Things I learned this weekend:

• The people who love you will tell you that you look great even after you've been on a plane for three hours.

• The state of marriage can be riotously funny when inappropriately implied.

• A massage is a great Saturday morning activity.

• There is a healthy trade in reproduction brothel tokens. Market value: $3.

• Authentic brothel tokens sell for at least $10.

• The going rate for a chastity belt is $62.

• Double-entendre vegetable crate labels are hours of fun.

• Stacking rocks can be meditative.

• Stacking rocks is fun.

• With enough effort, you can stack rocks into unlikely and unusual piles.

• My friends actually like to hike. They don't just do it to humor me.

• Brandy old-fashioneds should not be ordered anywhere but Wisconsin.

• There are very few roadside toilets in Arizona.

• Paying 50 cents to use the toilet may result in a serendipitous brush with something amazing.

• My mobile phone service extends to the rim of the Grand Canyon.

• Two weeks is a long time to wait for an answer to a question.

• Patience, grace and trust are virtues of practice, not possession.

• Scatalogical humor never loses its appeal.

• A traffic accident in rural Arizona can cause a back-up for five miles and forty-five minutes.

• If you stacked rocks meditatively that morning, the forty-five minute traffic jam on the way to the airport might not disturb your peace of mind.

• The people who love you can sense you are tense despite your insistence that your peace of mind is undisturbed.

• Making your plane does a great deal to restore one's peace of mind.

• So does a weekend full of sun, positive energy, physical activity, relaxation and good food with great friends.