I have been traveling with two iPhones, an old one with my US phone number (and its grandfathered ATT unlimited data plan which I am reluctant to give up) and a new one with an Italian number, which has more memory and so contains my music, movies, books, photos, etc. My own meatware memory is still programmed to think of only one phone when I pack, however... it was only as I was going through security in Regina that I realized I had left the US phone charging in the room I'd just vacated at the Jesuit residence.

My flight was leaving in less than an hour, and I couldn't even phone the Jesuit who gave me the ride to the airport to see if he could try to find it and get it to me in time. In fact, I didn't even have his cell phone or email; I had always been corresponding with the Communications director at Campion College in Regina, Saskatchewan, and what were the odds that she would be up and reading email at 7 am on a Saturday morning?

I did manage to get online with my laptop once I got to the gate, and left a message for where they should look for my phone, and where they should FedEx it.... assuming it went out on Monday, and there were no complications getting a package with a phone through customs, with some luck I might get it in Merced on Tuesday or Wednesday. 

There's a reason I have an iPhone, of course -- it is my way of staying in touch with the world precisely while I travel. I had already lined up a number of phone calls that were supposed to come into that number in the next few days. So it goes... I spent my time sitting on the plane at the gate, composing myself for this irritating, if admittedly minor, annoyance.

And then, about two minutes before the airplane door closed, the flight attendant ran up the aisle to my seat. "This was left at security," she told me, handing me my phone (and charger).

When I got to Denver, there was a message from the person whom I had sent the email to. She explained that my Jesuit colleague had noticed the phone on the floor of my old room as soon as he got home, picked it up, and rushed it back to the airport.

Thankfully nothing in Regina is more than 15 minutes away from anything else in Regina.

Somehow, it is little, comprehensible, miracles like this that amaze me the most...