I bought tickets for the Giant's home-opener on Friday, April 5th, as well as the game on Saturday. We had a reservation at the Downtown Courtyard (Marriott) for Friday night, and figured we could park the car and walk to-and-from the games. With the Opening Day-thing starting at about 10am on Friday (gametime was 1:30pm), we started calculating how early we'd have to leave to get to San Francisco, park the car, and walk about a mile to the stadium at, say, 11am. Figuring traffic, we'd have to leave before the end of "rush hour," and be caught up in all the delays that it causes, and it kept getting earlier, and earlier. On Tuesday, the 2nd, we thought, "Maybe we can get a room on Thursday night, too," and I went on-line to book it. There were no rooms at the inn. Undaunted, I thought I'd wait until Thursday morning, and try again. Sure enough, plenty of room, stay in the same room both nights; I made the reservation at 11am, and we checked in a little after 4pm.
Mary loves staying in "really nice" places, and considers Courtyards an acceptable place to stay. We were not disappointed by the San Francisco Downtown, either. It's a very nice hotel, in a perfect spot if you'd like to take in a weekend of Giant's baseball (there were a few Cardinal fans among the guests, but not very many). The walk is fairly easy, even for a "gimp" like me, and gives you a chance to locate the closest food and beverage places outside of the hotel. The hotel food is fairly over-priced (either that, or I'm just not used to SF prices), and is better than "coffee shop" food, although I'd prefer "coffee shop" food because it's more food, and less "presentation" (and, maybe, presumption). They had a Starbuck's attached to the lobby, but there were pretty long lines. The breakfast place was called Jasmine's Kitchen. An eggs-any-style buffet was $15, so the young Chinese woman and I got acquainted over at Starbucks (in case any of you missed it I'm a hopeless flirt, and my wife knows it).
Sounds like a great time, eh?
On Friday morning, at about 8am, I got a call from my daughter telling me my sister Pat had died, no details available. By 9am, I had talked to both my brother-in-law, and one of my nieces, as well as my other daughter. As the time approached to start walking to the ballpark, I was in a bit of a quandary. Should I go to the games, or pack-up and go home? I said a little prayer; I asked what I should do, and I got this image of my sister Pat, haranguing me for wasting my money. It was pretty life-like, I can assure you, but it gave me the ability to enjoy the weekend we had planned. Our hearts still went out to Jack, Danielle and her girls, and Kimberly; we both have lost Moms, but I wouldn't know what to say to Jack. I live in abject fear that I will lose Mary first. Both of our lives have been prolonged; we have a reason for being here; I just don't know what it is. I know what it's like to bury a child, but not a spouse. I cannot, for an instant, imagine the anguish of losing a spouse. They had been married for 47 years; Mary and I are at 39. I don't know that I could survive something like that.
We went on, of course, and had a great time. In honor of a sister who hated baseball, but hated losing money even more, we had a great time.
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