A break

I went to see Jamee and the Gang this weekend. It was a surprise for the kids so when I got there I rang the bell and of course none of them heard it. Jamee had to tell them to answer the door. When they all did, they just stared at me. Then Olivia smiled, Brigham jumped up and down, and Carter, very uncharacteristically ran out of the door and hugged me, grinning. THEN he jumped up and down. Jamee can't jump so she hugged me, and Daron came out and slapped me on the back the permitted two manly times. I'm good with that. Twice. No more. Three times is for...well, never mind. Only in Nancy Pelosi's district.

We had a great weekend. Brigham can talk so well, Carter is a very good boy, and Olivia is very smart and pays close attention to the stories we tell. Daron is a good boy, too, and Jamee is very smart. When the time came to go "home" to death row in the hotel, I had mixed emotions. I wanted to stay longer, but it felt right to go "home". I met Malcolm, Loni's friend who is a boy. I went out to shovel the walk and drive and there was this guy out there doing it. I thought it was the neighbor being neighborly, but it was Malcolm sucking up, er, I mean being neighborly. He said, "How are you?" and I said "Great, now that you're out here helping me!" He said, "You must be Brother Boyd." And it dawned on me who he was. We talked and shoveled and then went inside and talked some more. AND NO I DID NOT TALK THE ENTIRE TIME, HE TALKED AND ASKED QUESTIONS AND SO DID I.

It's funny, on the way to their house, I stopped at a place called "Puckerbrush", population 28, to take a break. I checked the map later and it's the half way point between Elko and their house. Puckerbrush. It means "Generic compound word denoting indigenous scrub-brush or other non-landscaped foliage". Perfect for the place.

I've been riding or walking or lifting weights and made it now 3,355 miles from Morristown to past Valmy, NV. The picture above is of a 9 miles straightaway on Interstate 80 near Valmy, which I've driven now a few times. I remember going along it when I was a kid and my dad challenged me to guess how long it was. It brought back memories of long vacations with my family and getting into fixes like Chevy Chase on "Vacation". My dad never took the Wally World guy hostage or put the moves on some chick in a convertible but I think we did drag gramma's dog and have to put her on the top of the car when she died on the trip. I think. I might be wrong.

Anyway, I was listening to a Christian station on the way to work one night here and he was reading from Isaiah 7 about King Ahaz. He was using the NIV, and I actually like its translation better, being a bit more plain. Here's what it says:

1 When Ahaz son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel marched up to fight against Jerusalem, but they could not overpower it.
2 Now the house of David was told, “Aram has allied itself with[a] Ephraim”; so the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.
3 Then the LORD said to Isaiah, “Go out, you and your son Shear-Jashub,[b] to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.
4 Say to him, ‘Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood—because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah.
5 Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah’s son have plotted your ruin, saying,
6 “Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.”
7 Yet this is what the Sovereign LORD says: “‘It will not take place, it will not happen,
8 for the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is only Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people.
9 The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is only Remaliah’s son.
If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.’”

Ahaz and his people were being opposed by two heretofore strong armies who had boasted that they would lay wasted and utterly exterminate Ahaz and his people. Ahaz was afraid and the Lord told Isaiah to comfort him and give him confidence. He used the insult "Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood" to describe them. Their "fierce anger" was done. They had nothing.

I thought how this pertains to our situation now and particularly to Cindy. She is faced with so much to do, and so much to keep track of, and so many different people pulling her different directions. I am faced with loneliness and boredom and nobody pulling me anywhere. We both are getting a taste of what we fervently wished for at times. Cindy wants to be busy and I enjoy my down time. Now we both have far too much of these things. But they are smoldering stubs of firewood and will soon go out.

"This, too, shall pass."

I can't wait until she flies into SLC and I can go see Stevie and the Gang and pick up Cindy. We don't have a nice kitchen like Danny and Laurie but I do have a flat screen tv and maybe we can go shooting.