He finally arrives, looking part dapper, part straight out of an infomercial. He is really jazzed for the party to begin, often using a game show-esque voice. His enthusiasm is very apparent, as is his lack of patience and shifting mood. One minute he is doing a card trick, the next he is scolding a man hardcore for getting up to use the bathroom. He also yells at a man for starting to approach the magic area. Steve did not let the man forget his mistake!! He referred to the man in with a disapproving tone for the remainder of the evening.
Mr. Cohen's tricks did not disappoint. He did something called "Think A Drink" where everyone wrote down their favorite drink and passed their paper along to one side. The papers were all shuffled and redistributed. Mr. Cohen called on one man who then called on another who selected another volunteer who in turn picked a volunteer. Those chosen yelled out the drinks on the cards they had as Steve got out a silver teapot. "Margarita!" And poof! A margarita drink poured out of the teapot. The volunteer with the margarita card drank the drink, confirming its realness. From the very same pot came a vanilla shake, Cabernet, and an apple martini. how in the heck?!
He also did this trick where he borrowed three rings from audience members, one being Mrs. C.'s. He shook all of the rings in a wine glass and bam! They were all linked together. He walked around with the chain, having the ring owners confirm that those are in fact, their rings. After a few more shake, shake, shakes, the rings were once again separated. Oddly enough, Mrs. C.'s ring was tighter than it had been before the whole debacle. It did not fit properly again until the next day.
The real excitement came when the audience was asked to write down three random facts about themselves. Once again, cards were passed to one side and shuffled by a random person. Like magic, Steve started calling out random facts about people in the audience. There is no way he had time to read these cards. There was Eric who recently got married and was making baby bok choy for his anniversary dinner. Steve also pointed out a woman who he had a feeling had something to do with television and court. Turns out, the woman had been summoned by Judge Judy! Who the hell has been summoned by Judge Judy?! Oh, this lady. What?! And then there was the man that Steve felt a knightly connection to. Steve kept bending at his knees, looking like a crazy, when he finally asked the man what his name is. The man replied "Neal". The audience at it up, let me tell you!! The whole experience was rather mind blowing to say the least. Mind. Blown.
Post magic, we were all a bit dazed and also thirsty. Well, I was thirsty anyway. Fear not! For we had our own freezer full packed with ice for ice water. Bam! Naturally, we decided the most sophisticated thing to do in such a beautiful setting is to order "Ted" on demand. Ah, yeah.
I didn't actually sleep that night, but wasn't for lack of comfort, more like sleeping is not a strong suit and all that ice water made me have to pee. BUT. The bed was something else. It was like a bed on a bed. It usually takes me a solid two hours to get comfortable and it only took around three minutes on that king-sized piece of heaven.
After mimosas and a delightful breakfast including chocolate croissants and lox (hot damn!), it was sadly time to go. Where to next??!! Well, to eat again! This time to a secret burger joint. It was one of those secret joints that is actually not secret because it is packed but at the same time, supposedly nobody knows about it. The burger was rockin', the music pumpin', and the fellas were there in full force. I saw this one dude in line to order that I found to be so very delightful. What piercing eyes! What wonderful features! I thought about approaching him but then I looked down at my snow boots and remembered my sleeping bag (it was now fifty degrees). and decided to instead rush outside. Ha.
