Says You: 2011

It was Richard Sher, the host on Says You who explained tonight that he had just walked out the door of his hotel when he saw a car with a sign on it that looked like a campaign sign for Donald Trump, until he looked closer and saw that it said "Trump: We shall overcomb." He explained that was when he knew he was really in San Francisco.

Yes, it was time for Says You and we left the house around 4 to make our way to San Francisco. We decided to drive down through Marin County, hoping for lighter traffic (good decision). As we came out the tunnel, we could see the city stretched out before us and the bridge up ahead. My favorite view ever. I love it in sun, in rain, in fog and in any other mix of weather you can imagine. But my very favorite is emerging from that dark tunnel and seeing this:

and then

I swear, I'm the biggest tourist ever when it comes to San Francisco. I just love looking at my city!

We were quite early, so we drove out California St. to find the Jewish Cultural Center, where the show was being taped, and found a great place to park, then went wandering around Laurel Village looking for someplace to eat. All the places that I had known from my Lamplighters days are long gone, but we did find an interesting restaurant, called Asqew, where you order from a menu of skewered things and sides. I had Thai Lime chicken with garlic mashed potatoes and a roasted pear salad. Everything was delicious, and we apparently just missed the dinner crowd, since the place was filling up quickly by the time we were leaving.

We arrived at the center about half an hour before they were letting people into the theatre so we had a dessert cookie from their snack bar and sat around to wait.

The Says You cast arrived en masse and we had a brief meeting with my friend, panelist Tony Kahn, who didn't make it out here last year, so I'd missed him. Good to see him looking relaxed and healthy following a week in Monterey with his wife, author Harriet Reisen.

We've had our tickets for about 6 months now, and I ordered them the week they went on sale, so we were disappointed to see that we were in row CC, which in most theatres would meant that the rows would be numbered from A to Z and then start all over again with AA and BB and so on. However, here the double lettered rows were the chairs that they placed in FRONT of the regular seats, so we were in the third row and I didn't even have a woman with a huge afro in front of me, as I did in So. California last year!

The show, of course, was very funny and something we wait for eagerly each year. We always learn something, and this year found out that Brianna is cincinate. Now I can't find that definition in my dictionary, nor can Google, but apparently "cincinate" means with curly ringlets.

We sat through the two tapings and got home around midnight, but it was really worth it and I'm glad we'll have a chance to do it all over again on Sunday.