A little coincidence and a little serendipity.

Yesterday I had to fly to LA for an afternoon meeting. Everything was going great - I got up on time, even tried to go to the gym* before heading to the airport, and got to the airport with plenty of time to spare (unlike last time when I was one of those people I absolutely hate, who runs to the front of the security line waving their itinerary frantically while everyone else wonders why they got up two hours early instead of pulling that same stunt).

But then IT happened.

Not having anyone with me to watch my stuff, I had to shlep everything including my full cup of coffee into the bathroom with me. I was worried about leaving my coffee on the sink counter - I didn't want anyone to throw it away - so I took it into the stall with me.

Note to fellow Oaklanders: the t.p. roll holders at Oakland airport are not completely flat, but if you're careful and lucky, you can balance a cup of coffee on them successfully. Suffice to say that "careful" and "lucky" were not on my side yesterday. The stall next to me became immediately occupied with a door-slammer and there I was with coffee literally ALL OVER my nice "trying to look like I have a professional job" shirt and pants.

Before I got mad or sad or upset in any way, I took a moment to reflect on Zack's post from a few days ago, and after that moment, said to myself, "yeah well you kinda knew that would happen, really now, didn't you?", put my jacket on over my coffee-stained shirt, and left the bathroom figuring I'd just wear my jacket for the rest of the day. About 10 minutes later, to my complete and utter shock, it turned out that the coffee blended so well with my avocado button-down that it wasn't even visible after it dried, and the pants were black so it really didn't matter. MAGIC! Even more magic when the afternoon meeting we were all dreading ended up going really well instead.

And then a little serendipity when it was time to head back to the airport... I asked a local (or so I thought) at the meeting for help getting a cab, and he ended up not being a local but as a result had a really good taxi service that he called for me. I spent the 20 minute ride to the airport talking with the Hungarian ex-patriot driver, who came to the States because his government sucked even more then than ours does now, and who used to be a rural veternarian and is seeking to continue practicing here in the States. He and I made a promise to each other that even though it's expensive, and even though a lot of our school credits are no longer useful so it will be hard, and even though some situations you find yourself in are not entirely pleasant, we will pursue becoming practicing vets on the West Coast.

I'm not entirely sure what that means. I've been thinking about it a lot though. Everything happens for a reason, eh?

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* "Tried" being the operative word... It seems that, as usual, you get what you pay for. My $18/month gets me a lot of days of an empty-other-than-me gym, and the occasional day when the building security system doesn't trip the gym door locks at 6am like it should, and I end up sitting outside the door with the trainers for about 15 minutes before I give up and go home.