Back in the day, Steve and I used to do this: take the bus over from Berkeley, where we lived, to San Francisco. Between where we left and where we landed, we became all new people, visitors to a city we both knew very well. We'd check into some absurdly expensive hotel for a couple of nights, badger the hotel staff about what we really should see while there, and then let Fate take us where it might. Sometimes we'd run into other visitors — real ones — and that gave us the wonderful opportunity to see our beloved San Francisco through someone else's eyes. It was through one such visit, for example, where we learned about the curious holes in the giant pillars at one of our favourite Chinese restaurant: they were bullet holes, by the way, from a night of gang warfare back in the 1960s, and the management left them for the tourists to gawk at. No one ever left us a tip of several thousand dollars for our participation in this game, but that didnt matter. It was all just to have fun, forget about our various problems, and enjoy life a bit... well, until the credit card bill came in, anyway. :-) Nevertheless, I recommend it as a staycation. You never know what you're going to discover about a place you thought you knew. Okay, onward. Eddie's phone call is a bit of a portent of the next storyline, one where we bring back a bit of modern-day insanity to the moment. Hope you enjoy it.