Pondering in my lady den this morning. Little too damp and sprinkling rain for proper porch sitting. I sat long enough to see a few birds stop by. Glad to see Nutty the nuthatch. I thought he’d found another restaurant. I soon retreated back in the house to ponder in my chair in the sun room.

I’ve had the sun room (my lady den, as Stew has named it) painted. Handyman and his wife painted the room gray. So pretty with the coffered ceilings. They talked me into gray. Me who has a fuchsia living room and fuchsia dining room. I love color but I’m in love now with gray! Never thought of gray as a color but it’s so pretty. Chief would love to sit in here and write.

The handyman couple got all 9 windows properly shut so the drafts are gone. Screwed the top windows in so I can open the bottoms without the top slamming down. You know me and my duct tape addiction… I had two windows reversed, top on the bottom and bottom on the top, and had a strip of duct across the top to keep the air out. These are the original windows with ropes and weights and pulleys. And when you’re 102 you don’t want nobody messing with you or touching your stuff!

The windows aren’t cooperative. Got my hand hung between the top and bottom panes several years ago trying to push one closed. Took me and Chief both to get my hand out. I’ll still have to prop the bottoms open with a stick but I can easily head out to my bamboo forest (that’s a tale for another day) to cut the sticks.

My son Thomas hung my new blinds. Course I never shut them. Might miss a bird or miss watching the next door cat risking his life by walking the 2 inch wide window ledge to get to his back deck.

I’m surrounded by Chief’s old manual typewriters and his collection of work cameras and a few of his favorite books. Brought my big ferns in for one corner and hung them on an old coat rack. I’ve got my peace lilies in the opposite corner. I think baby brother inherited the coat rack. Hope he doesn’t claim it at our family Christmas party.

Got a letter today from a dear friend. Yes, a snail mail letter. So exciting to go to the mail box and have a letter among the Christmas cards. This friend used to be Chief’s and my boss at Russell. We’re pretty regular with our letters. She loved Chief and understood his eccentricities! I used to laugh and tell him if I passed first he could pursue her but anyone else and I’d lightning bolt him from heaven.

First time she came to the Russell Record office it was her intention to terminate us. Fruit of the Loom wasn’t fond of internal employee publications but after a long conversation she gave us the go-ahead to revamp the publications into a magazine and a news monthly publication. We had been wanting to change the publications. So began happy years of working together. She understood the work in putting a publication to press. She always supported us and made us feel appreciated in our work.

I cry as I write this remembering all the happy tea parties we shared with Chief. Took a few years till I could be persuaded to join them. They were the bosses and I was the flunkey, but she never failed to ask me to join them.

Chief taught her how to enjoy hoop cheese and crackers with a good cup of coffee. I taught her to love pimento cheese. I’d mail her a quart if I could get it there without giving her ptomaine poisoning!

She had a beautiful mother who occasionally stopped by with boss lady for hoop cheese. Both of them always had funny stories to share. Last time I saw her mother we were having a hoop cheese tea party and she was telling us she had renewed her driver’s license that week. I think she was 90 years old and she said, “I was going home and checked the speedometer and I was going 90!” Then she laughs and we do to! She was such a character!

Boss lady has a raccoon story, too! She has critters in her yard, too! Merry Christmas, Boss!