Weekend report: Eat, Walk, Sleep

9-24-10 wet but happy brain
The Presbyterian Church where I am a member (Westminster), about ten years ago decided to become a more “welcoming” church. This was a long process of study, committees and prayer. Nothing is spontaneous with Presbyterians.

Our welcoming statement is often placed on the front or back of any of our publications reads:

We welcome all persons as participants in out congregation, regardless of age, race, gender, marital status, physical condition, gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnic background, economic status, or any other human condition.
With this in mind, I guess it was only natural for our Church’s parade theme this year to be “celebrating diversity”. I’m speaking about our Beaverdale neighborhood Fall Festival which was this last weekend.

Friday evening was wonderful! Big crowds down in the Beaverdale shops area; live music, food, carnival, and nice fireworks even. We met up with Ann and Roy by accident, and also got to visit with a few other friends.

Saturday’s events, unfortunately, were a little different. At 4:00 AM the rain started, I woke to thunder and I cramp in my right calf muscle… gee how was I going to walk in the parade scheduled at 10:00AM? I went back to bed for a few more hours.


Well the rain let up to a light drizzle/mist, so the parade was still on. I dressed in four layers to keep warm. It was only in the 50’s, and a bit breezy as well.
My “diversity” costume was put together with the help of neighbor, church, peace-sister friend Carolyn. She works with International students and thus has many interesting pieces of clothing in her closet.

I’m representing the country of India.

Greg captured a picture, which you can see many umbrellas were part of most people’s wardrobe that day.



It rained heavy most of Saturday afternoon, so Greg and I spent hours in bed napping, which actually is just what I needed.

PS: I should also note that all the politicians came out to be in the parade as usual in an election year, Senator Grassley, Gov Culver, Branstad, House Rep Boswell... I half expected to see Sarah Palin since she was in town Friday night. If she decides to run for President, a showing in an Iowa parade is a must and Beaverdale has the biggest and best parade in Des Moines!