It started slowly, as usual. The airplane I was supposed to board was taken out of service for repairs and it took several hours before a replacement was put into service. By then, the connecting flights had to be rescheduled. I arrived at my destination, not at noontime, but during rush hour traffic on Friday evening. Tired, stiff, and cranky from sitting in airports most of my day, I had just enough time to drop my suitcase at the hotel before leaving for the scheduled dinner meeting.
The return flight on Monday was delayed by weather conditions. Arriving home I discovered that the cable television was out of order, the Internet connections were sporadic and my car had a strange rattling sound coming from somewhere behind the front tires. One night the refrigerator spontaneously began a loud grinding sound. The dog began to whimper and limp. The vet could determine no visible reason and prescribed a pain killer. The cat intensified her compulsive tail-nibbling disorder (We call it CT-BD.) A spider bite on my leg became infected. The prescribed antibiotics left me fatigued and more irritable than I was already. Spending hours day after day with the network technical support personnel did not help my mood.
Was it Murphy’s Law or Mercury in retrograde? Or are those just two ways that we humans use to make sense out of these reversals. It’s now been four weeks and I believe that the minor catastrophes have begun to abate… for now.
It is a little early to tell. As of this moment, I have grown accustomed to the car rattling and the television not working. When life begins to spin backwards, I find it an opportunity to re-evaluate my priorities. Have I once again become too comfortable with things moving in a forward direction?\The cat and the dog, like me, are experiencing aches and pains of aging. Their symptoms remind me of their mortality and of my own. Mercury, I have been told, is only visible at sunset I believe there is a personal retrograde that comes with age. I am reminded that the best advice is to use back-up systems, find alternative solutions, and pay more attention to the details. At times that is difficult enough
My Turn 
Linda, this is wonderful. Oh, how I relate tonight. It's not the electrical stuff or the externals so much, but the internal retrograde, whether age-related or not, that has been in high gear this evening. Thanks so much for this post.
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