Bad Day

"Mean Soup" by Betsy Everitt Horace had a bad day. He forgot the answer to question three. Zelda gave him a love note, and everyone teased him. Somebody in a cow costume stepped on his feet. Horace felt so terrible that he stomped on a flower and growled at his mother. But his mom had a great solution--to make soup together. Read the book to find out the cool recipe that "stirs away a bad day."

It was one of those crazy, hard-to-figure-out Sundays for the Hendrick Motorsports team at the Auto Club 400 in Fontana. The literati of the NASCAR crowd might even say it was the best of times, it was the … no, let's stick to racing. So, the star of the Hendrick team on Sunday was Dale Earnhardt, Jr. , whose wise pit management allowed him to steal a third-place finish. He employed a strategy called short pitting, where he comes in earlier than he might otherwise for fresh tires to gain track position when everyone else is running on slower tires.

"Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" Judith Viorst Alexander is having a very bad day. He went to sleep with gum in his mouth and now he has gum in his hair. At breakfast, his brother's cereal boxes have toys in them and his does not. Everyone's lunches at school have dessert in them and his does not. To hear the rest, read the book!

Everybody has them — waiters, bus drivers, lawyers: a bad day. For a filmmaker with a hundred-strong crew in the wings and millions of dollars on the line, the stakes can be considerably higher when things go off the rails. In this edited excerpt from the third annual Envelope Directors' Roundtable, the filmmakers behind some of this season's most talked about movies — Martin Scorsese ("Hugo"), Michel Hazanavicius ("The Artist"), Alexander Payne ("The Descendants"), George Clooney ("The Ides of March")

One day after playing so poorly in the pro-am he didn't want to turn in his scorecard, Tom Weiskopf shot a six-under-par 66 Thursday for a one-stroke lead in the first round of the Senior Players Championship at Dearborn, Mich. Bob Charles, the first-round leader at last week's U.S. Senior Open, and Lee Trevino were at 67 in the last major of the year on the senior tour.

After losing six games in a row at home, including a late-inning blowout against Cincinnati the night before, the last thing the Padres needed was plane trouble on the way out of San Diego. Or extra innings Thursday night at Chicago. But that's the way things have been going lately for the Padres, whose flight was delayed for five hours because an inflatable slide on the plane malfunctioned.

Jack Reilly, the former El Camino College coach who is now an offensive assistant with the San Diego Chargers, may have knocked starting linebacker Gary Plummer out of Sunday's season finale against the Denver Broncos. Plummer took an elbow to the ribs from Reilly Wednesday, missed Thursday's practice and is listed as questionable because of torn rib cartilage. "All year long when I rush the passer, I hit Jack Reilly instead of hitting the quarterback," said Plummer, the team's No. 2 tackler.

Pedro Martinez called it a bad day. "I wasn't consistent at all," he said after giving up three hits in seven innings Wednesday night as the Boston Red Sox defeated the Toronto Blue Jays, 8-0, at Toronto. Martinez, who pitched a two-hitter against the Baltimore Orioles last week, improved to 6-1 with an American League-leading 1.01 earned-run average. He struck out six, walked two and hit two batters. "I was little bit erratic," he said. "I couldn't spot my fastball, and it would take off on me.

For the second week in a row, starting cornerback Marcus Cassell was replaced ... only this time it was by redshirt freshman Trey Brown instead of freshman Rodney Van, who played last week at California. Brown experienced the good and bad in his first extensive work as a college cornerback Saturday against Arizona State.

He spars in an almost eerie silence, no sound except for the shuffling of feet and the thud of gloves in the near-empty gym. There is no applause at the end of rounds, no bantering with the crowd, no mugging or winking. Ray Leonard is now content to save those for fight night. He is searching for something he has misplaced, and to do it properly Leonard knows he needs to concentrate. What Leonard is searching for, of course, is Sugar Ray.

With European government bond markets already in severe distress, the credit-rating companies keep delivering their equivalent of a blast of pepper spray. Bond yields surged again across Europe on Friday, one day after Fitch Ratings cut Portugal's debt rating to "junk" status. After markets closed, Standard & Poor's dealt yet another blow to Eurozone debt, cutting Belgium's rating to AA from AA+. S&P cited growing doubts that Belgium will be able to reduce its debt load as the continent's economic situation deteriorates.

Reporting from Lahaina, Hawaii — Reeves Nelson ran late Saturday, the UCLA forward missing the team bus to Los Angeles International Airport and the flight to Hawaii. Ben Howland ran late Sunday, the Bruins coach missing a coaches' meeting and showing up a few minutes late to a media conference. It was a theme that would repeat itself over the next three days, UCLA a bit tardy on the court while falling behind in the first half of each game of the Maui Invitational. The Bruins certainly are behind schedule after a 79-63 loss to No. 15 Michigan on Wednesday at the Lahaina Civic Center left a team that started the season nationally ranked off to its worst start in 24 years.

I'm sure glad I don't live in the grown up world, thought Savannah, as she trudged to the bus stop. It was only Tuesday but it felt like Monday all over again. Savannah had already dropped her books all over the place, and when she went to dive for them couldn't get up. That's how slippery her winter parka was. Before that, she had missed breakfast. And before that, she found her homework eaten by the family's dog Nani. Of course, Nani was just being a big puppy. But how had she reached Savannah's home work?

Reporting from Wimbledon, England — Serena Williams straightened out the very crooked women's Wimbledon quarterfinals Tuesday. The defending champion's uncomplicated 7-5, 6-3 win over ninth-seeded Li Na was, in fact, the only occurrence that made sense. Tsvetana Pironkova, a Bulgarian ranked 82nd in the world, considered herself surprised to have eliminated second-seeded Venus Williams, 6-2, 6-3. It was a thorough and unexpected beating for a five-time Wimbledon champion, and more surprising even than the exit of eighth-seeded Kim Clijsters, the 2009 U.S. Open champion, who was put out by 21st-seeded Vera Zvonareva, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2. In the fourth quarterfinal, Kaia Kanepi missed becoming the first Estonian to make the semifinals of a Grand Slam event after failing to convert five match points and losing, 4-6, 7-6 (8)

Colorado Rockies 12, Dodgers 0 > > > Phoenix AT THE PLATE: The Dodgers had only three hits, one by Andre Ethier and two by Xavier Paul . Rafael Furcal and Blake DeWitt drew two walks each. ON THE MOUND: Hiroki Kuroda gave up two runs (one earned) and two hits in his first start of the spring. Closer Jonathan Broxton and setup man George Sherrill made their spring debuts, with Broxton giving up a run in one inning and Sherrill giving up three in two-thirds of an inning.

America's Negro problem just won't quit. The Census Bureau has been using the term "Negro" as a racial identifier on its decennial forms since 1950, later joined -- though not supplanted -- by "black" and "African Am." But when the website thegrio.com thegrio.com recently pointed out that "Negro" was going to appear once more on the 2010 census, many black folks reacted with shock and pointed distaste. Bloggers and pundits condemned the term as a relic of the bad old days of segregation and Jim Crow that has no business in official records anymore.

The Toronto Raptors were unable to recover after Vince Carter crashed into Miami Coach Stan Van Gundy. Dwyane Wade scored 23 points, including the go-ahead jumper with 28 seconds left, and had a key block on Carter to lead the visiting Miami Heat past the Raptors, 90-89, Sunday for their third consecutive victory. After Carter missed a fadeaway with 43 seconds left, he banged into Van Gundy. "He turned around and ran into me," said Van Gundy, who has a welt under his left eye.

U.S. stocks' slide on Tuesday was broad and deep, slashing 3% or more from major stock indexes and leaving few sectors unscathed. Meanwhile, the bond market rallied, but not much. Gold gained nearly $5. Early today in Asia, Wall Street's pain was felt as most equity markets turned lower again. At midday, Tokyo's Nikkei-225 index was off 0.9% at 15,883, after falling 0.9% on Tuesday. On Wall Street, the selling began early Tuesday, backed off at midday, then resumed in late afternoon.

Lonnie White was a wide receiver/kick returner for USC from 1982-86, which included appearances in the Rose, Aloha and Citrus bowls. In 1986, White established a single-season school record for kickoff return yardage (716 in 29 returns), a record that still stands. A former sportswriter with The Times, he made the New Orleans Saints roster in the strike-shortened 1987 season. Garrett Hartley's game-winning field goal to give the New Orleans Saints a 31-28 overtime victory over Minnesota in last week's NFC championship game was still in the air when the phone rang.

Even the relentlessly positive around the UCLA football program were tested Wednesday. The news of the day: Guard Eddie Williams will undergo surgery to have a plate put in his fractured left ankle and is lost for the season. Cornerback Aaron Hester will not play against Washington on Saturday as his injured right leg is not responding. Receiver Morrell Presley left practice after being knocked to the turf and landing on his left shoulder. Wide receiver Randall Carroll beat Presley to the training room after suffering a groin injury.