it’s 4:15 am. we’re leaving for costa rica in a couple of minutes. in the “you are here” text directly under it’s clock, my phone is telling we are in the Orlovskaya region, a small oblast in southwest Russia.

even my phone thinks it’s way too early in the morning to up.

UPDATE: I left my phone on the flight from DC to Miami, and didn’t realize it until I was 40 gates away. I ran back, tried to get about a half dozen people to help, and finally got on the plane with AA’s Miami operations manager. No phone. The Russian this morning really *was* a bad omen.

UPDATE 2: I’m sitting on the flight to Costa Rica, and who to my wondering eyes do I see — but my new friend the American Airlines Miami operations manager. With my phone. She said it was in the overhead compartment of the earlier flight (which is funny, because I never was) and gave me a little eyes-down-nose-over-spectacles astonishment to be more careful with my belongings. And, that’s okay by me because it looks like she might be right.

UPDATE 3: It’s the layover of return trip to DCA now, and I’ve still got my phone — but I just left my wallet, camera and computer unattended for 10 minutes next to an ATM I had attempted to use. In semi-related news, it’s increasingly hard for me to believe that there is no competency test before you’re allowed to reproduce.