Friday, August 06, 2004

heaven ain't close in a place like this

I flew into Des Moines this afternoon, after two uneventful flights. I slept through the first one and read the first 24 chapters of a romance novel during the second one (the flight from Chicago to Des Moines is about fifty minutes, not counting the time I spent reading on the tarmac while waiting to take off, so I was breezing through it). Then I got to drive home, since my mother was sleepy, and it was very difficult to stay within the 55 mph speed limit on the two-lane highways between Indianola and my town. You can go 65 during the fifteen or so miles between Des Moines and Indianola, but the other sixty miles are two-lane highways through gorgeous corn-filled countryside. Lots of trees, too, even though I know that no one believes that we aren't completely flat and boring.

Anyway, I got home, and we had steak and baked potatoes and cottage cheese--and I love cottage cheese, but I eat it the most when I'm at home because we have an Iowa dairy that makes the best cottage cheese and I am typically disappointed by anything I get in California. So I guess that this trip is all about nostalgia, and having things I can't have in California--we're having homemade ice cream tomorrow, and my mother's famous baked beans, and I'm sure I will have a wide variety of delightful things in the next ten days. But it's most delightful that I don't have to work during that span of time--it's truly a wonderful thing to think about. Now, if only we got cable here so that I could spend all of next weekend watching coverage of obscure Olympic sports on obscure cable channels. Instead, I'm relegated to NBC coverage of popular sports, replete with color commentary. However, I'm quite fond of gymnastics, swimming, diving, and track and field, as well as color commentary, so I'm looking forward to it.

Now, off to bed--my bed here has lovely pink and white striped sheets and a pink and white striped comforter, which are holdovers from around the age of sixteen. Perhaps tonight I shall dream of new bedding...

No comments: