Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Today is the day of the general strike in all of Spain.  The unions will exaggerate the level of participation and the government will minimize it.  It is sort of like the estimates for the number of people who watch the Rose Parade.  I guess that, in both cases, if you average out the two estimates, you get close to reality.  Looking out the window I can see that the electronics store across the street is open and so is the café/restaurant on the corner.  We will check to see if the Central market is open, but I doubt that it is.  There is not a lot of foot traffic at that intersection.

Yesterday morning Susan and Brian went shopping for a number of kitchen utensils so that we can cook next Thursday’s turkey.  She found the all-important roasting pan and a baster.  She picked up a number of other things, also.  While she was shopping she received a call from El Corte Inglés telling her that her cranberries had arrived and had been set aside.  Success!

We had lunch at home.  Susan and Brian had made a stop at Carrefour – think Super Target ­ – and Susan picked up some brochettes and a loaf of bread and that is what we had for lunch.  Around 4:00 we put on our rain gear and headed out to El Corte Inglés to pick up the cranberries.  We headed back home directly afterwards and since it was a cold, rainy and dreary day we stayed indoors for the rest of the afternoon and evening.

I caught up with our upstairs neighbor the other day.  Pepe and his family live directly above us.  He has two children and the oldest is five.  He and Susan had a brief conversation the other day.  Pepe had just taken his dog for a walk and as Susan and he waited for the elevator she asked Pepe what the dog’s name was.  He told her that the dog was called Kiti.  Susan burst out laughing and then explained that I used a dog puppet in my kids’ act and that my dog’s name was Kitty.  Pepe then asked if I did magic shows here in Spain and Susan judiciously replied that he had best ask me that question.  Well, the other day he asked and I said yes.  I finally have an entrée in the world of colegios here and if all goes well I can use the recommendation of the head of this particular colegio as a means of getting access to others.  There is no fixed date for the show, but we are talking Christmas time.

The good news is that all our stuff should be delivered next week and that means that I will have all the ingredients for my kids’ show in house.  Now I have to give some thought as to how I can include my fellow magician, Sofi, into the act.  There certainly is sufficient time to think about that.