This past weekend I was in San Francisco for The 8th Annual
Sketchfest. This was a two week long Comedy Festival with comic
performers ranging from Stand-up, One Person Shows, Improv Groups,
Sketch Companies and then there were shows that sort of defied
description. Some of those were the ones I took part in.
I was lucky enough to see a few shows besides our own. I saw
The Lampshades; the best fake lounge act I’ve seen in a long time. The
physical work they do is sublime and hilarious. I took a peek at
2-Headed Dog, but they were doing a sketch that had three men running
around in their underpants and little else. They were dancing in a
manner that had their peculiar distributions of body fat jiggle in a
way that caused me to run out of the theatre. I’m not saying I’m the
Venus DeMilo, but I don’t choose to subject anyone to the sight of my
sorry flesh sac.
The Theme Park Improv Show had Scott Adsit from 30 Rock and Oscar Nunez from The Office. They were outstanding, but what was really impressive was two of the performers in the troupe were the event promoters. You just never figure people that talented would have it together enough to pull something like this off. They did some of the best improv I’ve seen in a long time.
My husband’s last name is Einbinder. We’ve always assumed the German translation (one binder) meant that it was the moniker for the trade of bookbinding. It’s a rare name. In fact the only other person we’ve ever met with any connection to that name is the movie director Mike Binder. One day, years ago, at the Pumpkin Patch in our neighborhood, we struck up a conversation with him. Blank Man, a movie he directed, was absolutely the funniest movie that year. It still holds up. David Allen Grier kills in it. Of course, he always kills. It turned out that Mike’s last name was shortened from Einbinder. Since then, when we see him places, we exchange that twinkle of recognition of our ‘kinship’. 
There are only certain places I can take her. She is sort of bulky;
she never orders anything. Nowhere too crowded, I wouldn’t feel right
taking up a booth with her. But at the same time, nowhere that doesn’t
have the possibility of running into someone more interesting, in case
I wanted to ditch her, or at least set her aside for awhile. Somewhere
with just enough scenic beauty to fill a background but not enough to
completely divert my attention from her. 