For Raif Badawi

The persecution of Saudi Arabian writer and blogger Raif Badawi by the Saudi government has haunted me for weeks. I think of him, his plight, and his family every day. Raif is a 32-year-old writer and political activist who founded the blog Free Saudi Liberals, which was taken down by the Saudi government when Raif was arrested in 2012 for “insulting Islam” and was tried for “apostasy,” which is punishable by death. He came to my attention because I am a Freedom Writer for Amnesty International, which has been working extremely hard to save his life.

Raif was tried and sentenced to be flogged with 1,000 lashes, to serve 10 years in prison, and to pay a large fine. The extreme barbarity and inhumanity of his sentence is deeply disturbing. He is to be flogged (beaten with a cane) 50 lashes every Friday until he has received the total 1,000 lashes. He received the first flogging of 50 lashes on January 9 (in public in front of a mosque) and it nearly killed him. For a couple of weeks afterward, doctors stated that he had not healed from the flogging sufficiently to be flogged again and further flogging was postponed. Raif is diabetic and has high blood pressure. Doctors say that a second flogging will likely kill him. Each Friday for the past few weeks, he has received a last-minute reprieve from another flogging, while mounting attention has focused on his plight from around the world.

Raif is the father of three little girls. His wife Ensaf Haidar and his daughters fled Saudi Arabia (on the heels of death threats) and are living in exile in Quebec, Canada, where they have been given political asylum. His wife continues to take a lead role in efforts to free him. Raif wrote:  “As soon as a thinker starts to reveal his ideas, you will find hundreds of fatwas that accuse him of being an infidel just because he had the courage to discuss some sacred topics. I’m really worried that Arab thinkers will migrate in search of fresh air and to escape the sword of the religious authorities.” I have to wonder how a country comes to choose to destroy its best and brightest sons and daughters.

Raif’s writings question fundamentalist Islam and terrorist tactics. His lawyer, Waleed Abulkhair, has also been imprisoned. Last week, seven American activists who are members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom sent an open letter to the Saudi government requesting that they be allowed to receive 100 lashes (each) in Raif’s stead, and offering to present themselves for flogging. Among the seven who sent the letter are Christians, Jews, and Muslims; some are democrats and some are republicans. One of them is Princeton Professor Robert P. George, who has stated that he signed the letter fully prepared to actually be beaten if it were to come to that. In addition, two members of the Norwegian Parliament have nominated Raif and Waleed for the Nobel Peace Prize. Human rights organizations say that the actions people are taking on Raif’s behalf (writing, faxing, and emailing letters; signing petitions; calling the Saudi embassies throughout the world; demonstrating in the streets) have blindsided the Saudi government, which apparently never expected so much bad press for this decision. The Saudi government is purported to be overwhelmed by the effort to free Raif and dismayed to have become one of the world’s greatest villains of the moment. (Click here to sign the Amnesty International petition for Raif’s release. You can also take other actions:  click here to go to the Free Raif Toolkit with more information.)

Raif’s ordeal touches me in an acutely personal way because I too am a writer and blogger. If he was able to take back his words and to go back in time and not create his website, would he do it? Would he choose to spare himself this torment and to keep his family safe in the country they love? Oh, the tremendous power of words; mightier than the sword. But there is no turning back for Raif. So much damage has already been done to him and his family that it cannot be undone. I do believe in healing, in the amazing resiliency of people, their ability to courageously move beyond trauma and celebrate life. But oh the damage that has been done here. Of course I pray for Raif’s safety, his release. I pray that he will be allowed to leave the country and join his family, to finish raising his beautiful little girls. But even if this happens, if this is the best we can hope for and it comes to pass, such irreversible damage has been done.

If Raif is allowed to join his family in Canada, he will never fully recover from the physical and mental blows he has suffered. Perhaps he will fear speaking out again. Perhaps when his hands hover over the keys of his computer, he will feel that searing pain in his back from the lashes and his hands will tremble. Where will he find the courage to speak freely when this terror seizes him? Maybe I am simply projecting my own cowardice on a man who is braver than I can comprehend. I also think of his wife and children in that foreign land. Kept from the land they love, the culture and community that is in their hearts. If he is allowed to join them in exile, he and his wife will suffer the pain of the exile for the rest of their lives, that separation from the daily, small, beloved aspects of life in their homeland. Their daughters will grow up in an alien country and will never fully comprehend what they have lost by their uprooting. They will never retrieve the sweet feeling of comfort they once had in their native home; and some intrinsic measure of their culture will remain forever lost to them. Will they ever feel at home in the world?

How will Raif be treated if he is allowed to flee to Canada? He is a Muslim and an Arab. I don’t know what it’s like in Canada these days, but in America Raif would be suspect because of his appearance, his accent, his clothing. Sadly, most Americans stereotype Muslims and Arabs (even thinking all Arabs are Muslim), and they are often viewed as terrorists (no questions asked). Ironically, Raif, who has suffered so much for denouncing fundamentalist Islam and terrorism, would be at risk because of this stereotyping. In the current climate, he would be at risk of being shot for putting his hand in his pocket at the wrong moment. Where in the world will Raif find peace and justice?

As I sit here in the safety of my study, relatively secure in the belief that I will not be persecuted for writing these words, I am seized by a flash of fear. Am I as safe as I believe? When I press the key to put these words out into the world, will I start a chain reaction that could cost me my life, my health, my sanity? That could endanger my family? That scenario is unlikely; but if they came for Raif in the morning then they could conceivably come for me in the evening. They put out a fatwa on Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses and he and his wife were forced into hiding. When I press the key to put my words into the world, there is a tiny chance that they will go beyond the small circle of my readers. There is a tiny chance that I could find myself in a Kafka-esque predicament, a fatwa out on me, the need to hide, to leave my home. Because who knows where words will go and what consequences they will bring? So I hesitate. My hand shakes. Am I safe in my obscurity? Am I safe in my country? How far removed am I from Raif and his horrific fate? Is my safety an illusion? 

As I prepare to press that key and release my words, my heart beating loudly in my ears, I must ask you:  If ever I am imprisoned, beaten, tortured for words that I have said, will you stand up for me? Will you speak up for my life and my right to say what is on my mind? If ever I disappear, will you come find me and set me free?

Taking the Bait

How is it that I so frequently find myself trapped in conversations that I would rather not be having? I must have a weakness for taking the bait and feeling compelled to say something. It’s a character flaw. I can’t refrain from speaking in the provocative, to which a reply appears, and suddenly I can’t find the exit. I’m forced to keep moving forward into a swarm of buzzing words. Why can’t I just keep my mouth shut?

This is how I wind up burning valuable minutes that I might have used writing the Great American Novel, instead, on Facebook discussing the pros and cons of having a colonoscopy. Do I have a passionate interest in colonoscopies? No, I do not. So what possesses me to post my opinion on this topic? I have not the faintest idea. I can only conclude that I am brain-damaged.

Or perhaps I find myself at a dinner party and someone who doesn’t follow football, has no clue about football, cannot comprehend the appeal of football, this someone starts slamming football because lately it appears to be politically incorrect to like football. The concussions. The disregard for player health and safety. The domestic violence. The distorted media frenzy material all rolled up into a big fat ball of upper-class distaste for a salt-of-the-earth game. Clearly the anti-football person is on the moral higher ground and not absorbing anything I have to say about football, but I can’t help myself. I take the bait. I step into the mess and start arguing. I am really not that contentious. Truly. Yes, I am passionate about football; but, no, I do not get anything out of arguing with someone who wants to abolish the sport. I would have much more fun and a much more productive conversation with someone who loves football. Sigh. I football on. (Empathetic brain damage from watching, I suppose.)

If only I could recover all the minutes and hours spent in inane conversations that went nowhere, proved nothing, did not strengthen relationships or solve problems or educate me or make me laugh or educate the person with whom I was speaking or make them laugh or crystalize the meaning of life. Maybe I expect too much from a conversation. Best to football on.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine complained to me about how a discussion we had both participated in had gone off track and failed to focus on the purpose of the evening. She and I had both attempted to get that discussion back on track. But it didn’t happen. She and I were both looking for a meaningful discussion that night and instead the group talked fluff. I let it go. I like that group of folks. Usually we do fine. They were just a bit flaky that particular night. But here’s the thing. My friend said, “I was frustrated because you and I were trying to have a serious conversation and everyone else kept talking about inconsequential things.” I replied, “To be honest, most conversations seem pretty inconsequential to me so I’ve just gotten used to it.” I shocked myself by admitting to such a level of condescension. Eek. It’s not like that.

I’m content with many conversations that yield nothing more than good will. There is much to be said for the value of friendly “small” talk. I enjoy the process of talking with someone I like, whether the actual conversation does anything for me or not. Because often the conversation is nice but not stimulating and I am grateful for nice. How adolescent to shut down any conversation that, in one’s own narrow perception, appears insubstantial? But lately I have had twinges of that adolescent mean streak and I find myself wishing I could spend less time in conversations that yield nothing. I wish I didn’t take the bait and get involved in so many empty conversations. For instance, all those arguments for the sake of argument; disagreements that will never be resolved because of hard-and-fast beliefs and perceptions. (Why can’t we all just be friends? And wear tie-dye and make daisy chains?) There are some differences that will not be resolved. Cannot be resolved. Period.

I am willing to bet that any topic could be fascinating, even life-changing, depending on how it is discussed. And I want more of those intellectually stimulating and transformative conversations. I cherish them when they happen; a miracle bursting forth from a teacup. If only I could bottle those conversations and sprinkle them on the ridiculous discussions of under-inflated footballs and colonoscopies and creamed peas and dust. I mean, where is the passion? The real talk? The depth? Forgive me. I sound like Prince Andrei in War and Peace; Prince Andrei who is so bored with life until he lays dying. And I’m not like that. I’m not as intolerant and disgusted as all this sounds. Seriously. The beauty and the grace are not lost on me. I appreciate. I’m grateful. I just yearn to talk more often about what matters. Like football.

Married Life

If I ever write a book about married life, the title will be Don’t Ever Ask Your Husband If He Knows How to Install a Dishwasher. This partially explains why my dishwasher has been periodically falling out of the cabinetry for the past five years. I thought that I might save a little money on installation fees. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. My husband Ron must have installed the dishwasher using Binford Tools (motto:  Real Men Don’t Need Instructions); you know, Tim Allen’s infamous weapons of home destruction from that TV Show Home Improvements. When I run the dishwasher, it usually sounds more like it’s breaking the dishes than washing them. However, I’m pretty sure that has nothing to do with the installation. I should have bought one with a silencer on it.

This puts me in mind of a story about a plumbing repair episode that occurred in the 1980s (we have been married a long time). Here is an account of the incident that I wrote a few years ago. This took place during a time when both of us worked outside the home and we had a two-year-old and a five-year-old.

One Tuesday evening (week night) after dinner, Ron informed me that he needed to repair a small plumbing leak he had discovered in the basement. “I have to turn the water off for a few minutes,” he said.

“Can it wait until the weekend?” I asked. “I want to bathe the children and get them into bed.” He assured me it would only take a few minutes. He shut off the water to the house.

The children took out their wooden blocks and built a tower. I stacked the dinner dishes in the sink, unpacked the children’s lunch boxes and repacked them for the next day, and fed the cats. No sign of my husband. No water. I sat on the couch with the children and we read Green Eggs and Ham.

“Where’s Daddy?” my daughter asked. I tried to calculate how long ago Daddy had descended to the basement. At that moment, Daddy ripped past us like the Roadrunner on a mission to humiliate Wiley Coyote. He was soaked from head to toe. I mean drenched, sopping, water-logged. I mean he was wet. He offered no word of explanation, instead making a beeline for the cupboard in the front hallway where he kept his tools. He yanked the cupboard open and pulled everything out, flinging sandpaper, steel wool, string, socket wrench set, electrical tape, golf clubs, surf board, lawn mower, pruning ladder, chainsaw, and Makita drill in every direction. OK, I exaggerate. I like to exaggerate sometimes. He doesn’t play golf.

“Is there a problem, honey?” I asked in my best neutral voice.

The two-year-old piped up, “Daddy’s wet.”

“No, no problem,” he replied as he raced back through the house, calling over his shoulder, “Why do you ask?”

“No particular reason,” I said; but he had already pounded back downstairs with a monkey wrench in one hand and a small tub of putty in the other, leaving only a trail of mist behind him.

I gave the children a “bird bath” with bottled water, helped them brush their teeth, and changed them into their pajamas. Throughout these bedtime preparations, my husband whizzed through the house several more times, tracking water in puddles behind him, his sneakers squishing. I imagined a geyser erupting in my basement.

I was reading the children a bedtime story when he made another one of his mad dashes through the house. “Sweetie,” I called to him, “should I see if I can find a 24-hour plumbing service?”

“No!” He stopped briefly, looking daggers. “But thanks for the vote of confidence. See if you can find a 24-hour plumbing parts store.”

“Is Daddy OK?” my daughter asked me. My son looked worried.

“Yes, he’s fine,” I reassured the children, “he’s just a little wet.” I turned out the lights and wished the children sweet dreams. Then I got out the phone book to look for an all-night plumbing parts store, wondering how it might be listed in the yellow pages. I tried “W” for water emergency. I was tempted to look for an all-night therapeutic services provider.

Two hours and fifteen minutes after my husband first headed to the basement, he entered the kitchen and turned on the faucet. Water came out. “You fixed it?” I asked hopefully.

“No, but it’ll hold until tomorrow,” he replied. “Thank goodness for potatoes and baling wire.”

The one drawback to my otherwise idyllic married life is that I have to live with a man. Yesterday I discovered that instead of replacing the battery in my car key, he managed to lose the replacement battery I bought earlier this week. I was going to replace it as soon as I had a chance to go out to the garage and find a jewelry screwdriver the right size. That’s more complicated than it sounds because one wall of the garage is a graphic representation of the inside of Ron’s brain; i.e., it looks like it was hit by a typhoon and a tsunami at once, and then someone decided to use the space to start an all-night plumbing parts store before abandoning the idea. (Probably because apparently all you need in an all-night plumbing parts store is potatoes.) He meant well. He was going to change the battery for me. What a sweetheart. Unfortunately he also has to track down the right little jewelry screwdriver to do it.

Since he lost the battery, he decided to go out to buy me another one. So I asked him if he would mind stopping at Coop Natural Foods to pick up some peanut butter so I could make spicy peanut sauce to go with dinner. “Sure,” he said. I instructed him to grind the peanut butter fresh in the machine near the bulk foods section. He replied, “OK, what kind of nuts should I use?” Well, hmmm. Peanuts? When he returned home with the peanut butter, I asked him if he found the grinding machine OK. Mind you, I have always done the shopping and he has never fetched peanut butter from the Coop. He said that he couldn’t figure out how to get the peanut butter grinder to work and he had disassembled the spigot before asking for assistance from a clerk, who showed him the on/off button and gently asked him to reassemble the machine. I felt guilty setting him loose in the Coop. Real men don’t need instructions because, seriously, they really are from Mars.

A few years ago, Ron made a typo in an email to me and wrote “I live you” instead of “I love you.” The expression stuck. Whenever I am forced to put up with the inimitable Ron-ness of Ron, I tell him “I live you.” But I am willing to sit through dude-flicks about guys on a road trip and to forgive him for beating me at cards night after night (you would not believe his luck), because, let’s face it, without him I wouldn’t be able to open a bottle of mouthwash (push down, squeeze, and twist all at once) or turn on my TV to watch a football game. (Does everyone have fourteen remote control gizmos or is that just us?) Moreover, he makes the best damn gluten-free pancakes on the planet. Yesterday he made a persimmon pancake that took the physics of a pancake to the quantum level. If making pancakes was an Olympic sport he’d have a gold.

The other night, as our Book Group was breaking up for the evening, our friend Annie divvied up the leftover frozen desserts with Ron. Annie kept putting partially full cartons in my freezer and I kept taking them out and putting them back in her bag. “Only leave us two,” I told her. “Otherwise Ron will eat all of it and get fat.” My friend Helen, whose beloved husband of 40 years died in an incomprehensibly bizarre accident about two years ago, said, smiling wistfully, “Oh Amy, you’re reminding me of married life.” After witnessing Helen and a number of other dear friends suffer the trauma of losing their life partner in recent years, I remain grateful for the good fortune that keeps this aggravating man, who bangs around my house disrupting my tidy domain, at my side. When I told him I was going to blog about married life he said, “You love it, right? Think carefully. There’s a right answer and a wrong answer.”

[Full disclosure:  In all fairness to Ron, I will admit that I have stretched the truth once again for the sake of humor (see my blog entitled “For the Sake of Humor”); so in order to set the record straight, I confess that the reason the dishwasher is falling out of the cabinetry has nothing to do with Ron’s installation, but is a result of a problem with the wood under the counter top to which the dishwasher is attached—the wood needs to be replaced in order to properly secure the dishwasher. I think we could do that with the aid of a potato and a jewelry screwdriver.]

This is the kind of machine they have at the Coop. Notice the on/off switch to the left. 

Empowerment on a Plate

On Thursday, I taught the second of the four classes in my Eating for Health workshop series for the very first time. The results are so dramatic, inspiring, and even funny, that I feel compelled to share. To receive my Holistic Nutrition Certification, I have to complete a practicum. As part of my practicum, I must teach the Eating for Health approach to health, wellbeing, and nutrition in a series of four classes. I have a PowerPoint presentation provided by the college, which I revised to suit my own teaching style, and I have put together handouts and other materials for my students. Thus I have made this course my own version of teaching Eating for Health. I set up my practicum at a local clinic and I have 12 women taking my class. (Note:  Dr. Ed Bauman developed the Eating for Health Model and founded the college where I am training.)

The first class I taught was an overview of healthy eating. The second class focused on proteins and fats. The third class, to be taught this week, will focus on carbohydrates. The final class is about sustainable eating and living to protect our health and our food supply in the future; and how to set up a personal plan to learn more and keep improving after the classes end. At Thursday’s class, I finished my presentation early enough for us to go around the table and share anything we changed during the previous week, and tell what, if any, difference it made. The brief stories related by the women in the class blew me away. I was moved and honored that I could make such a difference in the lives of others simply by providing them with information about food.

Several of the women had never read labels before and they were astonished by how much they could learn about food by reading labels. They also could not believe how flagrantly manufacturers and advertisers deceive the consumer about what is contained in packaged foods. One woman spent the week trying to give up sugar and she was amazed to find that it is put in just about every packaged food she buys. This same woman also successfully quit drinking soda. She went from a two-can-per-day habit of Diet Coke to drinking organic green tea and water. Hurray for her! She said she could totally feel the difference. After giving up sugar and soda, she slept better, had more energy and mental clarity, and she felt really good about herself.

She and another student in my class are in the accounting department. They reported that they have the clinic’s accounting department engaged in conversations about healthy eating. They told me that the CFO brings donuts to the office regularly, and they are gone in a minute. But when he brought a box after my two students had talked to their coworkers about the damage caused to the body by sugars, refined flours, and trans fats, the donuts sat in the box uneaten. My two students are going to ask the CFO to bring them fruit instead of donuts in the future. The rest of the gals in accounting are behind this change 100%. Goodbye donuts. My students laughed when I told them that donuts no longer look like an edible object to me.

Several women have set for themselves the goal of drinking more water. The clinic that has partnered with me for my practicum is an OB/GYN practice, serving a high population of pregnant women. My students had me laughing as they talked about increasing their water intake and having to compete with pregnant women to get into the bathroom all day long. But they feel better being more hydrated and so they will continue to drink their daily water and figure out how to get a toilet stall when they need one.

The lard conversation had me laughing my head off. I explained to my class that lard from pastured pigs (organic, free-range, NOT commercial) is much better for them than commercial corn oil, soy oil, or sunflower oil (like that horrendous Crisco stuff sold in clear plastic bottles, which is rancid before it even reaches the grocery shelf because of exposure to light and because of the way it is processed). Several Mexican-American women in the class were incredulous. They said that when they were children, their mothers had discontinued using lard because they were told it would cause heart disease; and after that refried beans never tasted so good again. Well, my friends, I will tell you what I told my class:  good quality (let me say that again GOOD QUALITY) fats are important for proper body function. Do not fear fat. The thing that causes heart disease is sugar and refined flour. More and more information about the truth of this is coming out. If you don’t believe me, or you want to read the research, check out the book The Great Cholesterol Myth by Bowden and Sinatra. Anyway, back to the lard. Real lard from organic, free-range pigs is an excellent fat. One of these Mexican-American women in my class exclaimed, “Woo-hoo, I am going to the Coop right after work and buying good lard and we are having refried beans tonight!” The excitement about the lard was ridiculous! I’m not sure my students will find lard at the Coop; however, I talked to two different local pig farmers at the Farmer’s Market yesterday morning and they have excellent lard for sale. I will bring this information to my class this Thursday, and I guarantee you I will be viewed as Saint Burrito.

Another woman in the class said she never thought she’d see the day that she would buy grass-fed beef; but, she told us how she went to the Farmer’s Market and talked to the cattle farmer there. Come to find out that the farmer’s beautiful pastured, grass-fed, ground beef costs only $5 per pound. Full fat. The real deal. She bought 25 pounds and went home and divided it up, froze what she couldn’t use right away, and made burgers for her family. In the midst of this story, another woman in the class interjected, “The commercial lean beef that I buy is more expensive at $6 per pound!” I reminded them that her commercial lean beef is loaded with toxic antibiotics and hormones and lacks any real food value, especially beneficial fat. The grass-fed beef convert told her coworkers, “I am here to inform you that you can easily afford high quality grass-fed beef.” She said she fried up those burgers and the meat was gorgeous. She had never seen anything like it. Her detailed account of the fat it produced in the pan sounded like poetry. She practically swooned trying to describe the flavor. I keep telling the class that when you eat high quality food, you don’t need to eat as much because you feel satisfied with less. The grass-fed beef convert confirmed this. She said she and her husband couldn’t even finish their burgers and her teenage son only ate one, even though he usually eats at least two commercial burgers. I teased her that she is going to start a cattle ranch. She says she’s tempted, but as long as she can buy that lovely grass-fed beef at the Farmer’s Market, she’s as happy as can be.

I don’t eat meat so I could not identify with the grass-fed beef story. But it was gratifying to hear that my students are discovering that eating real food is not only possible for them but will improve the quality if their lives in immeasurable ways. The grass-fed beef convert claimed that everyone in her family felt noticeably better (than when they ate commercial beef) after eating the good beef. They were energized rather than sluggish.

I saved the best story for last:  the soft-spoken woman who described her decision to buy organic produce. She said that her family does not have much money and so she has always believed that organic fruits and vegetables are beyond her reach. This past week, she decided she would buy only organic fruit to see what that was like. She bought oranges, apples, and bananas. She said that the organics were more expensive, but that they were not as much more expensive as she had previously imagined. She related that she had never eaten an organic banana and the flavor knocked her socks off. She had not realized what a banana really tastes like. She said she refuses to go back to nonorganic and one way or another she will buy organic. She will work out her budget, make changes in the family spending, rethink how she shops and where she shops. “I refuse to deny my children good quality produce any more just because we don’t have much money. We are as entitled to eat this delicious and high quality food as anyone else,” she said so quietly, so firmly, with such determination. She is a rebel! 

She fired me up. All of them fired me up! I have a passion for changing the world through nutrition. We are all entitled to eat real food and we are all entitled to be well. The time when agribusiness and marketing executives and corporations can turn their lousy profit by railroading us into eating garbage that’s killing us is over! We refuse to be force-fed toxic crap. We will not be exploited and made sick and then sold expensive pharmaceuticals. This is my calling. I teach people to read labels, make choices, learn about food, and to just say no to nonfood passed off to us as food. Talk about empowerment! Here it is on a plate. We are going to nourish ourselves and be well against all odds. Like the woman with limited money who is now determined to feed her family organic fruit, we are making our lives better and refusing to be bought and sold in the marketplace like ignorant fools. We are taking control of what we put in our bodies. We are voting with our forks.

Flight Plan

This past week I discovered that I have a better chance of solving one of the Clay Mathematics Institute unsolved Millennium Prize Problems than booking a flight from California to Philadelphia that costs less than my monthly mortgage payment. Since I can’t even add up my score in a game of cards without assistance from my husband and a calculator, I was contemplating hiring a think tank at Columbia U. to work out my air travel when I remembered that Einstein (or was it Newton?) invented travel agents.

This odyssey began last weekend when I blithely went online to look at ticket prices for the first time. My nephew Ben is having his Bar Mitzvah in Yardley, Pennsylvania in the spring. Ron and I, my daughter, my son, and his girlfriend are planning to go. My father has taken to referring to the event as “Ben’s B.M.” in his email communications. My brother Dan and I are trying to work out how to make him stop doing this, but so far we have no viable strategy since Mom is no longer living (she had a lot of clout with Dad) and Dad finds this nomenclature infinitely amusing. This means that I spent the better part of the afternoon last Sunday considering the prospect of paying $800 a pop for five tickets to see Ben’s B.M. (Or should I say $800 a poop?)

Usually we fly Southwest Airlines within California as well as back and forth to Chicago to see Ron’s family. But Southwest doesn’t fly into Philadelphia Airport (PHL) or Newark Airport, our two choices for this trip. There are precious few nonstop flights from San Francisco or L.A. (our departure cities) to PHL or Newark; and added to the challenge is the fact that we stopped flying United Airlines in 1995 when they held us captive in an airplane on the tarmac in San Francisco before take-off with three young children for nearly four hours. We never did find out exactly what caused the delay (or why we couldn’t wait out the problem inside the terminal as opposed to sitting in the airplane exactly 16 inches from the door to the terminal, which was locked shut and guarded by Attila the Hun), but I believe to this day that we were part of a covert science experiment conducted by the CIA to determine how long a random cross-section of the population could survive on honey-roasted peanuts. (The answer is approximately 15 minutes before children turn the seat cushions into flotation devices and bash each other with them while business executives get drunk on complimentary drinks and hallucinate that flight attendants are robots wearing signs that say “abuse me.”) With United out of the equation, that leaves few options for direct flights to Newark.

When we flew East a few years ago for Anna’s B.M. (sorry, blame Dad), I suffered a traumatic airline check-in experience. I was attempting to check in to a U.S. Airways flight online the day before our departure from Philly when I arrived at a screen that asked for payment for our bags. This was a surprise to me since we usually fly Southwest and they have no bag fees. In my haste to rush through my friend Janine’s house to find my wallet that contained my credit card (to pay the bag fee before the screen timed out), I took a wrong turn and fell fully clothed into Janine’s hot tub with my wallet in my hand. (Janine has a hot tub in her living room and the lights were off.) When I surfaced, Ron stood at the edge of the tub with his camera. “If you take that picture, I will divorce you,” I said. He did not take the picture, we are still married, but I continue to suffer post-traumatic stress over bag fees; even though I did successfully dry out all the pictures in my wallet. (But my dress shrunk in the dryer and had to be given away.) Janine subsequently bought a cover for the hot tub. Needless to say, this would never have occurred had we been flying on Southwest, which has no bag fees.

My brother Dan went online to look at airplane tickets last weekend as well. He came up with a proposal, which he emailed to me. I think he was trying to help out because he felt guilty for claiming that I mailed his children nothing but seaweed for Hanukkah in his holiday letter, when he knows perfectly well that this is a far stretch of the truth. He sent me an impressively complex email suggesting that if I were to sign up for a U.S. Airways credit card then I could purchase a ticket to PHL for $850 for a flight out of SFO that would stop in Phoenix on the way and I could get a spare ticket for $120 to use for another flight to PHL another time plus some bonus points (woo-hoo, bonus points!, wait, what are bonus points? are they edible?) and a free flight to Flint, Michigan in February 2016 as long as I boarded the flight in Zone 2 of the departure airport. The catch was that I had to fly on Thursday instead of Monday, which was unfortunate since I have plans for things I want to do on the East Coast on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. But I would also get 50,000 bonus miles (not to be confused with bonus points), although I’m not sure what to do with those. Maybe I can use them on the space shuttle. How far away is the moon? (I’ll have to check that out on googlemaps.) Since Ben is my brother’s youngest child, I assume there are no more B.M.s to view after this one (I really miss my mother), so I would not be making this trip again in time to use the bonus miles on another B.M. before they expire. Unless they are infinite. That is a brainteaser I do not care to contemplate. I have always had trouble with the concept of infinity. I mean, what about infinity plus one? Frankly, I am suspicious that Dan’s email was not actually flight information but rather the proof for one of the Clay Mathematics Institute unsolved problems. My brother is, after all, a rocket scientist with a graduate degree in aerospace engineering. (You would think that someone with those credentials could recognize the difference between excellent dark chocolate and seaweed. But no.)

I emailed Dan back and begged him not to spend any more time searching for tickets for us as I had, by that time, realized that I needed to employ a travel agent. I suggested that he stop channeling Mom, who was the biggest problem-solver of them all, and asked him if I was correct in inferring from his email that he and his wife had moved Ben’s B.M. to Phoenix. I could handle Phoenix since Southwest flies nonstop to Phoenix, doesn’t charge bag fees (so I would not be at risk of falling in any hot tubs), and tickets are much more reasonable. Dan responded that the B.M. would be in Phoenix but the reception would be in Yardley. I was pondering the option of skipping the reception altogether to save on airfare, but what good is the B.M. without eating lunch afterward? Then I realized he was just joking.

On Thursday, my brilliant travel agent booked all of us on Virgin Airlines, got us tickets for under $400 each, didn’t require us to get any new credit cards, secured nonstop flights to Newark, rescued us from bonus points, and solved several Clay Mathematics Institute unsolved problems for 2015. This goes to show that it pays to hire a professional. We are looking forward to the trip and expect Ben to execute the B.M. efficiently. Ron says he is excited to be flying Virgin because it will be his first time.

I am using this photo for this blog post because there is, mercifully,

 no picture of me in the hot tub with my dripping wallet.

I also could not find a photo of infinity.

P.S. I have no idea why there is a white background on this week's blog post. Perhaps Blogspot automatically puts all blog posts with the word "virgin" in them against a white background.