Sitting at the dining table at our Airbnb apartment in Rome, I took a sip of hot tea and commented, “You won’t be able to top what we experienced yesterday!”

Chuckling, my daughter took a nibble of a Nutella cookie and admitted, “That’s true! How could anything top our meeting Pope Francis and shaking his hand?”

Spreading strawberry jelly on a cracker, I confessed, “While waiting for our turn to meet the Pope, I kept thinking about the nursery rhyme that goes, ‘Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been? I’ve been down to London to see the Queen. Pussycat, pussycat, what did you there? I scared a mouse under her chair’. Only for us, the rhyme would go, ‘Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been? I’ve been down to Rome to see the Pope. Pussycat, Pussycat, what did you there? I shook the hand of the Pope, with excitement hard to bear.’”

Blowing on her tea to cool it, Tammie agreed, “We were lucky little pussycats to have that experience yesterday! Our visiting the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel today won’t be as exciting, but I’m looking forward to it.” Proud to have planned so well, Tammie bragged, “We won’t have to stand in long lines. The tour will allow us to go, see, and leave. I’m also hoping to be the first tourists of the day to visit the Sistine Chapel and it won’t be crowded.”

Clearing the table, I admitted, “It was hard getting up earlier than usual this morning, but I’m glad you bought tickets for a guided tour. The bone-on-bone arthritis in my feet makes walking painful. I’m able to do about five hundred steps, anything after that is a fun-killer!”

Some experiences turn out better than planned, others turn out to be a disaster. The tour group Tammie and I joined that day took us from one side of Saint Peter’s Square to the other, into the Basilica itself, then outside the Vatican walls to a special side entrance to the museum several blocks away. Unable to walk fast, my daughter and I had a hard time keeping up. The Sistine Chapel was the last place we visited and it was very crowded.

Exhausted, Tammie sat down on every bench along the way, explaining, “Call me ‘Two Block Tammie’. I need to rest after walking two blocks.” I nodded. When my daughter was born, her doctors didn’t think she’d ever be able to walk. She surprised them by doing so despite having bilateral knee surgeries as a toddler.

I jokingly guessed, “I think two blocks is equal to six hundred steps. My ‘dogs’ stopped whimpering awhile back. Now they’re out and out howling.”

When Tammie responded, “Poor Mama.” I felt guilty for complaining. She was hurting, too. I gave her a hug.

Was the museum tour a waste of our money? Surprisingly, no. We were able to enjoy seeing much of the art on display. The other tourists looked and quickly walked on. We sat and stared at nearby exhibits. Also, Tammie is great at taking pictures. We can go back and look at them over and over.

After I returned from Rome, I told my sister Agnes, “It’s a funny thing. Although my feet hurt very much while walking in Italy, now that I’m home, I don’t really remember the pain. I just remember the amazing things I saw, the places we went and the wonderful, exciting experiences.”

My sweet sister answered with a smile, “It’s just like the pain of childbirth. Once it’s over, you forget how much it hurt to bring the baby into this world.”

 Saint Nicholas  Did Saint Nicholas come to your house last night? Each year as a child, I’d put my letter to Santa into my cereal bowl and put it on the kitchen table at bedtime on the 5^th of December. In the morning the letter was gone, and the bowl was full of candy, nuts, and, fruit!