There’s somebody out there even more harried than me; more overwhelmed by the Christmas season than inspired by the Christmas spirit. We received a Christmas card today that lacked a return adress on the envelope or any writing (including who it was from) on the card. The funWife thinks she might possibly recognize the handwriting on the envelope. Actually, this is a nice gesture on somebody’s part because now we can’t tell who didn’t send us a Christmas card this year. Not that that matters, we’re relentless on sending out cards in the Murphy Family.

It’s a strange thing about sleep and dreams, I can go to bed worrying about a problem and either wake up around 2 or 3 and be unable to get back to sleep or wake up at 6 or 7 and have this plan fully formed in my head as to what to do. And sometimes I pull together bits and pieces of seemingly unrelated events and go on a tangent. Or they may be actually unrelated events but my well developed apophenia finds a connection anyway.

I woke up this morning with the memory from one of my seventh grade Religion classes: Fr. Miles reading Genesis 46:4 and explaining it to us.

“I shall go down to Egypt with you and I myself shall bring you back again, and Joseph’s hand will close your eyes.”

which was juxtaposed with a remark a good friend of mine from college made the last time he was in town

“I was there for my father’s last breath.” 

I couldn’t remember my dream directly, but somehow it had combined those two memories.

As Fr. Miles explained, God is speaking to Jacob in Genesis 46:4, promising him that he will be re-united with his estranged son Joseph, who will be with him when he dies. That Joseph will close his eyes means that he will be with him when he draws his last breath.

So I e-mailed my friend and told him of my dream, and that I thought it meant that he had been a comfort to his father. I am not in the habit of dreaming about Bible verses, much less e-mailing people about them, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

When I first heard the verse and the explanation I was twelve. Four years later my grandfather was felled by a series of strokes over a period of about nine months, he never recovered enough from the first one to live at home, and the succeeding ones washed away his personality until there was nothing left. But after the first stroke I remember going to visit him in the hospital and hearing this terrible loneliness in his voice as he recounted awakening in the middle of the night in the intensive care ward and crying out for his children (and he named them one by one as he recalled it, moving on to his grandchildren). And I got a better idea of the comfort promised in “Joseph’s hand will close your eyes,” that Jacob would not die alone, and understood the comfort that my friend had offered his father sitting next to his deathbed for his last week.

My son is becoming an oddity for his age – he participates in three sports (baseball, soccer, swimming). I know it sounds crazy, but at 10 the pressure is on to specialize. I harbor no illusions that he is or will be a great athlete, so I’m happy that he continues to want to do all three. My daughter only swims, not out of a desire for specialization, but a lack of interest in other sports. We have simple rules — if you want to play, fine; if you don’t want to play, fine; but if you do join a team, then you need to be a responsible team member.

I’m not sure he’s going to continue with soccer — he liked baseball so much this season, he wanted to play fall ball but we had already signed up for soccer. The first year he played on a team, it stank — they didn’t score a single goal all season. The second year, the team got better — they scored goals (Kyle got four, but who’s counting) and they actually won a couple of games. The third year, last year, his team, minus its best players, merged with another team, and managed perhaps a few goals towards the end of the season. He decided to stick it out, and this year the team, minus a couple of its best players, again merged. So far, they’ve managed one goal in three games that weren’t even close. He had hurt his ankle in the first game, but gamely played on until he couldn’t run on it anymore. 

We had a 7:30 AM game this Saturday, and when I woke him up to play he immediately started complaining about his ankle and limping about. When I pointed out that he had previously told me his ankle was fine and that he hadn’t limped all week, he told me it had hurt but he just didn’t say anything. We had a discussion, and the result was I made him go to the game. I tried to emphasize that as part of a team he shouldn’t back out at the last minute. While keeping my game face on, I did worry that I was doing the wrong thing.

They didn’t win, but Kyle got to play center forward and was around the ball most of the time he was in the game. He didn’t limp at all, and didn’t run any slower than normal. After the game was over and we were walking to the car, he said his ankle bothered him now, but hadn’t during the game. I told him that it was because he was too busy during the game to notice, and asked if he had fun playing. “Yes”, he said, “I had fun and I’m glad I came.” Amazing — sometimes I do make the right decision.

The Fruit of the Murphy Loins went back to school today, backpacks bulging to the brim with a long list of school supplies. Every year our district starts earlier and earlier, but doesn’t get out any sooner in the spring. We had to warn the mom of a new middle schooler that if she went to the bus stop with her daughter as planned, a huge L would be permanently tattooed on her daughter’s forehead. 

The Other Fearless Leader starts back at her part-time temporary job on Monday. Normalcy has returned, which means I have to get up earlier so I can shower before my daughter and be ready to take her to the bus stop if the weather is inclement. Ah, the simple joys of Fatherhood.

I keep repeating to myself, just because my kids are getting older doesn’t mean I am.

We drove to Colorado in our new mini-van for vacation. Yes, the Murphy Family is nothing if not utterly conventional. We live in the burbs. We have two loin fruit. I volunteer with the scouts and my wife sings in the church choir. If I were to go crazy and kill people, all the neighbors would say “he was always such a quiet man.” 

If you know anything about the drive from St. Louis to Denver, you know that there is plenty of time to contemplate the wonders of life as the heartland flows by. I can’t remember any of that, so I thought I’d jot down random musings, insights, and amusing anecdotes from our journey.

Missouri is nicknamed the “Show Me” state. Billboard companies have taken us at our word and by golly show us every couple of feet along I-70.

When we passed a VW bug with Alaska plates before we even reached Columbia, my wife immediately started collecting license plates. No alphabet game for us (we could safely ignore the Flying-J stores whose signs are chockablock with otherwise rare letters). We came across plates from 48 states and several Canadian provinces. We bagged Hawaii on the way home when he cut me off at a toll booth leaving the Kansas Turnpike. Oddly enough, we saw a bunch of New Hampshires, but no Vermonts. Perhaps they’re afraid to show their faces in the Midwest after that Howard Dean kerfuffle in Iowa. No Rhode Islands either, but no surprise there.

Rural areas are now served by a multitude of porn super-centers along our nations interstate system. Sometimes the names were evocative like “Passions”, and sometimes the names were utilitarian like “XXX”. Cows and sheep can rest easier.

Whoever mapped out the route I-70 takes through Kansas City should be shot. I’ve never exited a road to stay on it so many times in my life before.

Kansas isn’t flat, just empty. The green rolling hills without a tree in sight have their own beauty. Traffic on the highway dropped off noticeably west of Kansas City, and there were stretches in central Kansas where the only man made object in view was the highway, and the infrequent interchange was with a dirt road. In the Missouri countryside, it seems somebody’s house is always in view — you can tell how long they’ve lived there by how many rusted out wrecks they have out back. 

Wilson billed itself as the Czech capital of Kansas. I don’t know if the people in Prague, the Czech captial of the Czech republic know this, but I’m not sure why we need a Czech capital for Kansas.

They are proud of their astronauts on the plains, as something like six towns along the way had signs letting travelers know that their favored sons were astronauts. I guess some people will do anything, no matter how dangerous, to get out of a small town.

We saw the World’s largest Prairie Dog from the highway, but didn’t stop at Prairie Dog Town in Oakley, Kansas even though it has farm animals with extra parts. I wanted to, but cooler heads prevailed. OK, the Fruit of the Murphy Loins let it be known that they weren’t interested in either concrete or freak animals when they had all the modern comforts in the van.

They farm sunflowers in Kansas. Huge, beautiful fields of vibrant yellow right there for your enjoyment along the road. Makes me wish I could have gotten to Lompoc CA when the flowers where in bloom.

The Holiday Inn Express in Salina KS has a great free breakfast but a tiny swimming pool. The Fruit didn’t even bother with the pool on the way home.

Cruise control is one of the great driving inventions of the 20th century. Not only does it allow you to put your feet up on the dash on a long trip, it lets you feel superior to drivers without it. Most people are predictable, they slow down going uphill and speed up going downhill. People on cell phones, however, go crazy and speed up and slow down based, near as I can tell, on whether they’re talking or listening at the moment. Then there are the “sticky” drivers – when you go to pass them, they speed up so you have to take your foot off the dash, mash down on the accelerator to get by, and then slow back down when you finally manage to get ahead of them. Or they come flying up behind you, match your speed five feet from the back bumper, and stay with you for 150 miles before exiting. And it never fails that as you come up behind somebody going slower, somebody else comes up behind you going faster. Then the fun begins — just how close will you come to the car in front before either getting in the passing lane or taking it off cruise.

Ah, the joys of the open road.

Tonight we went to a picnic for my daughter’s “team” at middle school. The school breaks the class down into three teams – red, white, and blue – to divide up their teachers. My wife warned me beforehand not to do anything to embarrass her. I pointed out that since she is 13, my mere existence is an embarrassment to her.

Towards the end of the picnic, my wife made her wave to a couple of the teachers to let them know she is our daughter. As we drove away, I asked if I had done anything to embarrass her. The answer was no. I then asked if her mother had embarrassed her by making her wave. The answer was yes. For once I’m ahead.

The Murphy Family is leaving shortly for the mountains. I’m looking forward to the trip – I need a vacation, and I need it bad. You’ll have to survive the next few weeks without new material here, and the comments should be turned off in a few days (thanks Tanya!) so that the place isn’t overrun with links to an assortment of vices you could easily find without the purveyors spamming my site while I’m away. I promise pictures when (OK sometime after) my return.