Roman Holiday

Back from Rome last night after a yummy, crazy Thanksgiving dinner at a wine editor’s house and a chance meeting in front of the Vittorio Emanuel monument with two friends from DC. Oh yeah, and a ridiculous assignment where I spent so much time (legitimately) sitting in one fancy schmancy hotel bar I fear deep vein thrombosis – and where I got about two hours of sleep a night.

I am slowly making my way through e-mails and obligations and dreading the return to the office tomorrow. I’m also dreading a lunch I have cancelled at least six times, with the (world’s skinniest Russian) wife of a celebrity jeweler*. After a week and a half of pasta, I do not want to find something to wear. Nor do I want to spent two hours making polite conversation – plus an hour travel time -- when I’d rather be hiding in my office in jeans and communist chic sneakers, getting actual work done so that I don’t have to stay in the office until midnight.

Sigh. As my mother would say, things are rough all over.

Still.

Must. Find. New. Job.

(Hello, so not going to happen in December.)

*though last time I got to try on Christina Aguilera's actual engagement ring -- she had sent it back for repairs. I know, I know -- not that thrilling. Trying to psych myself into this.

* * *

The friends I bumped into in Rome I saw when I was in DC, but this couple has been peripheral friends – part of the same circle, but never the sort of people I had any independent relationship with. In fact, I was surprised a couple of years ago when they turned up to my book signing and insisted on each buying their own copy of my book for support (no small thing, since the male half of this couple is notoriously cheap), and even more surprised when I once got a long-ish, thoughtful email from male half in response to a quick one I’d sent.

I knew they’d be in Rome – they were taking a week’s vacation in Italy – but they were arriving the night before I was scheduled to leave, and they wouldn’t have a phone or blackberry (yes, I know people organized their social schedules long before the invention of either). Plus I didn’t want to be the gooseberry on their romantic vacation. But there they were, standing in front of the Vittorio Emanuel memorial when I finally got out of bed after a Thanksgiving dinner that ended at six in the morning.

We hit the Pantheon – I had been already, but they hadn’t -- then had a tartufo in the Piazza Navona. (Male half of couple: “If we have these to go it will cost half as much.”) We walked across the river to see St. Peter’s at sunset, then got dinner in Trastavere, laughing and gossiping and just hanging out. And of course, commenting on how surreal it was to bump into each other in Rome, and how it wouldn’t have worked out that well if we planned it. In another year or so I would likely have lost touch with them – another casualty of the expat life, where friendships without enough of a history (or a short but significant history) eventually become history, sometimes even despite one’s best efforts. Thanks to about 12 hours in Rome, I’m sure this one won’t.