We’ve been wanting to see Wicked again ever since it came back to the Bay Area, but, having seen it three times already, it’s been hard to justify shelling out $80-100 per ticket. Today we decided to head to the theater and try to win lottery tickets. The way the Wicked lottery works is, two hours before the show, they raffle off about 12 or so pairs of obstructed or limited view seats, for $25 per ticket. If your name is picked, you can purchase up to two tickets. When we showed up at the theater, we were pleased to see that there were only about 30 other people milling about, so we figured we had a good chance of getting picked, right?
While waiting, I ran into an old high school friend of mine, whom I hadn’t seen in years! She was with two other companions, and Shweetie and I noted that they needed at least two of their names to be drawn in order for all three of them to be able to see the show. Once the drawing started, it was apparent that luck was on their side, as two of their names were drawn within the first minute. After paying for their four tickets, the three of them kindly waited with us to see if we would get picked and pointed out that we now had three chances to win, since one of them still had her name in the drawing. Thank goodness we ran into them, since, as luck would have it, neither Shweetie nor I were drawn, but the very last name drawn was my friend’s companion. Thanks to them, we scored tickets to see the show! (Shweetie and I cannot believe how incredibly unlucky we always are when it comes to these drawings for show tickets.)
By that time, we had about an hour and a half to kill, so we wandered over to Brenda’s, a French soul food restaurant that had gotten good Yelp reviews. The line was ridiculously long, and we finally conceded that we would not have enough time to eat there before the show started. Luckily, a couple standing next to us overheard our discussion, and suggested we do what they were doing – taking their food to go so that they could get back to the Orpheum Theatre in time for the 2:00 showing of Wicked. We decided to do just that, and ended up eating our brunch in the car. It was pretty good!
We arrived back at the theatre just in time, and when we sat down in our seats, we realized that these seats were true to their description. Almost the entire left side of the stage was obstructed because we were in the second row of the orchestra section and so far to the side. However, it didn’t detract from the wonderful music (though I’d like to just say for the record that we’re completely spoiled after having seen Idina Menzel as Elphaba and Kristen Chenoweth as Glinda the first time we saw Wicked, and no one since has held a candle to these two crazily talented women). At intermission, we moved back a row, since there was no one sitting behind us, and that allowed us to see a little bit more of the left side of the stage.
After the show, we decided to do a little shopping at Banana Republic. Almost immediately upon entering, the workers swooped down upon us to let us know that they were going to be having a massive 40% off sale on all of their regularly priced merchandise on Wednesday and Thursday of that week, and that they were currently taking presale orders. FORTY PERCENT OFF, ARE YOU SERIOUS? Shweetie and I started earnestly shopping as if it were our jobs, and two hours and five trips to the dressing room later, we walked out of the store with two pencil skirts, two pairs of trousers, three sweaters, two dress shirts, and a scarf set aside to be rung up on Wednesday. I felt a tiny bit guilty that we’d just collectively spent over $400 on clothing, but realized that neither of us had really bought any new clothing in probably five years, and that we’d also saved about $300 because of the 40% off. I also walked away with a pair of walking shorts and a tank top, which were on clearance, and not eligible for the extra 40% off.
To round out our day, we ended up at Osha Thai Noodle Café for dinner, our go-to place when we’re in need of quick, cheap food in the City. There was a little bit of a wait, so Shweetie sat down in their little waiting area, while I went to use the restroom. When I emerged, there was an older woman sitting next to Shweetie, chatting away with him about restaurants in San Francisco. It turns out that she and her sister were visiting from Ottawa, and had ended up at Osha Thai because they could not find Cortez, the restaurant their friend from home had recommended, and had just asked a random local on the street where they should eat. The woman had started out by asking Shweetie what to order, and the conversation had progressed to the day they had spent at Fisherman’s Wharf. She and her sister had found the seafood selection there rather unimpressive (everything was fried), despite hearing many people insist that the best seafood in all of San Francisco was located there. Upon seeing our incredulous reactions to this claim, she began asking us where they should eat, since she surmised that our tastes were in line with theirs. We started mentioning places and the next thing we knew, our table was ready. The two sisters insisted that they could just talk to us when we were all done eating, but we instead invited them to eat dinner with us, so that we could talk over places during the meal. We ended up ordering food for the four of us and sharing it family-style, and then split the bill. We wrote out our recommendations and they were really grateful for our help. I hope they tried out some of the places and enjoyed them!
Random, huh?
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