Carnies, Cokes & Cotton Candy

In the build-up to the big Kelly Miller Circus, we watched a couple circus movies: The Greatest Show on Earth (which wasn't even the greatest show on TV that night) & Roustabout (an Elvis film that bares the distinction of being the only Elvis Film I've ever seen). I wonder if Elvis movies (all 31 of them) might be a good follow-up to the Spacey movies. I realized while watching it that I really have a predilection for loving crap. At t turns out, Roustabout is only vaguely circus related because it's only 1/2 circus; the other half is carnival, but it's unclear what it's supposed to be. We also saw a Dukes of Hazzard episode yesterday morning in which Luke joins some sort of traveling stunt-driving road show which is sort of circus related. And I watched the last hour of Octopussy in which a rogue Soviet officer plans to detonate a nuclear bomb in a circus tent on a US military base in West Berlin & James Bond dresses like the knife thrower (& later, like a clown) to infiltrate the roustabouts & save the day. Did you follow that? Good; there may be a pop-quiz @ the end of the post. As far as other circus movies go, we forgot about Big Top Pee Wee & Dumbo didn't come in time... oh well. Roger Moore IS James Bond!As or the actual circus yesterday, I took Isaiah to watch the tent raising in the morning. He brought his little stuffed elephant toy to show the elephants. He liked the camels too, but the elephants were his favorite. Afterwards, I called my sister & she came out in the afternoon to go w/ us to the show. We went to the 4:30 show so as to get home early, make pizza, & chill out in the evening rather than leaving @ 9:30 & fighting w/ Isaiah's bed-time.

I wish we could see a circus w/o the residual guilt that always comes after watching animals jump through hoops (similar to the guilt I feel every time I eat meat). That said, we had a good time watching the animals jump through hoops. Isaiah loved the dogs, the tigers, & most importantly, the elephants. The older kids dug the ropes/tumbling stuff & Aiden seemed to love the clowns too. I think Elizabeth had fun, & Sam was paying much more attention than we expected he would. He's also developing a strong interest in watching the other kids. While Isaiah couldn't b bothered while watching the elephants, Sam couldn't be bothered while watching Isaiah. It was pretty cute. The down side this year was 2 fold. 1) It was moved from Riverside Park to Parkside Park which just isn't as good of a location. 2) It was hot as Hell in the tent. Other than that, a good time was had by all. They're playing Fowlerville this evening, so you should go check it out.