Nina Lewis

I have a good friend, Kathie, who does her best to get me to expand my reading horizons beyond the marketing, economics, and sociology books that I tend to read while riding the UTA to and fro. Recently, she lent me her book Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore with Lynn Vincent.

This book has been on the best-seller list for two years.  Who knew?  (Not me, that’s for sure!)

This is the true and amazing story of the friendship between Ron Hall, a wealthy art dealer in Texas, and Denver Moore, a homeless man who had been a sharecropper in his early life.

I’m not going to tell how these two lives became connected.  You’ll have to read the book to find that out.

However, I will tell you this. There were two incidents in the book that really impacted me. Here’s the first one.

As Ron began associating with Denver, Denver asked Ron what he wanted. Offhandedly, Ron said he just wanted to be Denver’s friend. Denver said he would think about it.

The next week, Denver talked to Ron abut the difference between how white people fish and how black people fish.  Denver said that black people fish with a simple cane pole and a can of worms. The black folks are proud of what they catch and they take the fish home and share it with friends and family. However, when white people fish, they use fancy fishing gear, catch a fish, and then release the fish back into the stream. Denver wanted to know what type of friendship Ron was offering — the catch and release kind of friendship or the ‘keeping’ kind.

That’s a profound assessment about friendship.  What type of friendship do we have with others?  Catch and release?  Or keep?  There’s a huge sermon in that little story.

Here’s the second incident that really affected me.

As a homeless man, Denver was rough and mean and ornery. Yet he regularly walked two miles to take food to a crippled white man in a nursing home. This man hated Negro people, hated Denver, cursed him and vilified him. Despite the abuse that Denver endured from this man, Denver took him food and cigarettes and cleaned excrement and urine off his body. The white man didn’t want a friend — especially a black one. But Denver unfailingly and faithfully befriended someone who was worse off than himself. Denver did it without fanfare or any expectation of praise or recognition from others. He did it without any thanks from the white man. He just did it. Day in. Day out.

There’s a huge sermon in that little story, too.

These stories made me think.  Made me assess my friendships. Made me assess the type of service and charity I do (and don’t do).

I am humbled.  I can learn lots from Denver Moore.

I strongly urge you to read Same Kind of Different as Me. It’s a well-written and remarkable story.

Santa brought the hubby and I a camera for Christmas. I had tons o’ fun using it on our Disney cruise with the family a month ago.

One of the perks of buying it from a local camera store was that we get to attend 4 free photography workshops.  Woot woot!

Last week was the first session that we went to. Did I learn anything? Not really.

The instructor gave us an assignment to take a picture where there was side or back lighting in the photo. Sunday morning, the sun was brightly shining in our solarium. A nice side light on our train set. So, I took a few minutes to snap some pics.

Here is my favorite. The side lighting isn’t anything to write home about. I just think it’s a fun picture of one of my favorite toys. (Er. . . favorite toys for the grandkids, that is.)

Oh, make sure you click on the picture so that you can see it in a bigger size.

 
One day last week while coming home, the sunset was beautiful. I suggested to the hubby that we take a picture of the local Hare Krishna Temple. It would be fun to try and get a photo using back lighting.

I snapped a few photos but wasn’t really very happy with them. We went to another spot and I snapped a couple more. It was getting dusk. I really liked how this picture turned out.

 
My daughter harasses bugs teases me about being the grandma paparazzi. It’s true. I love taking pics of the grand kiddos. When we watched Grandchild #4 this last week, I caught this fun picture.  (He made such funny faces that night. The interesting thing about this picture is that I haven’t a clue why he turned to the side and pulled this face. Nobody was to that side of him! Fun picture, though.)

 
I’m having fun learning about photography. Hope I’ll be prepared for our trip to New Zealand and Australia this fall!

Last month, I posted a picture of my new office. In case you, Dear Reader, can’t remember what it looked like, I’m re-posting the picture.

Well, I’ve gone shopping and brought some stuff from home. Now, it’s not quite so stark and bleak. It’s a wee bit cheerier. Let me give you the grand tour.

First, this is what is sitting on the corner of my desk.

I bought the Aztec mug when I was a senior in high school. I potted a plant in it (which is now in that great houseplant repository in the sky). I use it for pens and pencils.

The orange poppy flower dish is the dip part from a chip-and-dip set at home.

The doilies are from my step-mother-in-law. Don’t you just love them?

The cute little pink thingie by Mr. Aztec Man is my little Cupcake — a jump drive that my sweetie gave me several years ago. For Valentine’s Day, if my memory serves me right. (Even if it doesn’t serve me right, I still fondly think of it as a Valentine’s gift from my sweetie.)

Next, I have this.

A co-worker and I went shopping at a local thrift store during lunch one day and she saw this Darling Yellow Ceramic Flower thingie. I have no clue what it is. It’s not a dish. It’s not an ash tray. It isn’t something that you can hang on a wall. It just is.

And I love it.

I dredged up two chairs and a round end table and made this cozy grouping in one corner of my office.



Of course the window sill demanded to be decorated. I hate demanding window sills, don’t you? But, I acquiesced.



This picture is rather darkish because of the back lighting. I can’t adjust the apperture, ISO, shutter speed, field of depth (an all of those other photography terminology that I so totally don’t understand) on my cell phone.

The greenish yellow place mats  are from my step-mother-in-law. I had the gerbera daisies in my previous office. But, can you see tucked back in the corner of this photo that little blue vase (holding a lime green daisy)? That was another treasure discovered during our thrift store adventure.

But, Dear Reader, the best — the very best — of my new decor is the rug. At a trip to Shopko, I found the most delightful, bright, cheery, funky rug that you ever did see. It was on sale. Originally priced at $90, it cost only $17. What a bargain. Don’t you agree?

My office is right across the copy center/supply room (that used to be the showers when this building was a dormitory back in the 1930s). The only water fountain on the floor (my office is on the second floor) is right outside my office door. Just past my office a few feet is The Boss’ Office. These three factors bring lots of traffic past my office door — that I keep flung open to the world.

Almost every co-worker has remarked (favorably) about how cheery and fun my rug is. I concur. (The ones that haven’t seen it have offices on the first floor and don’t venture up my way.)

I’ve saved the second-to-the-best addition to my office for the last.

On the excursion to the thrift store, my co-worker spied something that matched my rug. It was funky. It was delightful. It was cheap. I bought it. Here it is.



A pink polka dotted purse! Fun, fun, fun. The purse begged for a pair of gloves. (Have you noticed that I have some whiny things in my office?)  I sighed and brought some from the dress up closet at home.  (Sorry, Granddaughters.)

And, now that the temperature of my room has been adjusted (it wasn’t working when I first moved in) I’m warm and my office is cheery. After my walk to work through the wonderful below-freezing weather, I sip either hot cocoa or hot wassail, look at the fun things in my office, and sigh contentedly.

My department at work has been moved to a new building. Er, maybe I should say ‘different’ building because it was build in the 1930s.  I don’t believe that the 1930s would be considered ‘new.’

I’m fixing up my office and will post pictures sometime next week so you can see what fun I have been up to.

I decided I wanted to take a silk plant to work. It has been snuggling on top of the headboard in our bedroom for some time. Like maybe 10 years. At least.

Ten years is a long time to ignore a silk plant. Granted it won’t shrivel up and die from lack of water because it doesn’t need water. Thank goodness.

But ten years is quite a while for dust to collect and spiders to spin a vast network of webs.

I took it outside to shake off the dust. Easier said than done. The dust was as high as an elephant’s eye. The acres of cobwebs held the dust firmly in place.

I decided that the only way to remove said dust was to give the silk plant a bath.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Picture, if you will, a soaking wet dog. Wet fur plastered to his skin in mangy clumps. Great droplets of water cascading down his face.  Sad, mournful eyes peering out at you. He whimpers faintly.

That’s what the plant was like. I sure hate it when my silk plants whimper.

Question: when you add water to ten years worth of dust, what do you get?
A. 15 acres of mud on each leaf
B. A tsunami of mud flooding into the plant’s wicker basket
C. Plants stem so weighted down that they will never go back to their original state
D. All of the above

Question: when you add water to ten years worth of cobwebs, what do you get?
A. A network that’s stronger than titanium
B. A network that’s stronger than titanium that can support 15 acres of mud
C. A network that clings stronger than ever to the host leaves
D. All of the above

If, Dear Reader, you answered D and D to the questions above, you get a gold star on your forehead. Move to the head of the class. And be sure to take the disheveled plant with you.