If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans. That’s what they say, right? (Don’t look it up, it’s a simultaneously deep and boring rabbit hole.) My darling bride once again hit my birthday out of the park, setting up not one but two quick getaways to places she knew I was really interested in. The first bit had been our trip to Évora, which you may already have read about. The second part was a real doozy. She’d heard me exclaim excitedly over an exhibition taking place in Rome this year; a gathering of Caravaggio masterworks from all over, congregating in the Palazzo Barberini for four months this spring and summer. Well, my bride isn’t one for idle dreams – goals and plans are more her speed. And so, along with a card announcing our Évora trip was another card explaining that we had three-ish days in Rome plotted out, with flights and lodging already sorted along with tickets to the exhibition. All that being said, do you remember how this paragraph started?

A couple of days before we were scheduled to depart, Lisa threw her back out. Nothing life-altering, but for the immediate future she would be in serious pain. Worse, the activities facing us would be exactly the sorts of things that would exacerbate the ouch – a Ryanair flight, public transit, an unfamiliar bed, and (if we were actually going to make it worth going) a fair amount of walking. It just didn’t sound feasible. It was a disappointment, sure, but life is pretty good here so if I just don’t get to Rome this time it isn’t that big of a –

“Why wouldn’t you go?” She asked. I have to admit I was surprised by the question. I wouldn’t go so far as to say we’re co-dependent, we do plenty of stuff on our own, but anything like this? This is a two-person venture if I’ve ever seen one, and Lisa and I are the two persons! She wasn’t kidding, though. The Caravggio adventure was my birthday present and she’d be darned if I didn’t get to see it just because she was incapacitated. It took me a pretty long time to get my head around it, but fundamentally there wasn’t any reason I couldn’t go. Sooooooo ok, I guess I’m going to Rome!

The trip itself was, if nothing else, confirmation that we’d made the right decision on Lisa staying home. Our Ryanair experiences haven’t been all bad whatever their reputation is, but this one was a humdinger, complete with standing-room-only holding pens where we stewed for an extra 45 minutes and a plane the image of which is printed next to “dilapidated” in Webster’s. It would have been an ordeal for somebody with severe back pain; I was fundamentally sound and I still came out of it with a limp. (I kid. Kind of.) So, what does a guy on his own do in Rome? Well for starters he goes the wrong direction on the metro and show up to his lodging at the crack of sleepy. I do like to keep myself on my toes. Still, the place was nice and comfortable and the bed served its purpose well.

Rome on my own awaited.