Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be, across the nation and across the world. It is just past 4:30 a.m. in "The City."

The current temperature is 66° under clear skies. The sun will rise today @ 7:19 a.m. and set later @ 8:04 p.m. Today, the NWS has issued another Small Craft Advisory that will be in effect until 11:00 p.m. tonight. Winds will be southwest @ 30 knots later this morning producing increased wave heights up to six feet! Small craft, inexperienced sailors, and ships without a good crew and a good captain well seasoned should not leave the dock.

Naturally, I have a Coffee and Coloring session at the library this morning between 10:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. that coincides with the peak of the rain and T-storm activity. Oh well, that's why umbrellas were invented so long ago. The high temperature should reach 76° by then, so all I'll have to carry is my umbrella and my bag of supplies. The rain and T-storm activity remains in the forecast through Friday morning.

I did it! In protest of the 77 - 66, 2nd place in the NL Central Cubs recent inability to score runs and pitch at a Major League level, I refused to watch their game in San Diego last night against the 66 - 77, 4th place in the NL West Padres. Instead, I went to bed with Ginger and STWD. I'd like to believe that the Cubs got my message and went out and scored 10 runs en route to a 10 - 2 win over the Padres. I'd also like to believe that the Cubs called up their top prospect @ SS, Nico Hoerner, who came up to "The Show" and got three hits and four RBIs last night in response to his promotion.

Of course, with the recent injuries to regular SS Javier Baez and his replacement, Addison Russell, Hoerner's promotion was probably inevitable. I'm also not naive. I recognize that opposing teams will soon adjust their pitches to try to minimize Hoerner's debut successes. Here's hoping that the win by Kyle Hendricks to end the Cubs recent three-game losing streak and the success of Hoerner will continue tonight in San Diego when the Cubs and Jose Quintana take the field @ 10:10 p.m. EDT.

Sadly, my beloved Red Sox weren't so fortunate, as they lost to the AL East leading 95 - 50 Yankees, 0 - 5, to fall to 18.5 games behind those same Yankees. Even an emotional appearance by David "Big Papi" Ortiz wasn't enough to help the Sox. Ortiz made his first public appearance since suffering a life-threatening gunshot wound in his native Dominican Republic last June. Ortiz gave a heartfelt speech to his adoring fans, but alas, it wasn't enough.

The Sox, minus recently fired President of Baseball Operations, Dave Dombrowski, couldn't score any runs for Eduardo Rodriguez as he took only his sixth loss against 13 wins. Tonight, the 76 - 68, 3rd place Sox and Nathan Eovaldi, travel to Toronto for a game against the 55 - 89, 4th place  Blue Jays beginning @ 7:07 p.m. There is no joy in Bean Town.

The 42 - 100, last place in the AL Central Tigers mercifully had the day off yesterday. Along with Edwin Jackson, they are home tonight to face the Yankees and a pitcher to be named later @ 6:40 p.m., weather permitting.

I used several tools yesterday to finish the clean-up of the shared driveway weeds yesterday afternoon. I wore my yak brace and did just enough to get the job done. That was enough for one day.

Otherwise, Mary and I shared several pages from a book by environmentalist, Paul Kingsnorth. Our reading was in response to a recent column by Jonathan Frantzen about his own concerns over the state of the climate and our all too human response to what is a very real crisis. Frantzen is not an environmentalist nor a scientist and so he was hoisted on his own petard by climate scientists and "Real Environmentalists" over his inaccurate science and his seeming pessimism. Sadly, while his science was off, his pessimism was not misplaced. We are in serious trouble on this little planet and it may be too late to make any meaningful changes.

The recent damage caused by Hurricane Dorian and the appearance of several more storms forming in the Atlantic Ocean should be enough to wake people up, but Frantzen thinks it is too late. Pessimism or realism? Sadly, only time will tell.

Otherwise, not much is/was happening. John came by yesterday to finish most of the painting while we read and completed the crossword puzzle. We took a short walk with the fur-children before my driveway activities and that was about it. Dinner was vegan burgers with Tater Tots™ and then we watched the season premiers of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy before I went up to the media room to begin my protest while Mary made further progress on my apron, completing quite a bit more as she watched TV news. Ciao.