My birthday seance

Although my birthday was actually last Wednesday, we celebrated last night with a seance in the Houdini Room at the Magic Castle. Dinner was first. The first course was lobster bisque, followed by shrimp cocktail. Since I'm not a fan of seafood, they had some artichoke puffs for me. Then Caesar salad, followed by the main course, and then Bananas Foster for dessert.

After dessert we were asked to leave the room while they set up for the seance. When we came back, the "medium" came in. Introduced himself as Leo. Before the actual seance, he did some mind-reading tricks...had someone think of a number which he wrote down. He asked me to think of the first time someone sent me flowers, which I couldn't remember. So I thought about the huge arrangement Edgar sent me on my 40th birthday. When Leo gave me the slip of paper on which he had written the name that I was supposedly thinking of, it was Edgar.
Later, I remembered that it was my brother who gave me my first flowers: when I was having my appendix out, 4-year-old Edgar had Ma bring me a bunch of dandelions.


40th birthday flowers from Edgar

The seance was a little disappointing. Lots of very obviously recorded voices ("Who is disturbing me?"). The table rose and fell quite dramatically, but I wasn't frightened at all. Steve and Lisa (who were sitting across from me) said they saw a person behind me, but I didn't. I assume this was because it was behind me.

It was a great evening! To have dinner in a private room, with our own waiter and chef was cool, and being the magician's main "victim" was fun.