Wednesday, December 12, 2012

At precisely 10:30AM yesterday the movers started bringing boxes into the house.  All in all there were 95 of them.  They finished their task at noon and that’s when ours began.  It’s thirty-four hours later and noticeable progress has been made.  All my magic books have been shelved and are in alphabetical order.  All nine hundred decks of cards have been put away.  I have started attacking the other stuff, but that will take a bit of time because I need to decide where everything will go.

Susan has been a busy beaver.  All the kitchen stuff has been put in its place and some of Alicia’s kitchen things have been put away.  Linen and towels have been laundered and our sheets and quilt are now on the bed.  Susan has put some of her clothes away and has done a bit of work in her office.   She also managed to go to her Pilates class this morning.  I must confess that I passed on the gym today so I could get a handle on things.

Yesterday we had lunch with Dani DaOrtiz, Pepe, Juanma Marcos, Rochester and his assistant at La Varita Mágica, the magic store here in Valencia.  Dani was in town to do a workshop and a lecture and we agreed to meet at Carosel to catch up with one another.  It was a very animated lunch.  I continue to be amazed at Dani’s schedule.  He is in demand all over the world.  Saturday he will be in Barcelona and form there he heads to Peru for a week.  He will be home for the holidays to work on a number of Genii columns and January will see him back in the States.  In addition to all his personal appearances he produces a quarterly magazine in both Spanish and English, makes and sells DVD’s and he has just finished work on a book.  Amazing!

Lunch was outstanding, as usual.  The fresh tomato salad was the star of the appetizers, in my opinion, and the arroz meloso con gambas rojas was as good as that dish gets.  Coffee followed dessert and the obligatory chupito followed the coffee.  We said goodbye to everyone a little after 4:30 because we wanted to return home to continue unpacking the boxes.

We went in search of lunch a little after 2:30 today. We tried a new place – a Taberna ­– that is a five-minute walk from the house.  We chose the menu of the day that offered us mixed grilled vegetables, a steak and dessert.  Susan had the fresh fruit and I had the almond cake.  It was a nice discovery.  We will go back again.

Sofi came over the house around 5:30 and we spent close to two hours going over the effects we will be doing at next Wednesday’s magic show.  For the most part we will be working together.  However she will be doing two effects in one and so will I.  This will be the first time that I have done this version of my kids’ show in Spanish.  Also, it has been a while since I have done my kids show.  It will be an interesting experience and a good opportunity to get some of the rust off.

The next few days will be quite busy.  I catch up with the veteranos tomorrow.  Susan has a luncheon with the Pilates ladies on Friday.  Friday night we have symphony tickets.  Saturday we join Klaus and Zahava for latkes and then we will head out in search of dinner. Sunday we visit La Cuchara Mágica where Jordi will be teaching a cooking class.  I get tired just looking at the list.