The curse of yesterday continues, although eases up a bit.
I may have mentioned that some mother had her demon child over her shoulder while in line at the Honolulu airport and that said-mutant sneezed a green, snot-filled cloud directly onto Russell's face. He caught a cold and then passed it to Damian. Damian started feeling the effects about mid-way through the Big Island part of the trip.
Today Damian (me) is in full grip of the thing. My voice is gone, my throat like shredded glass, my body is producing more phlegm than I actually weigh, my nose is raw from the blowing. I'm coughing like a fiend, and eating cough drops like they're candy.
So today we spent most of the day in damage-control mode from the robbery. Garry had called his bank right after the discovery to block his ATM card and we found that not-suprisingly they'd tried to used it three times within the first hour after the theft.
Russ and I used Mom Edna's computer and went to all the web sites that our stolen computers connect to automatically and changed passwords.
Russ began filling out the insurance claim. It's quite annoying the number of things they got both big and small. My class ring, for instance, is useless to anyone but me...so you know they've chucked it in a dumpster somewhere. <sigh>
But afterward we decided I still needed to get work done and that since the insurance would re-imburse us, we went out and replaced some items. I spent the morning in the San Francisco Apple store--trying not to infect the sales twink there--and got a new MacBook, new iPad, new Smart Cover, new Magic Mouse. Russ bought replacement warm clothes.
Then back at the room I set things up and did more damage control, and ate more medication.
Finally everyone was getting restless, so it was time to take the Arbogasts to Alcatraz. Russ had bought them tickets for the 3:30pm tour. We maneuvered our way through the maze of SF streets and finally dropped them off at the dock. Russ went with them to pick up the tickets. Mom Edna and Damian drove the van around the block in order to swing back by and pick up Russ when we was done.
Boy are those SF streets a nightmare! There is no such thing as a left-hand turn! None of the streets, apparently, run parallel to each other! So if you think, "Oh, no left hand turn...I'll do a right-right-right...and it'll be the same thing." Boy are you in for a surprise! Apparently any "parallel" road actually runs at a swift and obtuse angle to the one you think you're following! That little strategy caused us to bump into a parcel of no-right-turns, a string of one-ways all going the wrong way. Instead of a one-block swing-around we toured San Francisco!
We saw the Coit Tower! We saw Lombard Street! We peeked at the Castro! We did a leg through ChinaTown where "we" stalled traffic snarled up behind us by being forced into an un-wanted right-hand turn, that we couldn't take because---and I am not making this up---an 80-year-old Chinese Granny using a walker took 3 turns of the light cycle to hobble across the street!
Then we got the call from BoyToy Garry. "Um, we got to the ticket counter and Russ gave her the confirmation numbers. The lady said, 'Hon. You're a bit early for this trip.' 'Oh?' asked Russ, 'How early?" 'About a week!' she answered."
It seems that Russ had clicked the wrong date when he bought the tickets and they weren't good until a week from today! Hoo-boy!
So Mom and I eventually worked our way back to the dock and they all piled in. We then did Lombard Street again for the folks and ultimately headed back home. Damian went back to bed to rest. The crew walked to China Town to see the sights there and have dinner.
Somtime later, I got a call to meet them at a nice corner Italian restaurant near the resort. We laughed at all our misfortunes, Dad Garry had a couple of beers while the rest of us demolished a bottle of Merlot. Then we ordered dinner where Dad surprised us by eating almost all his order of spaghetti-and-meatballs, then helping BoyToy Garry with some spicy Buffalo Wings! It's good to see him get his appetite back! We wrapped up the night with coffees, tiramisu, chocolate mousse pie.
Then we went back to the room, did more "lost item" discoveries...and went to bed.
