The Circus

You've got to get out occasionally, or so I'm told... We took the wee one to the circus in Elizabeth City, our nearby metropolis. Elizabeth Town would be more accurate, but that was taken, and Elizabeth Large Town would be even more accurate, but is cumbersome. In addition to several auto dealerships, E City as it is affectionately know by outer bankers, sports a vintage (mildly decaying) National Guard Armory. This sleepy--gymnasium really--played host to the greatest show on earth last week. Now, it is possible that the Circus Pages Circus is not the greatest circus ever to be performed, but I am pretty comfortable arguing that pound for pound, it's pretty bad ass!

Now, let's put aside our concerns for the strange lives of the circus performers and staff (mostly one and the same on this scale), and lets let the 300 LB animal welfare gorilla doze in the corner of the room, and let's--just for a moment--marvel. To not be impressed by this show you would have to be dead, or higher than a giraffe's buns.

Let's do stats first. The Armory's open room had to be around 10,000-15,000 square feet (guessing). There are vacation homes with more space than that (big ones, granted). There were probably less than twelve professional performers, though they wore many hats, and about as many prop guys and poop--no excrement managers. There were: three lions, two elephants, ten or so ponies, a horse, two tigers, a globe of death with four, yes four motorcycles!, a trampoline act, an ariel acrobatics act, and something that was a cross between a bullfight and a wardrobe extravaganza (you gotta see that one to believe it). Perhaps most impressively, the lion tamer, the ticket girl, the face painter, the acrobat, the bikini clad lady in the globe of death, camel wrangler, and sometimes announcer were the same person! She wasn't the only one. One of the acrobats sold popcorn, funnel cakes, did crazy business on a trampoline, and then rode a motorcycle (upside down at least thirty percent of the time) in the globe of death. Oh yeah, and there were four trained camels. From what I understand they are ornery cusses so, there's that.

The versatility, the ease of transition, and the complete lack of pretense (my kid was high as a kite on cotton candy and all over the place, no on once asked her to sit down or back away from the rail) were pretty stunning, but what was more compelling to me was the scale. I live a tiny life in a tiny town, and truth be told, I love our tiny E City. And here it was, a tiny circus in size only. Literally every trailer hauling all of this talent and animal grandeur was parallel parked in less than one city block. Elephants!! You get that? Elephants plural! Tiny footprint, huge show. I know I sound like a bit of a company mouthpiece here, but I payed full price (and then some) I assure you.

It was truly like stepping back in time. We drove forty minutes and fifty years into the past. My daughter and I took an elephant ride. She rode a pony as well. We never once saw a release form! The whole show fit snuggly inside the Armory's walls, but it completely blew our minds. I hope the magic comes to a mini city near you. You can invite them if you would like....


http://www.circuspages.com

Little Sinister Here

I imagine today that the one person who lives on the edge of Washington DC furthest from the violence at the Naval Yard feels far less safe than I do. Statistically speaking, I wouldn't know. I know that daily I worry about my wife and daughter. I know my wife worries about me. I'm on roofs and under heavy things. She works with chemicals and water. Our daughter is new and naive. Then there is the traffic. I'd venture to say that our occupations are fairly dangerous. We fear for one another's safety.

I cannot say who is in more danger; us or the Washingtonian. Factoring in the hurricanes, and winter storms; there is a statisticians dream. But it can be made sense of. Even lightening strikes have a haphazard statistical profile. But, there is nothing sinister in these "accidents." An accidental death highlights human frailty. The violence like today's at the Naval Yard highlights something else. Is it evil? Weakness? Both? No destruction feels worse than self destruction.

I have no insight or perspective on what happened today. I'm trying to understand my home, and its place in this world. I noticed a critical difference between here and what seems a world so far away: There is little sinister here.

Shouldering The Bootleggers

The crowds are gone. The weather is still fully summer. Every store and shop is still open. The ocean will be warmer than it has been all summer for the next month and a half. At no other time in the year is it more clear why we live here.

There are still a lot of visitors-The Bootleggers, to coin a term. Just as rot gut tasted better in a swinging speak easy, vacation feels better when it's a little out of bounds. Those here now, the almost retired, and the childless twenty-probably thirty, but who could pin them down-somethings enjoy summer time amenities at bargain basement rates. They are shoulder people, enjoying the shoulder season--Neither children, nor retirees, not quite summer yet not quite fall. It is pure coincidence that we who live here are accidentally more pleasant to visitors than we will be at any other time in the year. We are not too broke at this point, and we don't have to work all the time.

I can grasp at straws to try and relate this to the rest of the world. My mind wanders to the Syrian dilemma. I can reach, but during the shoulder season, I just can't make it stick. Maybe that's the only point to make. I found myself discussing intervention in Syria with a co worker today in conventional terms...You see a little old lady's purse being stollen, you must act. What if the old lady is two blocks away and you just hear about it later? What if the old lady was actually a mugger on her day off etc etc. But when I walked away from the admittedly short and somewhat flippant conversation, I wasn't thinking about Syria. I was thinking about going spear fishing as soon as I could reasonably stop working for the day.

There's the rub. Duck is a little like booze. Most of the year it's like a fine wine. In February it's like PBR. In the Fall it's like 151. It's at it's purist. It works fast. If you are just visiting you will probably have a great time, and skate through a minor post vacation withdrawal/hangover. If you're here full time you've gotta take the good time easy. Do some chores! At least clean out a couple closets or weed some flowerbeds. If you don't temper the good times, January will be a rude awakening. And as for trying to mould the rest of the world into versions of my permanent vacationland--Don't Do It! We (humanity) would never get anything done. Then again, maybe that's not such a bad thing