd place in the NL Central Pirates, 3 - 5. The Tigers tried, but they just don't have the horses this year. Tonight @ 6:40 p.m. the Tigers send RHP Spencer Turnbull to the mound to try to win one.

The 5 - 7, 7th place in the MWL East Caps, lost again to the 6 - 6, tied for 3rd place in the MWL East Lansing Lugnuts, 3 - 5. The Caps and the Lugnuts go again today @ 12:00 p.m., weather permitting.

We ran some errands yesterday and culminated our day in Spring Lake @ Stan's. Mary walked across the street to the Spring Lake Florist and availed herself of a sale on tulips for the living room. Our daffodils are not yet fully in bloom and the tulips are still a couple of weeks away, so she needed a splash of color that only fresh-cut flowers can provide.

Perfect!

 Otherwise, not much is happening around here. Since I am up, I am finishing some laundry that was generated by several days of kitchen adventures and then we have no specific plans until this afternoon at the chiropractors and possibly a lecture @ the Tri-Cities Historical Museum entitled, "Retro Road Trip 1959" presented by M. Christine Byron and Tom Wilson. tonight @ 6:30 p.m. Ciao.