Circus Soapbox

This morning we went to the circus! St. Louis has its own circus that runs for a couple of weeks here every summer and travels to a few other locations during the year. A few mornings during its run here in town they hold special shortened programs, which are perfect for those who have very fidgety children and/or are trying to deal with several young children at once. Today we fell into a category encompassing both needs. Although the circus' interpretation of a Don Quixote storyline was a bit generous to the star of Cervantes' original work, it was fairly entertaining. Some impressive horseback tricks, several trained dogs (Jack's favorite act), and a jaw-droppingly good act involving six trapeze artists on three trapezes rounded out the show, interspersed with some less-than-stellar Sancho Panza clown gags. The highlight for both Jack and me, however, was the cotton candy, Jack's first taste of my favorite fair treat.

Graham amazingly slept through most of the performance. He's been talking lots the past few days and has started spending some time hanging out in the jungle.

He's also a frequent subject of Jack's photography. And Jack's photo portfolio is extensive now (see, e.g., the following picture of the Bendaroo turtle we made last week--there are currently at least a dozen pictures of Turtle on my camera). So much so that we're thinking of getting a new camera for us and giving our old digital camera to Jack; he would love to have one of his own so that he could take pictures whenever he wants, and the kiddie versions just wouldn't cut it.

On a completely different subject, a friend of mine from law school works at the Environmental Defense Fund and just sent a link to this very moving video of the oil spill disaster in the gulf. A few of the pictures are disturbingly graphic depictions of the damage, but I think it's important that we be uncomfortable about what has happened so that we demand highly enforced regulations that will prevent any more such tragedies.