Lucky Timing

This story began when my husband bounded up the stairs one morning and said, "Houston, we have a problem."  We needed our passports for our GOES interviews (to obtain passes that speed up the process at airports for international travel, and also at security).  And our passports were with the outfit handling our visas for Brazil.  We got on the phone, and thanks to extreme good luck, our visas were back from the Brazilian embassy and in the hands of the visa service company in San Francisco.   All we had to do was leave in enough time to drive into the city and pick up our passports before our GOES interviews at San Francisco Airport.

When we got into the city, the traffic on King Street was backed up for miles and we soon realized that a Giants game had just let out. Our route went right past the stadium and the street was blocked off.  The minutes ticked by as we sat in stalled traffic going nowhere.  Finally, after about 25 minutes, we were able to make a left turn and get around the mess.  My husband stayed with the car while I ran into the building on Montgomery, took the elevator to the 7th floor, got our visas and passports (saving them the mailing fee), and was out the door in two minutes. Getting onto the freeway again took a bit of fuss, as usual, but we both heaved a sigh of relief, realizing that we would make it to the airport on time. In fact, we were early and they were running behind. So we had about a 45 minute wait. The interviews went well, and we decided to celebrate at a restaurant we like in Redwood Shores called Mistral. 

We called the restaurant from the road to see if we needed a reservation. We were told they were packed and we couldn't get a reservation until 7:45, which would've meant a wait time of an hour.  So, we considered other possibilities as we drove. Finally, I said, "Let's call back and tell them we'll take the 7:45 reservation."  We looked at the number again and realized it was an 818 area code.  We'd called a different Mistral in Hollywood, hundreds of miles away. Although the Mistral in Redwood Shores was also very busy, they had room for us and we had a great meal. Had we made a reservation at the Hollywood Mistral, much confusion would have ensued. So, our day turned into a lucky one all the way around.