August 31, Shelby.
I tried to meditate on the way this morning.
Since I was driving and not just sitting around I decided to focus on Fridman's lights in front of me in addition to my breathing. I did that because it is the only time I can hope to have some time to myself, and also because of the voices in my head, but not because I had just been listening to a story on the radio about a schizophrenic twin sister with voices telling her she killed John F. Kennedy. Whenever I can't get a decent NPR radio station (too much static) the voices competing in my mind as I drive are loud and thunderous and all but drown the deafening diesel roar of the truck, Spanish English French tossed in as one thought pushes over the next and it is as if The Sex Pistols were back from the glory days of punk mania trying to outdo a New York Philharmonic representation of a Wagner opera with Karajan at the helm in a giant marble theater.
I needed a rest.
It almost worked and then Fridman missed a turn and I hit the brakes to veer just in time to follow the route to Shelby.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
A trailer with a view.
August 30, Hebron, Indiana (32 miles, next to Family Express and a bowling alley.)
Correction.
August 29, Momence.
Mr. Perfect Picture's name is Derrick. I met him this morning, he was walking around with a pocket Spanish/English dictionary and a pencil and introduced himself with bow and a kiss on my hand: wait, wait, don't tell me, "Je suis Derrick!"
Correction: it's not a shower he needs but a drastic haircut.
Mr. Perfect Picture's name is Derrick. I met him this morning, he was walking around with a pocket Spanish/English dictionary and a pencil and introduced himself with bow and a kiss on my hand: wait, wait, don't tell me, "Je suis Derrick!"
Correction: it's not a shower he needs but a drastic haircut.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Late summer.
August 29, Momence.
We moved from the field to an adjacent parking lot last night in anticipation of heavy rains that never came. It is so muggy the humidity hangs in the air like a veil.
St. Patricks school children.
Mr. Perfect Picture is here to help, and other news.
August 28, Watseka.
August 28, Watseka, Illinois (23 miles, behind Walmart.)
The route said: Arrows to lot BEHIND WALMART! You'd think we had parked behind the White House.
The lot reminded me of Circus Chimera, rough. As it happens, Jim Judkins, Chimera's founder and owner, was visiting today on business.
In other news we picked up somebody to help in the kitchen when we left Goodland this morning. I'll call him the Perfect Picture guy for when I was coming back from the whoop with the kids in the double stroller yesterday afternoon he was outside the circus smoking and told me we made a perfect picture, all three in our sun hats. I liked his toothy smile and easy demeanor even though he looked like he could use a long shower (admittedly not a good sign in kitchen help.)
August 28, Watseka, Illinois (23 miles, behind Walmart.)
The route said: Arrows to lot BEHIND WALMART! You'd think we had parked behind the White House.
The lot reminded me of Circus Chimera, rough. As it happens, Jim Judkins, Chimera's founder and owner, was visiting today on business.
In other news we picked up somebody to help in the kitchen when we left Goodland this morning. I'll call him the Perfect Picture guy for when I was coming back from the whoop with the kids in the double stroller yesterday afternoon he was outside the circus smoking and told me we made a perfect picture, all three in our sun hats. I liked his toothy smile and easy demeanor even though he looked like he could use a long shower (admittedly not a good sign in kitchen help.)
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Free ponies.
August 26, Rensselaer.
There is a corral behind the circus in the fairgrounds and Ivan let them loose there. He is Russian, slight and quiet, he takes care of the ponies. When I went out with the kids after breakfast he was running them around it and I don't know who looked more exhilarated, the ponies or Ivan.
There is a corral behind the circus in the fairgrounds and Ivan let them loose there. He is Russian, slight and quiet, he takes care of the ponies. When I went out with the kids after breakfast he was running them around it and I don't know who looked more exhilarated, the ponies or Ivan.
Patriotic scrap.
August 26, Renseelaer.
On highway 41 a guy in a small white truck painted with "Patriotic Scraping" and the dutiful American flag passed us. Shortly thereafter he stopped at a road-side restaurant called "USA Family." You couldn't make that one up.
Culinary habits notwithstanding, the patriotism of the scrap metal business remains doubtful, as the vast majority of this country's scrap metals are shipped to China, where they are melted down and sent right back to the U.S. as toasters, coat racks and the like, thereby further contributing to the rising national trade deficit.
On highway 41 a guy in a small white truck painted with "Patriotic Scraping" and the dutiful American flag passed us. Shortly thereafter he stopped at a road-side restaurant called "USA Family." You couldn't make that one up.
Culinary habits notwithstanding, the patriotism of the scrap metal business remains doubtful, as the vast majority of this country's scrap metals are shipped to China, where they are melted down and sent right back to the U.S. as toasters, coat racks and the like, thereby further contributing to the rising national trade deficit.
Weigh station basics.
August 26, Rensselaer.
There were two routes this morning, one short and a long one that avoided the interstate, probably because there was a weigh station on the way. Circus rule: weigh station are to be avoided at all cost. Sometimes with Circus Chimera management had us make a 80 mile detour on bad country roads in order to bypass a weigh station on a straight 30 mile stretch of freeway.
Weigh stations are checkpoints set on highways or freeways and when they are open it is mandatory for truck drivers to stop and have their tractor trailers checked for everything from weight, as the name indicates, to the driver's log, where work hours are recorded, to anything having to do with the safety of the truck. When there are a dozen trucks involved the wait can become exceedingly long, hence the circus rule.
We took the long route, Fridman driving a truck that would have had to pull over.
There were two routes this morning, one short and a long one that avoided the interstate, probably because there was a weigh station on the way. Circus rule: weigh station are to be avoided at all cost. Sometimes with Circus Chimera management had us make a 80 mile detour on bad country roads in order to bypass a weigh station on a straight 30 mile stretch of freeway.
Weigh stations are checkpoints set on highways or freeways and when they are open it is mandatory for truck drivers to stop and have their tractor trailers checked for everything from weight, as the name indicates, to the driver's log, where work hours are recorded, to anything having to do with the safety of the truck. When there are a dozen trucks involved the wait can become exceedingly long, hence the circus rule.
We took the long route, Fridman driving a truck that would have had to pull over.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Behind.
August 25, Crown Point.
Gorgeous lot, and great playground, a circus Mom's dream (but not laundry, which was also on the program.)
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Cats and dogs.
August 23, Middlebury.
Natalie left yesterday after one of her relatives died - my heart goes out to her; she will be away for another three days. Her husband, Casey, who's some six feet something tall, lanky and square-shouldered, has taken up her act, and he looked like a riot when he walked in, all grin and somewhat disheveled, with the small white fluffy dogs bantering about him, shortly after towering over his heavy-metal backed tiger act.
Natalie left yesterday after one of her relatives died - my heart goes out to her; she will be away for another three days. Her husband, Casey, who's some six feet something tall, lanky and square-shouldered, has taken up her act, and he looked like a riot when he walked in, all grin and somewhat disheveled, with the small white fluffy dogs bantering about him, shortly after towering over his heavy-metal backed tiger act.
Missing Gigi.
August 23, Middlebury.
Sara's mother joined us again yesterday; she'll stay a week. That means Gigi will not show up every day during the first half of the first show as usual. We already miss her - but she's never very far and here she is knocking at the door, or climbing onto Nicolas' little car, crying out "Lalaaa!" (which we surmise is Nicolas.)
Again the Amish are everywhere. There is the huge restaurant, inn and gift shop compound where we're parked (lovely and safe for the kids, a nice change from yesterday's lot, ugly and dangerous as it was right by the highway,) the buggies everywhere; there was a fence for tying up horses in the parking lot at the local grocery store.
Ghost writing.
August 22, Edwardsburg.
The piece of paper on which our route is printed every day often comes with a comment on the bottom, after the directions. Mostly it is to announce somebody's birthday; on Monday this week it was to let people know that Father Dick Notter was holding a mass in the cook house at noon; sometimes it relates to the lot we're going to.
This is what was written today: "Each day is a gift. Enjoy your gift today." I couldn't have asked for a more appropriate reminder of carpe diem after yesterday's trials.
I don't know who writes these notes, although the possibilities are restricted to Tavanna, Vickie and the office employee who joined us before Kelleys Island. I'll find out.
The piece of paper on which our route is printed every day often comes with a comment on the bottom, after the directions. Mostly it is to announce somebody's birthday; on Monday this week it was to let people know that Father Dick Notter was holding a mass in the cook house at noon; sometimes it relates to the lot we're going to.
This is what was written today: "Each day is a gift. Enjoy your gift today." I couldn't have asked for a more appropriate reminder of carpe diem after yesterday's trials.
I don't know who writes these notes, although the possibilities are restricted to Tavanna, Vickie and the office employee who joined us before Kelleys Island. I'll find out.
Friday, August 22, 2008
We're all out of control.
August 22, Edwardsburg.
Yesterday was one of those trying days with the kids (hello euphemisms, child-raising decorum salvage tools.)
Dylan was hysterical by eight thirty in the morning, and it went up from there. I sort of lost it over lunch, the quintessential trying time, one more time Dylan refusing to eat, only he was going to beg and cry for cereals or crackers later on today as he always does, he was obviously tired and out of control, and Nicolas adding his bit complaining for this or that, being a typical 17-month-old, and hours of variations on this theme and I ended up dragging a crying Dylan to his crib.
I know oh so well that by screaming at them I not only fail to solve anything but also behave exactly like them and not as the adult and magnanimous person it is my responsibility to be, I know that when they're tired they get out of control, I know all that, but sometimes, just sometimes, and Dylan hitting or biting Nicolas and then smiling as if he was taunting me, day after day, that is a good recipe for my failing. I try and I try and I do get better, attitudes are caught, not taught, as I once read an Amish web site, and then sometimes I fail, like yesterday, although mostly I just sobbed out of frustration, and he was in bed and fast asleep long before I had stopped crying.
The books you read tell you that you should give your toddlers time outs. Time outs? I never could understand how exactly that worked, how your out-of-control caveman, as Dr. Harvey Karp appropriately calls them (his books were incredibly helpful when Dylan and Nicolas were infants, and again now, although the game has gotten a lot trickier,) will magically stay put, calmly absorbing the lesson you are giving him, in a corner or in a room, all by himself, while you go and have yourself a cup of tea, and how that will work in a home the size of a closet is even more doubtful.
I wish children came with a manual.
NB: deceptive picture/creature.
A trailer with a view.
August 22, Edwardsburg, Michigan (42 miles, US highway 12 and Michigan highway 62.)
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Bad truck.
August 19, Grand Haven.
I was struggling to stay awake on the drive this morning (apparently not the only one, it seems that everybody was dozing at the wheel today, as per a conversation with Sara later on,) until Fridman's truck slowed down and then died on the highway ten miles from here and we came to a stop on a very narrow shoulder. It's close to one o'clock and he's still there, Castro has figured out that it was the fuel pump that broke and Danny is on his way to buy one, so it'll be a long time still before they're done.
I was struggling to stay awake on the drive this morning (apparently not the only one, it seems that everybody was dozing at the wheel today, as per a conversation with Sara later on,) until Fridman's truck slowed down and then died on the highway ten miles from here and we came to a stop on a very narrow shoulder. It's close to one o'clock and he's still there, Castro has figured out that it was the fuel pump that broke and Danny is on his way to buy one, so it'll be a long time still before they're done.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
This American circus life.
August 16, Edmore.
The thing about growing up in the circus for Dylan and Nicolas is that all the elephants, the tigers, the camels and the donkeys in those picture books they read are not anymore strange than Zoe the dog (Natalie' and Casey' and Georgia's dog, to be precise.)
The thing about growing up in the circus for Dylan and Nicolas is that all the elephants, the tigers, the camels and the donkeys in those picture books they read are not anymore strange than Zoe the dog (Natalie' and Casey' and Georgia's dog, to be precise.)
Friday, August 15, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Port Austin.
August 14, Port Austin.
A walk through town, a block away, pushing the double stroller, and there's Lake Huron, the third one we visit so far among the Great Lakes, and a jetty and a beach, and it's in the seventies and breezy, and there's even a whoop (Dylanese for playground) by the beach- life is hard.
The tallest of the Kenyans (I have to get to know their name before the season ends) was jogging back and forth in the sand. He ran for a long time, back and forth and back and forth about 30 feet at the base of the jetty.
What's in a name.
August 14, Port Austin.
We drove through the town of Bad Axe this morning.
It didn't look that bad either.
We drove through the town of Bad Axe this morning.
It didn't look that bad either.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Up in arms.
August 13, Cass City.
At the 135 mile marker on I-75 North, an enormous black machine gun, or some kind of warfare-looking rifle, on a billboard for "SheridanArms.com," right up there with CrackerBarel Old Country Store and Dan Dan the Furniture Man.
I'd just listened to an NPR story on what they called the fastest growing minority in the U.S.: the prison population.
At the 135 mile marker on I-75 North, an enormous black machine gun, or some kind of warfare-looking rifle, on a billboard for "SheridanArms.com," right up there with CrackerBarel Old Country Store and Dan Dan the Furniture Man.
I'd just listened to an NPR story on what they called the fastest growing minority in the U.S.: the prison population.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Patrick Berta 1964-1993 Shooting star.
August 11, Romeo.
My brother Patrick died last night 15 years ago on the tail of a shooting star. He was 29 years young.
The priest said yesterday let's pray for those who are suffering, for those who have died, for all those in need. That makes all of us. I wish I could pray.
My brother Patrick died last night 15 years ago on the tail of a shooting star. He was 29 years young.
The priest said yesterday let's pray for those who are suffering, for those who have died, for all those in need. That makes all of us. I wish I could pray.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Mass.
August 10, Wixom.
There was a mass in the cook house this morning after lunch (lunch is always early on week ends,) led by Father Dick, who came from Toledo last week to join the circus. There was only Natalie and Georgia, Reyna, Johnnie and Nathan, and one of the Kenyans. Another mass will be held tomorrow after lunch as everybody else was busy getting the circus ready.
Contrasts.
August 9, Plymouth.
Nice feel to the lot where we are parked, always it hinges on nothing, just a feeling, the horses are grazing outside our door, an open front yard in front of us, I push the double stroller downtown, a couple of blocks, and it reminds me of Petaluma, California, very gentrified not-at-all-shabby chic downtown lined with boutiques and cafés, a farmers' market, miles from the pot-holed, rundown neighborhood of Detroit where we went to do laundry yesterday.
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Friday, August 08, 2008
The canopy.
August 7, Ypsilanti.
One of the most beautiful lots of the season for me, parked under majestic trees, a lazy river going by, and it's cool under the tree canopy, and thunderstorms come crashing in and it's cooler. Plus, a food co-op, ie local, organic goodies.
Unfortunately we moved at night again.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Coincidences.
August 6, Gibsonburg.
The town of Gibsonburg (founded by William H. Gibson in 1880, 40 acres he and two pals divided into lots) acquired Williams Park in 1914 from the Ohio and West Lime Company. The park is 16 square miles and was built on one of the company's quarry. A sculpture path winds around it, with contemporary pieces from mostly Ohio artists, and before that a "Reflection Point," a bench surrounded by a fence and looking out on a pond. On the bench there is a plaque that reads: "Dedicated to all those whose lives have been touched by cancer/August 2005." The bench looks directly across the pond to a tank (the tank belongs to the Northcoast Veterans Museum, I found out as I reached the other side.) I don't know which one came first, or of the effect is intentional.
I just finished reading a book on cancer called Anti-Cancer, by David Servan-Schreiber, about the role of food, chemicals and the Western way of life in general in the dramatic rise of cancers in the second part of the twentieth century, and how to fight cancer using food and changing one's lifestyle, a gift from my mother I had neglected, thinking why would I read something about cancer when I'm perfectly healthy?
I will never look at food in quite the same way again. Healthy all my life thanks to a Mediterranean diet (and my Mom,) a vegetarian and organic fanatic for many years, and increasingly conscious of the harmful effects of processed food and of chemicals since the birth of my children but that book was the final push. Out went soybean (and most likely in the U.S., GMO soybean) cooking oil, bags after bags of processed chocolate chips cookies (my addiction, an American friend of my parents dubbed me the Cookie Monster when I was staying with them, I was nineteen; suddenly they tasted nasty) and bottles of self-tanning lotion (always loathed my oh-why-so-white legs, vanity, all is vanity, now with the bonus of broken capillaries, hello middle age;) back in with a vengeance came the green tea I couldn't drink while pregnant then breast-feeding. Fridman is watching, and he smiles, another drastic reform in the household, those books she reads, juicy steaks a more remote possibility than ever.
The town of Gibsonburg (founded by William H. Gibson in 1880, 40 acres he and two pals divided into lots) acquired Williams Park in 1914 from the Ohio and West Lime Company. The park is 16 square miles and was built on one of the company's quarry. A sculpture path winds around it, with contemporary pieces from mostly Ohio artists, and before that a "Reflection Point," a bench surrounded by a fence and looking out on a pond. On the bench there is a plaque that reads: "Dedicated to all those whose lives have been touched by cancer/August 2005." The bench looks directly across the pond to a tank (the tank belongs to the Northcoast Veterans Museum, I found out as I reached the other side.) I don't know which one came first, or of the effect is intentional.
I just finished reading a book on cancer called Anti-Cancer, by David Servan-Schreiber, about the role of food, chemicals and the Western way of life in general in the dramatic rise of cancers in the second part of the twentieth century, and how to fight cancer using food and changing one's lifestyle, a gift from my mother I had neglected, thinking why would I read something about cancer when I'm perfectly healthy?
I will never look at food in quite the same way again. Healthy all my life thanks to a Mediterranean diet (and my Mom,) a vegetarian and organic fanatic for many years, and increasingly conscious of the harmful effects of processed food and of chemicals since the birth of my children but that book was the final push. Out went soybean (and most likely in the U.S., GMO soybean) cooking oil, bags after bags of processed chocolate chips cookies (my addiction, an American friend of my parents dubbed me the Cookie Monster when I was staying with them, I was nineteen; suddenly they tasted nasty) and bottles of self-tanning lotion (always loathed my oh-why-so-white legs, vanity, all is vanity, now with the bonus of broken capillaries, hello middle age;) back in with a vengeance came the green tea I couldn't drink while pregnant then breast-feeding. Fridman is watching, and he smiles, another drastic reform in the household, those books she reads, juicy steaks a more remote possibility than ever.
The beach.
August 5, Kelleys Island.
At the beach, very shallow, effectively a huge kiddie pool. We went with John and Reyna and their two kids, and the rest of the circus was there too, crew and performers alike. Poor Nicolas' turn to be sick these days, so no more than feet in the water for him.
The island is too cute and perfect, like fake scenes from a Christmas shop window.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Kelleys Island.
August 4, Kelleys Island.
We all took the ferry with everything and our house.
Seven ferries total to get the circus onto the island, big trucks and small trucks, animals and humans, over a little more than three nautical miles of Lake Erie. Upon arrival we were greeted by crowds worth a movie star sighting, but also just a family by the street waving and shouting "Welcome!", people lining around the circus, watching, then cheering like Elvis fans when the elephants were unloaded from their truck. John had told us a few days back the circus was hugely popular here; we were not disappointed.
Kelleys Island is a small island, some four square miles, between Toledo and Cleveland on Lake Erie. On the ferry ride Dylan got up to the captain's platform in his father's arms, loving every minute of the trip, while I held Nicolas and walked around the dock, squeezing past the cars and trucks, a seemingly oversized cargo for the small vessel.
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