Road bumps.

Feb. 6, Brownsville.
Yesterday I started learning the ropes of traveling with an infant in a circus.
Circus Chimera travels at night after the shows, so it is always very late when you leave, and later even when you finally can put our head on the pillow. Dylan usually nurses one last time before the night at about 11:30PM or so; he has been sleeping through the night regularly for a couple of weeks now, and yesterday he was wide awake when I placed him in his car seat and started driving the 40 miles to the next town. He woke up when I moved him, as I knew he would, and nursed a little before falling asleep again immediately. It was more than 3 AM then, and I was left wondering if that was not going to throw off all that nice schedule he has fallen into on his own.
But all that pales compared to Fridman's end of the stick.
He didn't come to bed before 6AM. One of his jobs at the circus his year, in addition to performing, managing employees welcoming the audience at the door and driving one of the circus' truck, is to coordinate the parking of all vehicles on the new lot so that each is placed where it should be around the tent. There are the trailers where people live in as well as the tractor trailers that carry everything this village on wheels needs to live on the road, from the tent to the snake show, the generator to the cookhouse, the office to the wardrobe. All in all more than two dozen vehicles.
Donald Chimal, who did the job until last year when the Chimal family left the circus after nine years, is going to be with us for a couple of weeks to help Fridman learn the ropes. He'll stay with us next week.
Every lot is different; sometimes the circus is parked at a mall, where space is scarce but the ground is nice and level; sometimes, like here in Weslaco, it is a field large enough space to accommodate everything easily but bumpy and uneven. Waiving a flashlight, the coordinator directs each and every vehicle to their spot as they arrive onto the lot, having marked the spots in advance. The big trucks park around the space where the tent will be set up, each having its particular place in a giant live puzzle that takes shape gradually as the day goes by and the tent goes up. The directing looks like a sign language that would have been stripped to the minimum, a little hand ballet especially designed for the intricacies of backing up your trailer.
Fridman and Donald were done at 6AM. At 8 o'clock there was a knock on the door and Fridman was up and gone to a TV appearance. Summary of his last two days: two hours of sleep after three shows of non-stop work, and on to a new day of work. Mercifully there is only one show today, at 7:30PM, but he still has to set up his equipment in the tent. He finally was able to take a nap this afternoon, after complaining of being exhausted but not being able to sleep. I sang him one of Dylan's French lullabies, Une Chanson Douce.
Traveling with a baby in the circus is nothing, after all.

Figuring out the logistics, with Sister Jo and Armando in the office: 7 big trucks, and we counted 11 individual trailers, about 60 people on the road with the circus, plus a dozen scattered around the country (Brian et al., Alan and Cathy in Hugo, OK; Patrizia in Monterey, CA; JD in Austin, TX; Byron on the road ahead of the circus, etc.) All in all a small circus, as circuses go.