Day Seventy-seven: Family is great!

Over this past week, I have gone from my whole family being together to my whole family being together. Last Thursday all three of my children were with me. Today, my parents and all three of my sisters were with me.

We toured a portion of San Francisco, leaving a trip to Alcatraz and a run across the Golden Gate for tomorrow. Then my sisters all fly out Wednesday, with two of my nieces and one brother-in-law.

Tomorrow my son comes back in for a moment to allow me to take him and his new bride, my daughter-in-law, to the airport. My youngest daughter is also leaving for Davis. She is staying around to see her brother and new sister-in-law one more time. It may be some time before they see each other again.

My parents will be staying until Sunday. I haven't made any plans for Wednesday through Saturday but then, I hadn't made plans for the weekend and today and it worked out all right. Planning is definitely over rated in a Life after Layoff. It's too associated with work, which I will have to be doing sooner than I had planned, if the stock market keeps plummeting.

Today we didn't do everything we had planned. Even the day before we had to scramble to make it to Beach Blanket Babylon before the show started, but we all enjoyed ourselves even without the long wait to get in and then seated waiting for the show to start. We, well I, had planned to ride the cable cars from the Hyde Street turn around to China Town then walk down to catch the Embarcadero trolley for the ride back to Fisherman's Wharf. After an impromptu stop at Fort Mason and a walk to Alioto's before walking on to smell the seals at Pier 39 only to walk all the way back to the Hyde Street turnaround only to discover that it would be a 45 minute to one hour wait to get on to a crowded Cable Car, we changed our plans again. While the two drivers went back to get the cars left at Fort Mason, the rest of our tour party went shopping at Ghirardelli Square. After picking the shoppers up, one car went down the crookedest street in the world and the other fearful driver did not. Sure, I had driven down it before, when I finally had found it and before it was closed to traffic for a long time plus the time I couldn't find it again, but I wasn't afraid to drive it then and certainly wasn't afraid to this time. My only scare came when I had to step on the gas to avoid being broadsided at the entrance to the curvy part of Lombard. At the proper setting, the curves are faithfully rendered on my Prius map display.

On the way home we stopped at a grocery store to pick up food for dinner as I hadn't shopped to restock my larder. We proceeded to eat most of what I had purchased, but I didn't need to fix it and not only were the dishes washed, but they were dried afterwards. No air drying dishes in my kitchen tonight and for several additional days until I need the drain rack for the next batch of dishes I must wash. It was great to have one meal fill up the dishwasher. This reduced the amount of pre-cleaning I needed to do. (Not that I didn't do any pre-cleaning, I just didn't need to.) Besides, some dishes weren't pre-cleaned, my daughter put them in and refuses to do any pre-cleaning.

Then seven of us played Shiny Pants Gin. Three players on one side of the table took on three players on the other side of the table in three games of head to head gin. The losing side by total points from each of the three games have to shift, thus the name Shiny Pants. The seventh person slips into the position vacated by the shifting of chairs and the person shifted off becomes the extra. Now, the side I ended up on won. How I got to that side was nothing less than a miracle. Due to an accounting error in the very first round the winning side shifted. That same team won again with a correct shifting of sides and I now sat on the winning side. Although, I must say it looked bleak when the score of the first hand was corrected. The side I had just left had just won two games to none. Needless to say, my new side only lost two more rounds before we reached 500 points, the agreed to winning target. One of them was quite spectacular where all three games were lost with the other side ginning. If we had lost just one more round, I would not have been on the winning team. We didn't keep track of individual honors but if we had, I'm sure my mother would have claimed them.

Since it was already 10:45 PM, we decided to stay up and watch The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were truly funny and worth staying up for. I do need to get DVR so I don't ever need to do it again. Since three of my guests, the young ones, have to sleep on the sofa bed, where my big screen TV is now, they also had to stay up. (Although one did cover her head up with pillows and try to sleep, which was very difficult because of all the truly loud LOL.) It is also why I am finishing up this entry after 1:00 AM the next day. (It would have to be one of my longer ones.)

Well, I am finished and will be going right to sleep after I brush my teeth, floss, and properly use an oral rinse. At least it is after everyone has already used the bathroom and before they are likely to need to use it again. One sister did drink as much ice tea as I did today and had more beer so I better get in there and out.