Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be, across the nation and across the world. It is just past 6:30 a.m.in "The City."

Coincidentally, it is also just past the sunrise which occurred @ 6:07 a.m. That's well before the sunset @ 9:20 p.m. tonight. Unfortunately, in between, the NWS has added scattered T-storms to their forecast with a 50% certainty. Tomorrow's forecast has an even more dire description of morning T-storms with an 80% certainty. Of course, that certainty is often tempered by our living close to the shores of the "Big Lake", so who really knows? Our current temperature is 50° under, not surprisingly, cloudy-skies.

Which brings me to today's activities. I am going to the library for my monthly Coffee and Coloring session, although I can count on less than four fingers the number of cups of coffee I have consumed in my lifetime. so I guess it's more of a coloring session for me. I think that when my maternal grandmother, Dorothy, aka Nane to us kids, used to make us breakfast, she never offered us coffee, only tea. It was the best-tasting tea I've ever consumed in my life. Well, maybe not, but I like to remember it that way. I now judge all tea by that standard.

I have nothing on which to base my dislike/disdain for coffee, except that it doesn't taste good to me, and there isn't enough sugar/sweetener nor creamer on the planet to make coffee taste better to my palette. Sure, when coffee is brewing, it often tries to lure me into the coffee drinker's club, but I manage to come to my senses and escape its clutches before I succumb to the siren song that is a coffee drinker's nirvana.

So, I am a confirmed tea drinker. Mary can go either way, I believe. I love soup, she can take it or leave it. She adores Brussels sprouts, while I can definitely leave those alone and abandoned on my plate. Over our nearly 46 years of married life, I have learned to eat salads, I have come to like mushrooms, albeit not the slimy kind that my mother used to serve, and I even like fresh mushrooms served on my salads. But Brussels sprouts, no way, no how. Like President George H.W. Bush once said of broccoli, "Now that I'm president, I don't have to eat broccoli.!" Go figure.

A side note, I just started my third book in the last eight days, Dave Barry's Lessons From Lucy, about a 10 year old dog that came to live with Dave, his wife Michelle, and their daughter Sophie about 10 years ago. Lucy was a shelter dog and as Dave describes her, the "Best Dog Ever!" That's how all of us dog lovers think of our fur-children. Dave's daughter, Sophie, picked Lucy out of a line-up in a photo album on a website from the local shelter. When the Barry clan went to check her out, with one of Sophie's friends, it was love at first sight. I can identify with that sentiment, as that's how I felt when STWD and I fell in love a long time ago. Clearly, the young Dave Barry would/could have identified with my disdain for Brussels sprouts. But that's a story for another day.

The Cubs made the best of yesterday's make-up game against the Angels, with Jon Lester going seven strong innings and recording six Ks en route to an 8 - 1 win, that leaves the Cubs still in 2nd place, one-full game behind the Brewers in the NL Central. The Cubs welcome the Rockies to the "Friendly Confines" tonight @ 8:05 p.m. EDT.

The Tigers were off yesterday, but they host the Rays tonight @ 7:30 p.m.

My beloved Red Sox were also off yesterday. They travel to Kansas City tonight to meet the Royals @ 8:15 p.m.

The Caps too were off yesterday and they are home tonight to meet the Dayton Dragons @ 7:05 p.m.

We traveled to Muskegon yesterday to go to the Camera Store to purchase a replacement lens cap for our camera. I managed to finally lose the original cap on Sunday during one of our stops. So, we got one that came with a tether. I can't lose this one without a great deal of effort. But, who knows?

Since we had the camera with us, our Senior Staff Photographer took some pix in the vast gardens of the PE on our way to Muskegon. Here they are in no particular order, showing our blooming things.

A bevy of our Irises in full bloom.

Before it settles into just green leaves, horseradish blooms quite a bit.

Although hard to see, our cucumbers and zucchini are just staring to sprout, just about 10 days after planting.

Our Swiss chard is doing well, as are the onions that Mary planted and to which she is supposed to be adding, the basil is just beginning to come up and the lettuce is doing quite nicely in its home in the pots located in the vast gardens. All in all, our gardens are looking lush, like we know what we are doing. LOL!

Today, I am off to that Coffee and Coloring session, followed by a quick haircut, emphasis on the word quick, and then more reading and whatever comes our way. Ciao