Back today pondering in the lady den. Penelope and I are sitting under a cardinal blanket, cozy and warm. I have my books and a cup of Christmas coffee. The best leftover from a McMurray family dinner is whipping cream! I put it on lemon pie, smidgens of caramel cake, and a spoon full in my hot chocolate and coffee. So, so lip smacking delicious. Put a little vanilla in your whipping cream while you’re beating it. Makes it even more delicious!

It’s too damp and sprinkley for pondering from the porch swing. I usually briefly sit in the swing each morning, while Penelope snorts around a minute on the porch, but my cushions were wet. She was excited because there were paw prints on the porch. Never seen such a sniffing pooch. Her nose touched every paw print. So I just stood and marveled at beauty of the gathering of cardinals eating off the feeders. There were 7 cardinal ladies, no men. Guess the males were having a boy’s day out. Oldest brother is having some goldfinches, of which I’m jealous, visiting his feeders. Hope they show up at my bird buffet soon.

I think my raccoon friends (Not) might have gathered for another Guy Street party. I bought a bottle tree at a thrift store and put it on the deck. Makes a great perch when the birds are arguing around the sunflower feeder. I decorated the limbs with sliced red and green apples. Got up yesterday and the tree was leaning on the deck rail with only one apple slice left.

Those raccoon heathens had opened both suet feeders and devoured the suet cakes. But, I don’t care. Just don’t come down the chimney! They are God’s creatures and deserve a treat every now and then. Merry Christmas raccoons.

Anybody want a lap dog. Came back to the lady den with my sliver of lemon pie under a mound of whipping cream and Penelope was slurping my coffee up!

Ever wonder about heaven and what it’s like up there? I think about it a lot cause there are people there I want to see. Chief thought heaven was an extension of earth. He would continue to garden and I’d still be making biscuits and homemade jelly and cooking turnip greens. We’d all be together and continue our living on an extension of earth. We put a small bag of seed potatoes in his coffin. Thought he might need them up there when he shares gardening tips with Thomas Jefferson.

I think it was Mark Twain who said if everyone in heaven was flapping their wings and plucking their harps it would be such a ruckus you would hear it on earth. I love that! Don’t think I could flap fast enough to keep my chubby self in the air! And I’d rather play my trumpet than pluck a harp.

After Rosalyn died, every night I’d hear Chief out in the yard talking. I always thought he was talking to the yard dog or his cat clowder. (Two or more cats is a clowder!) Then one summer night when it was hot, I had the windows open in the library, I realized he was looking up in the sky and talking to Rosie. “Good night, baby lamb. Daddy loves you.” For years this was a nightly ritual and he always asked her to help people on their journey.

When my niece and nephew lost their baby, I heard him say, “Sugar, meet that sweet boy baby at the gate and show him the way to our family.” Made me weep but I never told him I heard this.

Now when I say my prayers at night, and thank the Lord for another good day, I tell Chief and Rosie how much I love them and miss them.

One Sunday morning I asked Al Perkins, our Episcopal Priest in Roanoke, would I have to cook in heaven. I said, “I want to snap my fingers and a filet mignon appear on my plate.” He laughed and said, “If you want to cook, I’m sure you’ll have the finest pans money can buy.” I just smiled and turned around to leave the church and mumbled under my breath say, “If I’ve got to cook, there better be sex.” To this day I don’t know what possessed me to mumble that. I think had a small stroke.

Chief follows me out to the car and I’m waiting for him to ask me if I had lost my mind but he says, sounding depressed, “Mama, I thought you liked to cook!”