Finding Sherlock

Tonight was the very first time I was sorry not to be a Dr Who fan.  I actually watched my very first Dr. Who episode a couple of weeks ago when a snippet of it was posted to Facebook.  It was one that involved Van Gogh and I went back through 5-6 years of Netflix files and managed to find it.  So at least I knew that Dr. Who travels through time and space in a "tardis," which looks like a London police call box.  But that's pretty much all I retained.

Tonight we went to the 49th annual Lamplighters Gala, those delightful originally written scripts based very loosely on Gilbert & Sullivan plots, using Sullivan's music and new lyrics.  This year's show was called Sherlock Who? and the plot is entirely too convoluted to try to explain, but the first act revolves around Sherlock Holmes and Watson (having seen the current TV series Elementary would also have helped, I suspect, since this Watson was female too) trying to help a damsel in distress and stop a marriage from taking place, which would have resulted in the destruction of a small country.

It turns out that the only way to really save the day is for Holmes to be whisked away in the Tardis by Dr. Who (in this script "Dr. Hugh Dunnit") to 2014 by where the younger Sherlock (looking like Benedict Cumberbatch, who played the role in the short-lived TV series Sherlock) uncovers the clue that will prevent the marriage and save the country.

And then everybody drinks champagne.

As usual,, the lyrics were delightful and included my very favorite Three Little Maids variation--ever...and I've written my share of parodies of that song over the years.  In this version, written by one of my favorite Lamplighters, Jonathan Spencer (if he looks familiar, it's because he was once a contestant on Jeopardy for at least 2, maybe 3 days), had the ladies as ardent fans of Sherlock holmes

Three little Sherlock fans are we,
Odd and obsessed as we can be
Filled to the brim with geek esprit
Three little Sherlock fans

It included delicious lines like "Manic depressives turn me on," and "I plan to stalk you at Comic-Con."

There was a corporation called "Facepalm," whose story started out funny

Though we do not enlist
In their frat boy psychology
How can we resist
Their addictive technology

and got more and more funny as the song by Cary Ann Rosko went on and on having fans of Facebook in stitches at many of the inside jokes.

I wouldn't say this was my favorite Gala ever, but it certainly had its moments and we were glad to be there, which we would not have been had we gone to France.

When it was over, of course, there was champagne and snacks and visiting.  My friend Jen Kiernan, whom I know much better through Facebook, took a selfie of us (and taught me about using the "+" symbol on the side of the phone to snap the picture, which I never knew you could do before!)

Later, her daughter saw us standing with other women and decided she wanted an "old timers" picture.  It was nice to be called an "old timer" even though there is no question about whether or not I am an old timer in this group.

Our friend Bob Cortez, who performed with the Lamplighters for some 10-15 years, had asked me if we could give him a ride to a BART station, since he knew it would be impossible to get a cab that late at night in our somewhat isolated location.   I told him of course we could and we sat to wait for Walt to say his goodbyes and be ready to go.

No.  Those are not our champagne glasses!

Walt and I had planned to have dinner at a cafe in Sausalito that we discovered a year ago after last year's Gala, but we ended up taking Bob all the way to where he parked his car in the East Bay, so we ended up with hamburgers at Jack in the Box for dinner.  But we had a delightful chat with Bob, so I'm glad we did that.

When I got home there was a message from Peach telling me it is cold in Iowa and reminding me to bring a heavy coat (which I don't own) and asked if I had boots.  I guess I may have to buy something other than Birkenstocks before Sunday....