It wasn’t as ‘certain’ as some other activities – dealing with mortality or money owed to the government come immediately to mind – but it was ‘inevitable’ that our family’s social director would begin considering and then planning a journey to The States. Granted, we should have been back last year, marking the brother’s and my milestone birthday – postponed by you-know-what – but I felt no sense of urgency in making up for lost time. There has been a meeting of the minds among people we know that now is not the best time to be hanging around airports, let alone going skyward to unnecessary destinations far away. But even if ‘now,’ were somehow better, who wants to sit in an airport for hours on end, waiting to board a plane; who wants to be squished into an airplane seat designed for tiny people; who wants to eat airline food? Granted, there are much worse scenarios to contemplate, but very few anyone would freely choose to undergo.

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