The Greatest Show on Earth! (And More)

So Joe and the kids and I went to the circus on Saturday. (Yes, I said the kids... he has two.) It was SO MUCH FUN. I had never been to an actual circus before, only Cirque du Soleil, and this had everything that I wanted/expected: tigers, elephants, trapeze artists, canons, and monkeys. (Ok... there weren't any monkeys. It just sounded good.)

The kids really like trains (like my nephew Zavier), so we drove to Owings Mills and took the commuter rail into the city. Sooo much more affordable than parking at 1st Mariner Arena, I'll tell you what. And definitely tons more fun. Once we got to the arena, my God was it bloody expensive! Light-up toy things were $20 or so apiece! Food? Unreal. But Joe's awesome... and we had our fill of cotton candy (I LOVE cotton candy), popcorn, drinks, and beers (adults only).

My favorite acts were the predictable ones: the tigers and the elephants. They are just amazing. I think the kids liked the race cars and the dancers the best. I was surprised there weren't any lions. When did white tigers replace lions? Aren't lions required at a circus?

Even though I took a lot of photos, many turned out blurry because I didn't use the flash. I have a few cute ones of the kids, but I don't want to post those without Joe's permission. Here are two pics that turned out super-mediocre (you know, just to prove that I was there).

Here's one of the elephant march - but it's kinda dark.







Here's another one of an elephant being served in a restaurant by the humans.






All-in-all, it was a whole lot of fun. I'm glad I finally got to experience an actual circus, and I was relieved to see that all of the animals looked healthy and very well taken care of. By the end of the day I was absolutely beat. I'm just not used to that much excitement! Well, that much excitement plus kids. :) I know we won them over, though, because they kept asking to go back for the rest of the night - even while they were fighting sleep on the car ride home. Ha!

On the flip side, today was grown up day. I met NPR Junky, Anger Hangover and LF for brunch in Canton, and we had a marvelous time. Despite our $4 orange juices (but oh, so good), we had a blast at Helen's Garden, an artsy-fartsy place on the square. We followed that up with beers locally, and well... the conversation just went downhill from there. But hell! That's what girl time is all about! Unfortunately, I had to take off to prep for my big date (haha), so the girls continued on without me. I'm sure they missed me terribly. :)

This evening Joe and I grabbed food at Tutti Gusti, a delicious Italian takeout, and I finally saw Little Miss Sunshine. It was really enjoyable, although a bit more drama and a little less comedy than I thought it would be. Does that make sense? It was great to have some downtime with the BF, though. This week is going to be exhausting (and I'm missing CJ, of course, who is on vacation). This weekend was the calm before the storm.

Ah well... I'm off to get my beauty sleep for tomorrow. And so another week begins...