Circus

We took the wee ones to the circus today. It was not the PETA-approved vegan cruelty-free circus, Alec Baldwin take mercy on our souls. But we didn't rob any banks or park in any handicapped spots en route, so? Does that make us carbon neutral? The circus is not what Loverpants or I remembered. And by that I mean we were not in peanut heaven straining our eyesight (over the whirring of those light sabers that all the spoiled brats lucky kids won't put down) so that we can sort of see maybe somewhere down on that expanse of a floor there is a microscopic clown with a molecule of pie and a trampoline doing something funny or cool.

It seems that live performances these days are righting the wrongs of all peanut heaven plebeians and reducing the audience size and embiggening the stage OR SOMETHING and going largely and in chargely with the intimate stage setting.

I am a very big fan of the acrobatics and trapeze and sequins and general clowning and now I know my Baby Girl is, too. They were also both oddly entranced with the motorcycle cage. It came at the way end of the P.T. Barnum show and you'd think my kids would have started getting all feral in the aisle and stealing some kids' light sabers after a couple hours of cotton candy-infused mania but they were cool customers.

Say what you will about Pixar and Steve Jobs and other modern wizards supplanting the wonderment of actual live performances for Kids These Days, but I spent the afternoon at UTC McKenzie Arena and I'm pretty sure the greatest show on earth is still ranking pretty high.

***

I loved this lady and her costume. I like this photo of her waiting in the wings, even though it's all grainy. I love her stance. She reminds me of a character from that wonderful "Checkers" painting by Norman Rockwell.

I believe these snow cone novelty cups were $42.

Spring Forward

We turned the clocks ahead one hour on Sunday and yet as I was driving to the gym the other night, the sun just beginning to wind down a conversation about spring fashions with the Monet blue sky at 7:30 p.m., I turned the clocks way back. I was not 31, a mother of two and a full-time wearer of sensible teacher lady shoes driving to go use the eliptical machine for my allotted 30 minutes. I was 17, a girlfriend of no one but the freedoms and limitations and rippling confusions of adolescence, driving to play practice where I would flirt with boys and forget lines. The perfectly aligned row of flowering dogwood trees watched as I transformed into my 17 year-old counterpart, driving my mother's white mini-van, blaring the radio with the moxie and self-centeredness of a girl who only had a few months left of being a full-time denizen of a home with a kitchen and a yard and a comfortable couch. At 17, I had a superhero power of flicking on different personalities that convenienced different circumstances and companies of people. Flick on, flick off. I liberally changed like I pressed buttons on the tracks of a CD, the Lisa Loeb "Tails" CD that I played on repeat, abusing the rewind button to play "Sandalwood" one more time. Sometimes I get surges of teenagedom and I can only handle a small helping of the hormone and hyperactivity that once wreaked havoc on my little world. I crested the mountains and sunk into the deep deep valleys more in the course of a day than is healthy for anyone who is not 17 with a newly-minted license to drive and an extra hour of sunlight in the evening. ***

Bonus Track: I am 15 here. Try to find me. I look like Rory Gilmore.