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A rainy Wednesday in St. Louis

Just minutes ago, they finally called off Game 4 of the World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Detroit Tigers because of the steady rain that has been pouring on Busch Stadium.

Since I was off tonight, I was looking forward to actually being able to watch an entire game. Working evenings as I do, I only get to see bits and pieces of the game. My employer thinks it's better that I spend my time designing pages and editing stories instead of watching baseball. But because such a large part of the Belleville News-Democrat's front page is devoted to the Cardinals and the World Series, I can justify sneaking a little peek at the game.

Thanks to the Cardinals' 5-0 victory in Game 3 on Tuesday, designing Wednesday's front page was a real joy. Chris Carpenter's stellar performance was the big story of the game, but clutch hitting by Albert Pujols and Jim Edmonds and poor fielding by the Tigers also key parts of the game.

Here's hoping that Cardinals pitcher Jeff Suppan can continue his amazing postseason run Thursday in Game 4. I'm just disappointed that I won't be able to see the entire game.

Wednesday felt like the stereotypical November day in St. Louis -- cold, damp and gloomy. That meant I did a lot of work on the computer today. For example, I sent out the final newsletter of the 2006 season for the Belleville Area Bicycling and Eating Society. We have one more ride planned for Sunday at the Ravissant Winery in Belleville. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate and make it a nice way to end the season.

The cold front that came in Sunday cut attendance at our informal ride at Vintner's Cellar in Edwardsville, but some of us still took the opportunity to visit the ArtEast studio tour in Edwardsville. A week earlier, I had visited the Alton half of the ArtEast tour to see work by two friends of mine, Patricia Badman and Brenda Elfgen. It was great seeing both of these talented artists again.

I called my mom tonight, and she had some sad news. She had to have one of her dogs, 11-year-old Katie, put to sleep today because of serious heart problems. Back in March, she had to put 16-year-old Scamp -- my favorite of the four dogs she had -- put to sleep as well, so she is down to two dogs on the farm.

I knew something wasn't right with Katie four weeks ago when I took the dogs out for a walk toward the woods on our family farm. Katie came out, but when I turned around to head back to the house, she just sat there and gave me the saddest stare I had ever seen from a dog. It was like she had just given up.

All in all, it was a disappointing Wednesday.

Roger 0 comments 10:08 PM