Sunday, May 18, 2008

I can haz rough drafts!

I finished the first draft of my second final paper this evening. Both papers are presently 14 pages long. May I just say that I'm really looking forward to turning them in, and being finished with my semester? The classes were great, it was just difficult because all five of us kept getting strep, and boy howdy, it kicked my posterior. But I'm almost finished! And then I can start in on my page-long list of things that I've either been putting off, or have forbidden myself to start because I'd be too distracted. Like transplanting my bulbs... if I get started digging in my gardens, the rest of the world loses importance for me.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

we went to the circus!

My most excellent eldest brother was able to obtain tickets for us to go to the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus today! "Us" was my four children, my Mom, and me. The circus was amazing. First, before the thing started, we got to go down onto the arena floor and look around. They had a few costumes there for the children to try on. The Chinese acrobats did juggling. The clowns brought children into the 'ring' for a tug of war. And an elephant came out!

The show itself was much MUCH different from when I saw it probably 30 years ago. Much higher tech, of course. The ringleader sang! Actually, he started us off by singing the National Anthem, which I really liked, of course. There was a clown who was his 'foil', and they had this running 'contest' about whose circus it really was. There were half a dozen elephants, there were horses with acrobats on their backs. There were frisbee playing dogs! (man, were they fast) There were Shetland ponies with goats riding on their backs. (honest!) And there were TIGERS. Wow. There were also trapeze artists (insane, the lot of 'em) and the acrobats came out again. There were folks doing stunty things on rings in the air or on ribbons hanging from the ceiling/rigging. There were motorcycles - six of them drove into a huge steel ball and drove around INSIDE of it... mind boggling. There was a motorcyclist who drove up a wire to the ceiling.

The children had a fantastic time. Thank you, Uncle Charlie! And thank you Grandma, without whom the day would have been MUCH more difficult for the Mommy.