Lisa

There are two ways to capture an image: a journalistic photo describes an event or place; an artistic photo is done for beauty or to create a mood or idea.

Keeping that in mind ... this is Lisa, from a journalistic point of view. Nelson nabbed this photo as Lisa brought us a hot, delicious breakfast of corned beef and eggs with a laugh and a greeting. She is cheery hospitality on steroids. (I promise you, Lisa; next time we'll get a more artistic photo.) When we walk into Crystal Lakes Restaurant in Farmington, her presence says, "Ahh, two of my favorite people and I GET to wait on them."

Anyway ... when my kids were up from Virginia I took them to Crystal Lake, and introduced Lisa to the family. The next time we visited the restaurant, the first thing Lisa said was, "How's your family? Did they make it back okay?" At that moment she stopped being just our favorite server at our favorite restaurant. She also became a friend.

Today (Saturday) Nelson and I delivered food to domestic violence and homeless shelters in Rochester. Since it's finals week for me and since Nelson has shifted to working evenings, we were jet lagged and exhausted. All went well. We delivered the food in record time and then stopped at Crystal Lakes for breakfast. Lisa saw us at the door and just a couple minutes later, she was leading us to a table with two cups of coffee and two glasses of water -- for us! She then said, "hash brown, eggs, and rye toast as usual?" A few minutes later, there was our breakfast. With feelings of exhaustion abated and since it was a slow time at the restaurant, Lisa even sat down and visited with us a bit. A Canandaigua stained glass artist showed us an album of his art work.