The Cap’n traveled to the UK on business last week, and as anyone who has taken a gander at the news for the past several days can surmise, he’s stuck there now.
He missed Shabbat with us, having to make do with the hospitality of strangers in Golders Green. And he’s due to miss Yom HaAtzma’ut this week (including the spectacle of Beans dancing in the town’s official ceremony) if he doesn’t find a way other than flying to get home.
Stories abound of people rediscovering ground transport. Ferries are clogged, and John Cleese—undaunted by either the volcano or cash flow—reportedly paid £3000 to return by taxi to Blighty from Norway.
When I spoke to the Cap’n on the phone this morning, he said the company has given its 7 or 8 employees stranded in London the green light to get home by any means within their grasp. As it stands now, the Cap’n has contacted some of the others and booked a taxi to Madrid (an 18 hour ride), one of the only remaining airports in Europe to which El Al is flying right now, and from which he hopes to be on a plane for home tomorrow morning. (British Airways, which he flew from Israel to Heathrow, is grounded until further notice.) His boss suggested they buy enough kosher food in London to last three days in case they have to wait for a flight. I told him that’s right and noble, but if he runs out of food en route to Israel, just avoid eating anything labeled puerco or jamón. The rest, I guess, he can be forgiven.
The girls have been on a mope since it became clear their Abba wouldn’t be home for Shabbat. I’ve tried to be more circumspect. We know dozens of people in Israel who have family members who travel extensively for work, and in the course of all this travel must meet with delays, cancellations, and other upsets and chaos. We’re spoiled, having had the Cap’n not only not traveling (well, hardly ever), but not even leaving the house for work for 3½ years. If looked at through the lens of karma, it’s our turn. And let’s face it; I’d far rather have the Cap’n delayed for a spectacular naturally-occurring geological event like this than what snarled airline traffic back around September 11, 2001. Give me a volcano in Iceland any day.
May the remainder of the Cap’n’s journey home be speedy and uneventful. Amen v’amen.
Shimshonit 
Hope your husband is home in a very near future. Hopefully soon you’ll all look back and smile about this.
Ilana-Davita: Thank you for your good wishes.