A book from Matt

Through my church's B&B program, I had a houseguest last week.   Through this program, I provide Board and Breakfast and the guest pays the church, so it makes money for the church.  My guest last week, Matt, was a great guest.  He was great fun, very interesting and a perfect guest.  Although it was "above and beyond" the call of duty, he also gave me a gift, a book titled A Singular Woman, about Barak Obama's mother Stanley Ann Dunham. That was a surprise, and I explained to Matt that I would want to make a painting of his gift on a thank you card, acknowledge the gift on this blog with a posting of the painting, and then send him the card, as I've been doing since the first of the year.  Doing that has been fun for me.  In addition, the book is good reading.  It is very well-written and thoroughly documented.  I'm learning that Obama's mother was much more complicated and interesting than "the white woman from Kansas" as she has been portrayed by the media.

But wait! There's more!

I provided dinner on the first night Matt was here, and he brought wine.  He also brought other goodies during his stay, such as ginseng juice and vanilla.   We drank one of the bottles of wine, and it's already been recycled.  The wines here are an Australian wine, "The Chook," which is what they call chickens in Australia and an Oregon wine, Lipa.  This little watercolor sketch is on the back of the card.  Matt lived in China for many years, so always has something interesting to talk about.  He also lived in Australia, and we enjoyed talking about his treks in Tibet.  A very good, interesting guest!!!