Good day, sunshine. That's what the National Weather Service is promising -- for this afternoon, at least. As for those 80-degree temperatures we're accustomed to having with our sunshine, forget about it. High today is expected to be around 65. Put on your jacket and start getting used to it.

     Saturday shapes up as the best day of the weekend, with a high in the low to mid-70s and more sunshine, but the cold and the wet are supposed to descend upon us again Saturday night as a new front moves in. For the Bills home opener on Sunday, it definitely will be football weather -- 50 percent chance of rain and a high in the mid-60s.

     * * *

     Curtain Up! -- the celebration that opens Buffalo's theater season at more than a dozen venues -- seems more festive than ever in this, its 29th edition. It features world premieres at the Irish Classical Theatre (Irish playwright Shay Linehan's drama "The Cant") and the Alleyway Theatre (Joseph Palka's dysfunctional family comedy "Mookie Cranks a Tater!").

     The evening includes the traditional black-tie gala dinner at 6 p.m. on the stage of Shea's Performing Arts Center, preceded by a cocktail hour at 5. It has a celebrity chairman -- actor and University at Buffalo professor Stephen McKinley Henderson, who was just nominated for an Emmy for his performance opposite Denzel Washington in August Wilson's "Fences." All the plays start at 8 p.m. When they're over, there's a street party, including a Street Swing Dance from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. outside the Market Arcade, 639 Main St., hosted by Swing Buffalo.

     Meanwhile, Curtain Up! also is branching into the Southtowns for the first time. A champagne reception with live music and hors d'oeuvres is set for 6:30 p.m. in a tent outside Hilbert College's William E. Swan Auditorium, followed by a performance inside the Swan Auditorium of "Terra Nova," a play about the ill-fated 1912 Antarctic expedition of explorer Robert Falcon Scott. It's directed by Hilbert alumnus and local playwright Taylor Doherty, assistant professor of drama.

     * * *

     Peaches in their prime -- in pies, shortcake or just plain fresh off the trees -- will be in abundance as the Kiwanis Club of Lewiston kicks off the 53rd annual Niagara County Peach Festival in Lewiston with a grand opening ceremony at 5 p.m. in Academy Park on Center Street, the village's main drag. This evening's schedule includes a cheerleading competition, a dress rehearsal for the Peach Queen contest, a peach dessert bake-off and a peach taste-off. The midway, with more than 40 rides, will be the biggest in Niagara County. There also will be live entertainment throughout the festival. Admission is free. The festival continues Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day. The big parade is at 11 a.m. Saturday.

     * * *

     Get acquainted with the charter schools via Charter First Fridays, a new program that invites the public to learn about them. It starts today with a tour and presentation from 9 to 10 a.m. in Community Charter School, 404 Edison Ave., on Buffalo's far East Side. The school, which opened in 2003, has 342 students from three school districts in kindergarten through sixth grade.

     * * *

      Medaille College is celebrating its 135th anniversary today with a bash, along with the unveiling of a new college logo, brochures and campus signs. The back-to-school party, set for 11:30 a.m. on the quad and in the student center on Agassiz Circle, will feature live music from The Tins, cake and other refreshments, giveaways for students and more. Founded in 1875 as the Sisters of St. Joseph to train teachers, the school became Mount St. Joseph College in 1937 and took its present name in 1968. It now has branch campuses in Amherst and Rochester.

     * * *

     Friday night fireworks in Niagara Falls, Ont., which ordinarily would have ended for the season on Labor Day weekend, have been extended into October. It's all part of an extra batch of shows that the Niagara Parks Commission has added to Canada's longest-running fireworks series, which can be seen just as well from either side of the border. The skies start lighting up, as usual, at 10.

     * * *

     Grateful Dead fans know who the Rhythm Devils are. Spotlighted in their own featured segment in Dead concerts in the 1970s and 1980s, they're a band led by Dead drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart. Out on an extended tour with a lineup that includes guitarists Tim Bluhm and Davy Knowles, bassist Andy Hess and percussionist Sikiru Adepoju, they drop in at the Bear's Den in Seneca Niagara Casino in Niagara Falls for an 8 p.m. performance. Tickets are $55 and $65.

     * * *

     Sheila Carabine, who is an alto, and soprano Amanda Walther have such a gift for ethereal harmonies they're called "the angels of folk music." Known collectively as Dala, Girls From the North Country, they're from Scarborough, Ont., and they're favorites on the folk festival circuit. They come to earth in Kleinhans Music Hall's Mary Seaton Room at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25.

     * * *

     Stacey Earle, younger sister of maverick alt-country singer Steve Earle, is an alternative artist of a sweeter sort, but no less quirky. She and her husband, Mark Stuart, who have been making music together for nearly two decades, declared last year they would begin pursuing separate careers. So tonight's performance in the Private Party Series in the Sportsmen's Tavern, 326 Amherst St., may be one of the last chances to see them together. Music starts at 8. Rick Smith opens the show with Jim Brucato. Tickets are $15. From here, they go to Rochester for the Turtle Hill Folk Festival Saturday and Sunday.

     * * *

     The Niagara Falls Blues Festival gets under way at 4 p.m. at 300 Prospect St. at Old Falls Street with a lineup that includes Billy's Blues Band with Dr. Z; Rip and the Bandogs and the Nighthawks. It's free. Meanwhile, in Fredonia, the Red, White and Blues Festival starts with a treasure hunt at 5:30 p.m., beginning at the Beaver Club on Prospect Street and extending to 12 bars downtown. Highlight will be Bill Wharton, the Sauce Boss, cooking up blues at 4:30 p.m. Saturday in the Barker Commons Gazebo.

     * * *

     Not only can you admire the exhibit of artful poetry broadsides in the Western New York Book Arts Center, 468 Washington St., you also can bid on them at auction. The broadsides from the 40-year collection of local White Pine Press include classic work by Buffalo artist Michael Morgulis. A wine and cheese reception begins at 7 p.m. The auction starts at 8:30. Admission is $10. To reserve a spot, visit www.wnybookarts.org.

     * * *

     Movies opening on local screens today include "Farewell," with French and Russian espionage agents conspiring to bring down the Soviet Union in the 1980s; director Rob Reiner's coming-of-age comedy "Flipped," with Madeline Carroll and Callan McAuliffe; "Legendary," a melodrama about teen wrestlers starring Patricia Clarkson, John Cena, Devon Graye and Danny Glover; and the horror film sequel "Resident Evil: Afterlife" in 3-D.