Highway thoughts

4-28-09 Long-winded brain
Monday, I made my 3 hour journey back to Des Moines….. and I will be here at least for the next two weeks. I had planned to drive home on Sunday evening, but there was rain and severe storms both in Kansas and Iowa. I finally was able to leave KC about 10:00 AM on Monday. I took the left over pizza from last night’s dinner with me as my lunch- (sorry Greg).

I as entered onto the Freeway, I-435 to make the loop north around the city, I turned on the radio and it was playing the Supertramp song “…. You take the long way home…” and I thought that was a perfect traveling song to start with! Of course that song took me back to 1979 and memories of the most fun summer romance I ever had. (And No, Ann…… Greg won’t “feel bad” that I’m thinking about this….. our romance started in December 1990 and has never ended!) So we can’t compare this apple to that orange. But I won’t get into all that now.

I will explain why I do listen to KCMO, the “classic rock” station… or the “oldies” station….in Kansas City…. what ever they call it. About a year and a half ago I was listening to an NPR show which told about a scientific experiment (a British Study I believe) on old people aged 70’s and 80’s. Two groups were created and one group continued to live their normal everyday lives. The other group was “taken back in time”. They only listened to music from the 40’s, and old radio shows, and watched old movies and were submerged with life as back in the 40’s. Blood work was taken from both groups before and after the study which lasted several months if I remember correctly. What they found was that the old folks who were submerged back in time actually had a difference and improvement in their blood work which was reflected by “younger” blood studies. Thus, on a regular basis I visit the past through music.

After the KC radio station started to fade, I next tuned into the WHO Des Moines talk radio station, mostly conservative talk…. And they were freaking out today that gay couples were able to get married legally in Iowa as of today. I had to ask myself who are these objecting voices? …. Thinking they are speaking for God and assuming that God would object to this too. Do they really know Jesus? Jesus came to love and sacrifice for us and to teach us how to live our lives in a closer relationship to the Divine. Jesus lived under a brutal government of the Romans and corruption ruled the land. However, he came to show a new way to live even while under these circumstances, making Jesus not only AWESOME DIVINE but SO relevant today. Jesus never instructed his followers to “change Roman law” or “fight the government”…. He keeps us pointed to a higher power, …. “to be in the world, but not of the world”. We are fortunate to live in a country where our laws can and should provide equal rights to all people. Sure these are not God’s laws and don’t need to be God’s laws. Jesus encourages us to live by God’s laws but “render to Caesar what is Caesar’s”… but we should not judge or be concerned how others choose to live their lives. “Take out the log in your eye, before you remove your neighbor’s”…. “whoever is without sin, cast the first stone”….. bla… bla.. bla…. Enough about “my” Jesus. I guess I too should not judge the people who oppose equal marriage/union rights….. I’ll leave that to Jesus…. Sorry for my rant.

Soon it was 11:30 and that talk show was over and I was at my half way point of my return trip. I had told myself I wasn’t going to eat the pizza until 11:30, so I took my first bite….. And then I created the “pizza game”…. I could have eaten all the pizza in about 5 minutes. But I decided to challenge myself to pace myself and eat it slow. I’d take one bite and chew for a whole minute, then waited a full minute before I took another bite. That pizza lasted me until 12:13 …..AND I felt so full, almost stuffed. This was good practice to eat slow and mindfully and maybe I would eat less.

Next came listening to the music CD “The Wall” by Pink Floyd from around 1980. It was just the right mood music for the overcast skies and rain. When I left KC we had almost 2.5 inches in the rain gauge overnight and it was 62 degrees. When I got to Iowa it was 55 degrees and I had over 4 inches in the rain gauge. I did drive in some rain and was glad that Greg had bought new wiper blades for my seven year old Mini Cooper. It’s wonderful having a partner who takes care of my car issues before I even know I have an issue. (Thanks Greg).

When I came home, I found the usual trickles of water in the basement from all the rain, so I turned up the dehumidifier on high. On my trip between KC and DM every river and stream was swollen and also south of DM the farm fields had areas of standing water. I hope this isn’t the start of another spring of floods like last year!...But already we have twice the amount of rain we have in a normal year by the month of March...... Then of course it was back to work again in the afternoon and in the evening it was watching Dancing with the Stars while I blogged.