I remember a phone conversation I had with one of my sons a few years ago. I was living in Israel for a year, and had just been issued my very own gas mask by the IDF. I called home to let my kids know that I'd decided to stay put, figuring that trying to travel during the American invasion of Iraq was probably stupider than simply hunkering down where I was. At that point, we still believed all the talk about WMD's and the memory of Scuds hitting Tel Aviv during the first Gulf War was a fresh memory.

"I guess this is now officially an Adventure, Mom," my kid said to me.

That's how we describe travel problems in our family. It was an Adventure the time I got altitude sickness in Cuzco on a national holiday, when the planes weren't flying down to sea level. It became an Adventure when it turned out there was no rental car waiting in Italy. It was an Adventure when security at Heathrow decided I looked dangerous, way back in 1989 (I still don't know why) and decided they had to check out my underwire bra and question me until my flight was gone without me. An Adventure is when travel gets really, really uncomfortable and maybe scary too, but eventually you get home safe.

I've not been stuck on the tarmac for 10 hours, but I have been, for 3. It was massively unpleasant, but no one died. It was massively inconvenient -- our connections were all messed up -- but no one wound up in the hospital.

I commute weekly by air (between 2 cities, I admit, in a mild climate) and yes, when things are messed up, it's a nuisance. The thing is, I can drive myself and everyone around me nuts by going crazy or I can calm down and be glad that no one is dead, no one is in the hospital, and it isn't the end of the world.

Patrick, you put out some pretty good info here. Email and online services lend themselves to flaming and hysteria, and in our current culture, so does inconvenience. Don't worry about it. I guess writing on Salon is a different kind of Adventure.

Joan and Annie:

Thank you so much for the memories about Molly Ivins. I miss her voice so much, and do not know when I have so grieved for someone whom I knew only through her words.

None of the articles written immediately after her death gave me a feeling of comfort, but this interview did.

Thanks so much.

Thank you for the new policy - it's long overdue.

I'd be even happier if the "publish anonymously" box did not appear at the bottom of the screen. On the Net, it isn't familiarity that breeds contempt, it's anonymity.

Thanks for an article that articulates the situation of the Palestinian who is just trying to raise his family and get through the day.

It's no accident that those militants are lobbing their rockets from a spot near a soccer field. Their primary goal isn't to hit Sederot; their goal is to provoke an Israeli response, and, with "luck," get some kids maimed or killed and generate more sympathetic press abroad.

I think it's tragic that the Israelis keep going for the bait. BUT: if someone started lobbing rockets at a small farming town near the U.S. border, wouldn't there be a public outcry for a response in kind? Can you imagine the reaction if Washington sat back and said, "They are terrible shots -- don't worry about it"?

When the First Lady visited the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock a few years ago, she wore a head covering out of respect for local custom. Speaker Pelosi is doing precisely the same thing in this photo.

Just curious, LW, but how does your mother feel about the idea of you purchasing a gun?

Your letter has it in a lot of romantic talk about guns and your dad. OK. I just find myself wondering where she is on the subject: she knows him, she knows you, and she's been watching this movie for a while now.

Just a thought.

"Midwife vs. Hospital" is an oversimplification of the available choices.

I gave birth to my second child in 1983 in a hospital with the help and the supervision of a Certified Nurse-Midwife, using auto-hypnosis for pain management. It was one of the great experiences of my life, and a much happier experience than the more typical hospital delivery I had with my first child.

Granted, I didn't give birth in the bathtub. But I labored without interference, I held my son within seconds of his birth, and there was no immediate whisking-away of the baby.

CNM's are extremely qualified, and in a hospital or birth center setting, the resources for dealing with complications are nearby.

If you are curious about CNM's, check out the website of the American College of Nurse Midwives. Terrific people, terrific choices.