Put another mark under the “saint” column for Tom, who rarely, hardly ever, well, almost never, gets upset with his adorable wife.

But, really, this was a big fuck-up.

Let’s go back to the beginning. And it might be helpful to remember the Friends episode where Chandler and Rachel are helping Ross move a couch up some stairs to his apartment. When the stairway bends, Ross yells, “Pivot. Pivot. Pivot,” and, of course, the couch is irretrievably stuck.

In February, we finalized plans to get together with our Stanford fellows. We decided to mix it up and switch from our regular October gathering at Manzanita Beach in Oregon to an August outing at Okanagan Lake in Canada.

Our intrepid Canadian member, Jane, scouted out places, and we all sent her money.

I wrote the dates in my book, a Bullet Journal, or BuJo as the cool kids call it. Once it’s in there, it’s in concrete.

We bookended the gathering with a crawl up the California coast and Tom’s 50^th high school reunion in Illinois. Then, we would hot foot it home to Arizona before autumn sets in.

We bought Canadian maps and guidebooks. Tom started drawing out a route through several Canadian national parks. We figured on three months.

Then my 94-year-old mother got sick. I mean, really sick. A chest X-ray revealed pneumonia, triggering a late-night ER visit. Antibiotics, and home. At 4 a.m., a call to the fire department and back to the ER. They admitted her, and for a week, I was at her bedside for 12 hours a day. There was a new diagnosis, anemia. Her hemoglobin was at 7.4, down from 15 in January. And a colonoscopy and endoscopy. A unit of blood. She started to perk up. She came home.

Then, there were the multiple post-hospital doctor visits, new medications and oxygen to order, home care and physical therapy to arrange. And some doctor visits for my sister, Nancy, and Tom, and me.

We pushed back our start date, once, then twice, wondering if we would be able to go at all.

But my mother is made of Kansas stock. She rallied.

Pivot, I yelled.

We would go, but with a scaled-down agenda, moving quickly up the coast, fewer stops. If necessary, we could turn around. Three months would be more like seven weeks.

I patted myself on the back that I got almost everything done, made and kept all those doctor appointments, did some van maintenance, ordered a new portable solar panel, got our slip covers re-cinched, laundered our comforters, cooked meals to stock the freezer for mom and Nancy, celebrated Nancy’s birthday, celebrated our son Nate’s birthday (although we still owe him a fancy dinner out). Tom got new rims for The Epic Van, filled the propane, cleaned away monsoon dust, cooked for the freezer, and for us.

We were amazing!

Such hubris. As P.J. O’Rourke said, “Hubris is one of the great renewable resources.”

We drove from Phoenix to Morro Bay, California, in one day, because the scorching desert is no place to sleep in a tin can. Then, we hopscotched up the coast with one- or two-night stops when we normally would spend three or four. We skipped visits with friends. Skipped visiting my friend Jackie’s cabin on the American River, on the road to Lake Tahoe. Skipped museums, and antiques stores, roadside attractions.

Each check in at home proved mom was doing well. Onward.

Finally, we were in northern Washington, ready to cross the border the next day. Ready to luxuriate at our rental at Skaha Lake.

“What time can we arrive tomorrow?” I texted Jane, wondering why all our fellow fellows were so quiet about the upcoming visit. There had been a couple texts to the group. “Remember your bathing suits.” “Remember your passports.” But little of our Type-A chatter about arrival times, who’s cooking which night, who’s bringing eggs, etc. Maybe, I thought, we’re getting more chill in our older age.

Start the Jaws music.

A few hours later, after Tom had gone to sleep anticipating an early rise to drive for the border, Jane responded.

“Tomorrow?”

I checked my bougie BuJo. Yes. Tomorrow. Aug. 26.

I scrolled through the chats, back to the first one, that listed initial dates of Aug. 26-31. Check.

Then I scrolled up to more recent entries. And there it was. The dates we booked had shifted to Aug. 31-Sept. 5. Of course, I had seen this, but I had entered the 26-31 in the BuJo. It was in concrete.

Fuckity fuck fuck fucker.

I was wide awake now. Should I wake Tom? What could he do in the middle of the night? What would we do for the next five days? I kicked myself. Hard. I didn’t sleep much.

My brain yelled, “PIVOT.”

By morning, I was calmer. I told myself, “No one died. We have our bed with us. We can wander.”

It was oddly reminiscent of the time, years ago, when the fellows went to Pender Island, off Canada’s west coast. I failed to count the overnight ride on the train and arrived a day later than I said we would. Or the time we rented a Roadtrek in Salt Lake City to drive to Illinois one summer, and I counted wrong and returned it a day late.

Maybe it’s a Canada/Illinois time warp.

When Tom stirred at 5:30 a.m., I confessed.

“Well, I’m not going back to sleep now,” he murmured. It was the harshest thing he would say.

He got the maps back out. Remade the conflicting reservations. And found spots for us to stay by Lake Wenatchee.

So, call the Pope. Let your minds wonder about how this gentle soul married a crazy person like me. And help me beat back my self-renewing hubris.