When the dominoes fall sideways

There are certain immutable laws of the universe, among them:

1. hospital patients and their families are only asleep when you visit without a calling card to leave as evidence of your presence;
2. Airline flights are only delayed on those days you rush to the airport without having had the time to check flight status in advance.

These, I suspect, are corollaries to the law that it only rains on days immediately succeeding those in which you have had your car washed, and that you only smudge or spill something on your pants the first time you wear them after dry cleaning. This may not be true, but I suspect it is. Sometimes the dominoes fall sideways instead of neatly forward, one rhythmically into the next.

The moral, I suppose, is that a sense of humor remains important, that patience remains essential, and a rigid insistence on order -- on everything working out like it "should" -- remains a futile delusion, at best, and at worst a recipe for a miserable life. I'm not really smart enough to know how life "should" work out anyway, despite my frequent exasperations when it doesn't, and I might be better served by keeping cracked a window of expectancy for the myriad good things -- conversations, introductions, observations and relaxations that slip in serendipitously.

That, and an extra book handy for those times when the flight is delayed yet again.