I enjoyed the porch today. Got hot early afternoon so I sat in my reading chair with a biography about Queen Elizabeth. Didn’t read any pages. Was watching three squirrels play tag up and down a dead bamboo stalk, while occasionally dozing off. My friend sent me this short verse about a squirrel. “He wore a question mark for a tail. An overcoat of grey. He sat up straight to eat a nut. He likes to tease and and play. And if we ran around his tree, he went the other way,” Mildred Bowers Armstrong.” Captures “Fatty” the squirrel perfectly. Still haven’t seen him. Hope he’s not roadkill somewhere.

Guess Kit Kat is officially adopted by us now and is a Saunders cat pet. She went to see vet brother yesterday for a check up and a few shots and a flea pill. She’s two years old, already fixed, no chip, and weighs almost ten pounds. Kit Kat took her flea pill with a tablespoon of tuna. Wish she could teach Penelope to take her flea pill like a man. You can wrap Penelope’s flea pill in one pound of cheese, coated in an inch of peanut butter, a little whipping cream on the side and she’s smacks it all up spitting out the flea pill. Maybe I’ll put P’s pill in some canned chicken next time.

I’m back on the porch after supper, perched in the swing, enjoying the cool breeze and soft wind chime symphonies. The sky is so beautiful near dusk, layers of blueberry crumble with layers of whipping cream. I think the sun primps for Father Sky when the sunset is staged behind a curtain of clouds. I know she’s gowned in something exquisite, perfectly matching the blueberry cloud cover, long white gloves up to her elbows, glass slippers on her feet, feeling like Cinderella. She might be wearing her diamond tiara on her golden rays. Father Sky, gussied up in a black formal tuxedo, is happily reaching for the sun’s gloved hand, escorting her down the horizon, taking the day’s light with them.

Mother Nature painted a magnificent sunset. I can’t see it but I’m dreaming on the blueberry and whipping cream clouded horizon of how wonderful the sunset must look from heaven. Dusk is slowly creeping up the street, the porch string lights pop on, and the night is settling down as day ends. The cardinals are finishing their supper, the males vivid red, the females soft brown. Two doves are drinking from the bird bath and as the day turns to night the moon rises and the stars twinkle.

Thought about the school shooting while I sat in the swing this morning, iPad in my hand, trying to write but consumed by the sadness of the latest school shooting. I’ve lost a child and I know the nightmare of grief the parents are experiencing. Such a sad event, putting your child out at school with a goodbye, I love you, never realizing it was their final I love you. How terrifying the shooting must have been for the children and their teachers. Can’t understand the mindset that commits a horrific act like this. Guns are now the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Parents should not have to worry about their children’s safety at school and children should be able to learn in a safe, worry free environment. No need for me to talk about it because I don’t know anything to do about it but to pray. The world has to wake up and realize the sanctity of a human life. Human life is sacred, holy, and precious. We all need to get on our knees beside our beds tonight and pray for our children’s safety, pray for the world to turn to God for strength to stand up against the evilness prevailing society now. The world seems to be tilting away from God. Our prayers can right her course.

“Forgive this land of it’s wrong, Lord. Forgive them for their foolish ways and bring them back to You, God.” — TKChapin.com