March 17, Tucson, Arizona.
I'm actually blogging, finally.
I'm posting this at the same time I'm writing it - almost. It's late at night, the only time I could find to write, and I'll post it tomorrow from the office. I still do not have internet access at home, and since this seems to be the norm rather than the exception, I ordered an Airport Extreme base from the Apple store a few days ago, a little gizmo that should extend my range and otherwise generally improve my reception and speed. But of course things are not as easy as ordering something from the Apple store when you're on the road. You have to send it to a physical address and then have somebody, in this case Sheyla, Fridman's sister, send it to you via general delivery at the post office, after carefully calculating which town you'll be in by the time the package gets there or a few days past. If you leave the town before it gets there, for example, it might as well have been sent to Mars, you're gone and there is no coming back.
So for the meantime I'm shuttling back and forth between the office and the trailer, carrying the laptop. In the mornings, because Fridman is usually sleeping later than me (no getting up for nursing...) I'll leave Dylan in the house after nursing and changing him. In the afternoon I'll try and go with him in the BabyBjorn. The success of the outing depends on whether I've put him to sleep soundly by walking for a while beforehand; if he's awake he'll usually start fussing after a minute and a half or so, thereby ending the work session before it starts. Finally I'll go again at night after the show and before they close the office down, again leaving the baby home with Fridman. Sheyla just called to say the package should get to Goodyear, Arizona, by mid-week; I'll get it on Friday, when we get there.
For now we're in Tucson, and staying five whole days in the same location, the Tucson Mall to boot. No asking for more in Circus World. Tucson made me think of this book by Barbara Kingsolver, "The Bean Trees," which I had read last year, so I took it out again. By the end of the season in November I hope to reach page 12.
In another (pre-baby) life I used to be an avid reader and a cultural junky. I devoured books like candy (and with candy.) I'm what you call a highly educated gal. I was born and raised on the French Riviera (nothing to do with education but I thought I'd throw that in to impress folks) in a middle class and very liberal, art-savvy family and I was also lucky enough to go up to Paris, as we say there, at age 15 or just in time to go wild, and occasionally enjoy a a fine intellectual and cultural world. As far as I can remember I loved to read. I got a Master's degree in English and American literature and civilization just to be able to finally enjoy Shakespeare unedited. Since I didn't feel I had read quite enough yet I went on and got another Master's, this time in photojournalism so I could prove those people wrong that say photographers can hardly read and write, let alone spell. When I started on that career and had to expand my language skills into Spanish, I achieved the nirvana of being able to read Garcia Marquez as he originally intended us to. The goal now is to read Dostoyevski in Russian, and with the Russian mafia on hand at the circus I think that's a reasonable goal.
So the joke goes something like this. Sometime last year when Fridman and I were helping our friend Marcos in Hugo, Oklahoma, with his lawn care and trash removal business, freezing our butts and getting sores on our hands, we would cheer ourselves up with, "Two Master's degrees! (Valerie) A professional performer! (Fridman) ...Yes we're raking leaves!"
This year it's: "Two Master's! Yes, I'm washing diapers!" But then again I've also cleaned houses, sold hot-dogs from a cart and Fridman and I once worked setting up a burial site, mounting the coffin-lowering device backward in the process.
There was an accident on the way here from Sierra Vista last Sunday night, and Dante's old motorhome was totaled. Igor was driving and Olga was with him. They were hit from behind by a big rig, apparently going a little too fast when they were going a little slow. Nobody was hurt, but Igor, who had some previous spine injury, is now wearing a neck brace and off work. Dante left the circus for good the next day; he's now back home in New Mexico.
It was also Sasha's twentieth birthday today. Twenty! On n'a pas tous les jours vingt ans... They had a big party at the trailer, a smorgasbord of meats, seafood and sushi. The sushi was partly for me since I'm a vegetarian and they were complaining I never ate anything. I think I finally proved them wrong. The party went on late through the night. With the pine trees surrounding the trailer it was like having our own little private patio there on the parking lot of the Tucson Mall, people stopping at the light gawking. The Chinese troupe was invited to join in, the Russians forgot all about the cake, there was an animated sort of conversation as Vasily tried to talk to the Chinese, none of who speaks a word of English, Fridman and I took turns shuttling back and forth to check on the baby sound asleep in our trailer "next door," we all had a good time.
Pix 1
The first picture is of Sasha, his birthday cake, a honey cake they call it in Russia, and his dog, Cheyenne. The arm could be Fridman's, but then again it was late at night.
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