Been trying to sit in the swing and ponder today but it’s really too hot. Roanoke is under a thunderstorm watch and heat advisory warning. Heat index now is at 124 and it’s 1:30 in the afternoon. Thank you to whoever invented window unit air conditioning! I sat in the swing for a little while and watched the cardinals and titmice and chickadees feeding before the heat ran me back in the house. I’m pondering in my reading chair watching the rain clouds gather and the bamboo dance outside my bedroom window. I can hear the wind chimes playing a loud symphony trying to entice the rain to fall from the clouds. We’ve had a thunderstorm warning every day lately but my yard hasn’t been blessed with any rain. Had a light shower Friday morning. Not enough to quench my yard’s thirst. Well, late afternoon the thunder rolled, the heavens opened up the flood gates, and rain fell. Heavy shower watered the Earth and cooled things off. Rain is such a blessing for Mother Earth.

Oldest brother came for a visit this morning, complaining about all the squirrels eating his bird seed. We sat on the porch and had a good time. Haven’t seen him in a while. Got him to check the oil in my car. Oil light says I need some oil. Sure do miss my service station man in Alexander City. Never had a moments worry about the car with him around. He’d even come out to the house and bring a new battery or change a tire for us. I miss the full service gas stations. Remember how they’d fill your car with gas and wash the windshield, check the oil. My mother would drive out to a filling station on Highway 431 where they’d pump the gas for her. Said it wasn’t a lady’s job to pump gas. I think the definition of being a “lady” has changed! I’m even going to put a quart of oil in my car myself!

Webster’s Dictionary defines lady as a “woman of superior social position, a woman of refinement and gentle manners.” Google says a lady is a “woman who is refined, polite, and well-spoken.” Society expects a lady to be well-mannered. I definitely don’t have a superior social position but I do have manners and I think I’m well spoken. I say please and thank you and write thank you notes. I think a lady is conscious of everyone around her and makes them feel respected and loved.

I caught myself lately telling my granddaughter to sit like a lady the other day when she sat on her feet in a chair. I know she thought, “How does a lady sit?” My mother and grandmother were always telling me how a lady acted, how they sat, how they conducted themselves in a social setting. I must have been a tomboy heathen growing up. I’ll have to admit I never thought of myself as a lady. I see a lady as an older woman dressed in a shirtwaist dress with sensible shoes and matching purse hanging off the crook of her arm. Guess I’m passed the lady stage and am now just an old woman wearing my sensible tennis shoes and getting hung up in my sports bra. I do have redeeming qualities, though.

Went out at dusk to enjoy the cardinals and to watch the sun paint her sunset. I hit the exact time she brought out her paint brush and palette. Lots of clouds on the blue sky canvas and I watched her stroke her watercolors on the clouds in beautiful hues of pink and blue and orange, layering the colors from the bottoms of the clouds upward. After she finished with her watercolors, she lightly kissed the rounded tops of the clouds with her dwindling sunlight at she lay her head down for the night.

I’ve become obsessed with watching the sunset each evening, marveling how the day ends so differently each time. Never see the same painting. Never see the same colors. Sunsets finalize the day, kiss the coming darkness of night, and show us that endings can be beautiful. Sunsets hold the grace and promise of another day.

“Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem as if we were looking through the gates of heaven,” — John Lubbock.