It is good to be back! I had a grand ol' time in California. Saturday and Sunday, I went out with a couple friends who are recent transplants to the greater L.A. area (which does indeed sprawl out massively, and where the air is brown even though the wildfires are over). Monday, of course, was Game Time. I left the hotel at 7 a.m. for the Merv Griffin's Crosswords studio. Everyone working on the show was great. The contestant producers, the show's producers, the hair-and-makeup people, even the standards-and-practices lawyer—they were all friendly and put the contestants at ease, and they were good at their jobs. The host, Ty Treadway, was genial and enthusiastic and chatty. My fellow contestants were all Midwesterners from the Chicago auditions, so we all traveled on MGC's dime.
I can't talk about any game play or results, of course. But I can tell you that the show I was on was the middle taping of the day, so I reached the airport in mid-afternoon and changed to an earlier flight. Yay! No dreaded redeye flight! And I had a couple hours to kill, so I and another woman from my episode parked ourselves at the bar across from our gate and relaxed with wine and good conversation. Thanks to the earlier departure, I was home by about 1 a.m.
The first season's taping wraps up in a week, but you can register as a potential contestant for season two. Do it! It's fun! But you've got to know crosswords, and you've got to be quick on your mental feet. (Contestants get a small number of seconds to decide to ring in, and a similarly small number of seconds to give an answer. Zoom, zoom!)
