Running Away With the Circus

Little rock-climbers

2012-02-02T14:15:00.000-08:00

Here in London, the kids' physical education program is at a rock-climbing wall, in a gym just 1/2 block from the Royal Albert Hall. I didn't even know kids this young could do rock-climbing - much less set the ropes for each other - but they do, and they absolutely love it. In the vertical picture on the side, that is Baz climbing at the top, with Ayla down below.

It feels sometimes like the job of a parent is to expose our kids to as many things as we can. To give them a taste of what life has to offer, with the hopes that they'll find their own passions. But it's still surprising to me when their experiences are ones that I've never had! Rock-climbing falls into that category, along with karate, yo-yoing, learning mathematics in French, wearing glasses... I suppose the list goes on and on, and they are still very young!

Ayla's glasses

2012-02-01T07:01:00.000-08:00

So, my little girl is wearing glasses.
This all came about over the past month. Arriving here in London, we suddenly began noticing that Ayla couldn't read signs at any distance. While she's had no trouble reading her books, everything seems to go blurry further away. She worried about it, we worried about it, and we set up doctor's appointments. First was a general pediatrician, and then an opthamologist. They measured her vision, before glasses, at about 20/200.

We were quite surprised by the doctor's offices here in Kensington. They are in the same types of elegant old townhomes as everything else here. This is one of the waiting rooms.

Greg and I feel a bit lost with this whole glasses-finding-and-buying experience. Neither of us has ever dealt with it before, nor did any of our siblings when we were growing up. The cost of glasses, the choices involved, worrying about losing and breaking them - it's just all new. It was hard, especially, when Ayla first found out she needed glasses - she was heartbroken over it. But now, just 1 day into wearing them, she has gotten used to them, and is enjoying her new perfect eyesight.

Blogging

2012-01-29T14:10:00.001-08:00

Sometimes, I don't get around to blogging mainly because I don't have any great new photos to share, or big news. But there is never a day here that there isn't something to talk about / think about. So today I'm just going to share with you some of the small things that are going on.

We've stayed close to home these last few days as planned, going no further than the local museums. (by "local" of course I mean some of the greatest, most gigantic museums in the world, across the street from our apartment). We are getting to know their rhythms - times and days to expect crowds, times and areas where you can expect peace and quiet. And we still try to bring the kids at least once a week to the Pirate Ship Playground, regardless of the cold.

My Russian studies here have been stumbling along unproductively. Without a tutor, I am hopelessly undisciplined, and getting nowhere. With Nastia I generally speak Russian, though, so at least a few days a week I have long afternoons of conversation.

More-consistent Russian practice (maybe with my beloved, fickle Marina?) is just one of many things I am looking forward to about San Jose. Although I have a dark fear that it will turn out similar to Charlotte, I've been told we are all living in one place, next to a giant park. I'll be able to go on site again and see the rest of the Totem community. We may be able to start circus classes up again. We'll have bikes to ride, and warm weather. With any luck, the coldness and loneliness will dissipate immediately.

So I have to admit I am counting the days... though another side of me feels guilty about this, looking around. Thinking that, once I leave here, I am going to miss London, and all of Europe, terribly... there is so much I love about this part of the world. I suppose what it comes down to is, you can't walk around feeling grateful and excited all the time. After a while your mental state just settles down, and starts thinking in a grass-is-always-greener sort of way.

I had a really nice visit this evening with Rod Laver. Rod was my juggling teacher at Circomedia. He is still the teacher there, and the juggling coach at Circus Space in London, as well. He brought his wife and son (Marcus, same age as Baz) to see Totem this afternoon, and we met them outside after the show. Rod was always a really good teacher, funny and caring and patient and perceptive. To think that he's taught 15 years' worth of other students since I was there! It was just wonderful to see him.

I've been spending more time with Oyuna here. She is the only other wife living nearby, and we get Kherlen and Isa together pretty often. Oyuna's baby, Saikhan, is getting big - she's about 7 months now? and she is in that restless stage, wants to move, squirm, roll around, see the world! it's one of the cutest baby stages and I love seeing her, so alert.

A blogging friend recently posted about little things that make her happy, so I'll make a short list for my life here in London...
- adorable private-school children in their matching uniforms - wool coats, tights, Mary Janes, etc. ...I am trying to find a time to photograph them without looking like a child predator
- the crush of the Tube (or the Paris metro) during rush hour
- a busker in the Underground playing a beautiful acoustic version of "Streets of London"
- the color-changing pinprick lights inside the sauna at the gym
- being called "love" by random shopkeepers
- pocketbook dogs - including a tiny one wearing a red "Medical Service Dog In Training" jacket
- mist over Hyde Park for a cold morning run

Ayla and Mom in Paris!

2012-01-25T14:03:00.001-08:00

These past few days, I've been away from my computer, on a very special mother-daughter trip. I took Ayla to Paris!
This was to continue a little tradition I started with Baz... when he was 6 years old, I took him on a trip to Germany. This was back in the days before we were on tour, and I was desperate for some travel, and to visit old friends. Once we started with Cirque, I had no idea how I could replicate something like this with Ayla. But this 3-day trip was the perfect opportunity. It required some babysitters, some funding, and a lot of cooperation from Dad, and we were able to have a wonderful adventure together.

I have to confess that it did not begin auspiciously. Sitting on the train at St Pancras station in London, Ayla bit into an apple and one of her wiggly teeth came out. There was blood. I calmly gave Ayla tissues, wrapped up the tooth for her, and then lay down across her lap and fainted.

(for those of you who don't know me that well, this is not that uncommon of an occurrence for me. But I've only fainted three or four times since having kids, and I keep hoping it won't happen again).

My little girl seemed remarkably unfazed by this turn of events. I was able to rouse myself, and over the course of the two hour trip, slowly pull myself back together. By the time we got to Paris I was ready to start fresh. We checked into our woefully-low-budget hotel (paper-thin walls. barely-working fixtures. on the 7th floor, elevator broken).

...we immediately hit the town. Day 1 was Notre Dame & Ile-de-la-Cite, cafe-sitting, and the Quartier Latin, where we shopped for used books and had dinner and a movie.

Day 2 was jam-packed... Eiffel Tower, Les Halles, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Champs-Elysees, Seine boat ride. Unluckily, we could only go up to level 2 at the Eiffel Tower - top closed for renovations! But we did have the delightful surprise of a free ice-skating rink, mid-way up. So of course we skated. How many people can say they've ice-skated on the Eiffel Tower?

We also gave a very thorough going-over to the Louvre. We went to all the biggest must-sees (Mona Lisa. Venus de Milo. Mummies) and tramped up and down the stairs of this gigantic place for hours. One of our favorite galleries was this hidden out-of-the-way place called the Tactile Gallery. Apparently designed for the blind, it is the only place in the museum where you are allowed to touch things. After a long day of admiring from a distance, Ayla and I both loved the chance to use our hands to explore these marble sculptures - all of which were also helpfully themed around children.

Day 3 of our trip was spent entirely at Versailles. I wasn't wrong when I predicted that Ayla would love this place, and even though it rained all day, we still managed to walk around the gardens and over to Marie Antoinette's estate. The photo is a cart that Marie Antoinette gave to one of her children as a toy. It was pulled by a goat!

Ayla is a really easygoing travel companion - enthusiastic to do just about everything, but not horribly crushed when not everything goes to plan (as proven numerous times on our trip). It helped that we stopped frequently for French delectables... fresh bread, pain au chocolat, chocolate mousse, crepes. She was also proud to keep practicing her French, and though she was too shy to speak to strangers, she and I chatted away in French a lot throughout the trip, and every spare moment on the Metro we read French kids books together.

We were both utterly exhausted by Tuesday night. We managed to miss our train home due to confusion about Eurostar, but caught one an hour later, stumbling in the door at 11:30pm. We are still recovering, but Ayla is enjoying her souvenirs and her stories and pictures of the trip.

I think what makes these kind of journeys so special, at least in our three-kid-household, is that it's a time for the child to have my full, undivided attention. I spent more time in these three days really listening to Ayla's thoughts, and letting her make the decisions about where we would go and what we would do, than ever before. I marveled at her littleness and her bigness. It has certainly made us feel closer. There are not many years left to enjoy her as a child, and I am so glad we took this time together.

London International Mime Festival, 2012

2012-01-21T14:15:00.000-08:00

I am, once again, very lucky to be in London during the International Mime Festival. If you didn't read my blog on this topic last year, this is a physical-theatre festival that has almost nothing to do with actual mime, and it features many of the most innovative European circus companies. Greg and I were able to catch three shows this past week (separately); Greg went to see a puppetry group called Blind Summit on Monday, which he very much enjoyed.

I began by seeing the Gandini Juggling Project's show, Smashed, on Thursday at the Royal Opera House. What a thoroughly enjoyable show! ....some background here. Sean Gandini and his troupe have been doing ground-breaking object manipulation work for about 20 years. (since before I learned to juggle, that is.) In the mid-1990s, when I was studying in England, they were already well-known for their brilliance and weirdness. I remember when Sean and Kati came to teach a workshop to us Circomedia students. The two things Sean emphasized - that dropping was wonderful!; and that to get good at something, you must practice every day, especially the days when you really don't feel like practicing.

I also remember seeing the Gandini Juggling Project performing at an IJA convention in the late `90s, and having a hard time connecting with their work. It was too esoteric, too abstract for me, their exploration of movement around props had just gone too far from my understanding (or interest?).

Fast-forward fifteen years or so, and here is Smashed. With 9 fantastic jugglers on the stage, and the only juggling prop being apples, I had no idea what to expect. It turned out to be an hour of laughter and amazement and very few lulls. The characters were playful and the choreography was inventive. The audience was watching human scenes in action, where the language spoken was apple-juggling. Some of my favorite moments were this sitting-in-a-row juggling sequence, where each person had just two apples; the five-apple-juggling chapter where one performer tried to knock the others down; Sean & Kati's duet, which echoes work they've done together for all these years; and of course the climactic ending, with smashed apples and crockery and knocked-over chairs - a tremendous mess that succeeded in being exciting, shocking, and funny all at once. All in all, I was truly impressed with the balance they've struck between being creative, and yet accessible.

Then, I went to No Fit State Circus with the kids today. Unfortunately I don't have a good report for this one. I had high hopes - I'd heard of No Fit State over the years (they've been in existence since 1986) and their Web site boasts that they are "leading the renaissance of contemporary circus in the UK". But this show was grungy and creepy. The artistic direction, music, costumes and lighting were all very unappealing. ...skill-wise, I was also in despair by intermission, although at least in that department there was some improvement in the 2nd act. But a pet peeve of mine (and Greg's, too) is when someone brings something really interesting onto the stage, and then goes nowhere with it. And that happened a number of times during this show. A shout-out is deserved, however, to the juggler girl who did all kinds of acrobatic stunts while maintaining her 3-ball cascade, and the big tricks of the swinging trapeze artist. I enjoyed the static trapeze artist's lean-out on the dangling silks, into her toe hang. So there were certainly some glimpses of novelty, making it worthwhile.

I wish I had a chance to see all of the shows in the festival - there are a lot of other intriguing ones! - but time and budget will not allow. Nonetheless, I am excited and encouraged, as always, to have a glimpse of the evolution of circus arts here in Great Britain.

Londoning

2012-01-19T14:30:00.000-08:00

Our second time here in London, we're doing a little less big, expensive sightseeing, and trying to hit some of the lesser-known spots that we didn't get to last year. But then, there are reasons that some places are lesser-known, as I've discovered this past week at the Museum of London Docklands and the Sherlock Holmes Museum. The Sherlock Holmes place, as I learned today, is really an elaborate tourist-dollar-sucking-ploy. Unless you are a diehard Sherlock Holmes fan, familiar with the details of all of his stories (and are there such people? I imagine there must be, somewhere), this museum holds very little of interest. It is sort of a shrine to an imaginary person. It is a small old house, decked up to look like a Victorian-era lodging, but everything inside it is fake.

Our visits to the heavy-hitter museums have also been slightly less successful this year. Maybe we're all weary of museums, or maybe the kids are just more interested in playing with their friends this time around, as their bonds have grown closer. In any case, here are the girls at the Victoria & Albert Museum, they decided they needed to take a break from the antiquities to do some yoga. That's Ayla & Isa, and Sam's girls Millie & Sophia.

Even the Tate Modern didn't win us over this year. As you can see, Ayla decided the whole thing was too much effort, so she carried around one of those little museum chairs with her. We were underwhelmed with the Unilever exhibit this year, which was a silent film, projected gigantic. I wish we were here for some of the more interesting ones... this summer promises to feature Tino Sehgal. "Sehgal has risen to prominence for his innovative works which consist purely of live encounters between people. Avoiding the production of any objects, he has pioneered a radical and yet entirely viewer-oriented approach to making art." HA! The artist that avoids the production of any objects, featured in a visual art museum. Awesome. The Unilever series in Turbine Hall really has done some amazing things over the years, though I do have to wonder if this year's selections were based on budget cutbacks?

I did love some of the signage in the Tate, like signs that remind you to be more civilized. By the cloakroom there's a sign politely requesting, "Please fold your umbrella before handing it to the attendant."

Regent's Park was a hit today, thanks to zillions of birds (what are these heron-egret amazing things behind the kids??) and a really good playground.

Residing in London

2012-01-16T13:59:00.000-08:00

Darn it, Blogger is being fussy again, not letting me upload video content from overseas. It did this last year. So you'll have to click to Vimeo to see this tour of our London residence, featuring the famous British personality, Sam Veale.

http://vimeo.com/35183782

It may not be obvious from the video, but our royal home here has been the least-well-appointed place we've stayed on tour. The kitchen didn't have so much as a single sharp knife, a potholder, a kitchen timer. Everything breaks here, after only a little bit of use - the clothes dryer, the heating units, the furniture. Lightbulbs are out, a dimmer switch overheats, the hot water heater is inadequate. When we first went out on our little terrace, we found it littered with dozens of cigarette butts, which Greg carefully hand-picked out of the gravel. The carpets have stains. The girls have to share a bed. And the long-corridor style of the place means we are always shouting to one another.

But, you can't beat the location. We are 300 ft from the South Kensington tube station, 1/2 block away from the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Across the road is the French Institute, so the neighborhood is full of French bookstores and charming little cafes. It is an upscale, tourist-filled zone, but generally very comfortable and convenient.

I am learning, here in our 11th apartment on tour, to take the good and the bad with each new home in stride. Whether it is the most beautiful place in the world, or the shabbiest, every place will have some things missing, and some things that seem extraneous; and as in every place, we will only be here for a few more weeks.

Up and down week

2012-01-12T13:42:00.000-08:00

This week has been so full of ups and downs, I'm not sure what to make of it.

It started well... Monday I took the bus out to Bristol, to spend a half-day with Sam at Circomedia. (photo of Sam, in white T-shirt, teaching.) As always, the air out at Kingswood does me good, filling me with nostalgia and inspiration. I especially enjoyed watching the aerial training time, with coaches Mike Wright and Jonathan Priest. Most of the students were working on corde lisse, such a joy to watch! In the circus schools I've visited these last couple of years, corde lisse has been rare, so many people prefer fabric now. But Jonathan is a corde lisse guy, and these students are learning solid technique. I even watched one student working on a "release" trick - where he actually lets go of the rope, does a flip in the air and catches the rope again. Incredibly awesome. But, I did watch him hit the mat, over and over again. Jonathan says you really need a foam pit to train these kinds of tricks properly.

Tuesday, things went downhill. I had organized the little girls (Isa, Gipsy, Kherlen and Dasha) to attend a local ballet class here in Kensington. Isa and Gipsy would go in one class, Kherlen and Dasha in the other. Gipsy's dad, Massimo, called me numerous times to confirm details and directions. We made it to the school, and with just a few minutes before class time, Massimo called to tell me they weren't coming, Gipsy wanted to stay and play with another friend instead. My stomach dropped - I was fairly sure Isa would not be willing to do this alone. But I did everything I could to cheerfully persuade her, and finally left her in the class with the other girls, crying.

Isa sat on the side of the room for the entire class. The teachers were lovely, the other girls were lovely, the class looked like a lot of fun. But every time one of the teachers would gently try to bring her in, she just shook her head and stayed planted where she was.

I had a breakdown, watching her from a distance. Partly I was angry at Massimo. He does this all the time. Even when he does show up to things, he requires so much more phone-calling and hand-holding than anybody else. And now, when I really needed them there? ...but the bigger picture was that I am stressed about Isa. As she approaches 5 years old, she has no other universe but Mom, and it's not serving her well. She needs to mature, and Baz and Ayla did this by attending preschool. Without that, I don't know how to detach her from my hip. And though I love spending time with her, and she is not asking for anything else - I feel like my baby girl needs some separation from me so she can grow up a little. The feelings of sadness and inadequacy as a parent over this just hit me, all at once.

That same day, Ayla jumped off a wall outside Royal Albert Hall and sprained her ankle. Honestly I'm relieved that's all it was - when she first fell, and was crying in real pain, I was terrified she'd broken it. Fortunately Greg was with me, and talked me out of whisking her to a hospital... she really just needed ice and rest. I carried her all the way home piggy-back (phew!) and that night Greg brought home some very small crutches from physio. The next day Aimee in Physio took a look at her, assessed it as a minor sprain, and since then she's been healing quickly. The crutches were off today and I expect in another day or two she'll be completely back to normal. In the meantime she got loads of attention from everyone on site!!

Yesterday (Wednesday) I was beginning to feel despondent... these dark moods come on me pretty often here. The more I think about it, the more I realize it's a lack of community, lack of being part of something.... that's the biggest difference here in London, and it really is a struggle for me. But the day improved a lot, because on Wednesdays and Fridays all the Moms and kids descend on my apartment from 3pm-6pm for English and Russian classes. It was a great afternoon - the apartment of course was trashed, but I got to teach, and connect with people, and all my inner energies just sorted themselves out. I was feeling so good that I tackled making soup from scratch for dinner, and when the kids melted down as a result, it didn't even get to me.

Today (Thursday) was empty of social contact. I did errands alone in the morning. In the afternoon Isa and I went out to Canary Wharf and explored the not-very-interesting Museum of London Docklands. I invited several other parents to join us, but no one was available. I was a Good Mom all afternoon, reading with Isa, playing with her, teaching her things. But damn it was lonely and un-stimulating, and I kept thinking things like maybe some people just aren't constitutionally cut out for full-time parenting. Heck knows, a lot of my friends wouldn't consider being home full-time, and it's not about the paycheck. As much as I love these three little people, my nerves fray at the end of a long day with them. And today I really haven't even seen Greg, we've been tag-teaming.

Well, the week isn't over yet, we'll see what the rest of it brings.

Frustrations / oddities of London

2012-01-08T13:41:00.001-08:00

The kids and I started a list last week of things we love about London, and especially, British English. So far we've got yoghurt pots, chips, crisps, jacket potatoes, trolleys, and lifts. And in the column of "loves" I have to add some places, like the Pirate Ship Playground and Foyle's Bookstore (heaven!). But I was also inspired to start a list of things that drive me crazy here. I expect this is only the beginning.

Shopping habits. For example ... in some countries (USA), clerks will bag all your groceries for you in a jiffy, using excessive amounts of plastic. In other countries (Canada, the Netherlands) you're expected to bring your own bags, and usually do the bagging yourself. They set up dividers, so that you have time to pack your bags, while they handle the next customer.

England has a twisted in-between method... they will not help you with your bagging. But, they also don't have dividers set up to give you time to do it. Instead, the cashiers will ring up all your purchases and then just stare at you as you pack your bags. It's so awkward-feeling, as everyone behind you in line watches and waits too!

I have figured out, by watching other people, that the key seems to be to bag-as-you-go... to be super-quick and on top of the bagging so you pack everything away in your canvas bags as the cashier rings up the items. Cashiers will sometimes even slow down their ringing-up to allow you to do this. I have not mastered it yet, though, and so inevitably I am the idiot holding up the line.

Another place I find exasperating -
Argos is something like a superstore. Something like it. Except for the fact that it's tiny. It's a tiny little storefront filled with catalogs. To shop here, you have to go in, flip through the catalogs and find what you want, write it on a piece of paper and bring it up to pay at the desk. Then they call down to the warehouse? for you and bring up the item, anywhere from 2 minutes to 20 minutes later.

...Who wants to shop like this?! Where you can't touch the items, compare different ones, feel their weight and texture before buying? It's like ordering online, in a way, but I'm just not used to purchasing small things like this. At Argos you can buy anything... from an eyebrow pencil (2 pounds) to a riding lawnmower (1500 pounds). (both examples of items I would never buy online). It's Sears, it's Target, it's Amazon.com ... it's weird.

The washer / dryer systems they have here - at least in this apartment, and our last one in London - are becoming the bane of my existence. It's a combination machine. In our old apartment, it worked fine, just slow - 4 to 5 hours per load, and they had to be small loads. But here, at our new place, the dryer just doesn't function at all. It doesn't have any kind of outlet for the hot air / steam, so it just rolls the damp clothes around for hours and hours. In the end (and we're talking at least 8 hours later) you have warm, wet clothes.

This picture shows the levels of desperation I've reached this week, as I discovered that the clothes will dry if spread out on the radiant-floor tiles in our bathroom. This could be our saving solution. ...as I think about this, I recall living in a number of places in England over the years, and everyone always used drying racks and draped clothes over radiators. Why is this? Why has the UK not figured out the clothes dryer? OK, it's an electricity-sucker - but any more so than radiant-floor-heat? Or blasting heat at wet clothes in a machine for hours on end without giving the moisture anywhere to go??

I'll let that rest, enough griping for one day. I'll close, instead, with a charming bit of technology the kids and I discovered this week - the libraries here have the RFID system, which we've seen cropping up at libraries around the world. The Chelsea Library system is particularly user-friendly and space-agey, with laser-lights that allow you to pile up a bunch of books at once, with quick and accurate readings. The kids and I love it! This is the first city that the kids are all getting their own library cards, as well.

Thoughts on gyms

2012-01-06T14:00:00.001-08:00

Our second visit to London is off to a good start. It took me a few days to get accustomed to the neighborhood, but I've figured it out now - exactly how long it takes to walk to Royal Albert Hall (12-13 minutes) , and the locations of the grocery stores, the library branches, the gyms. I still haven't joined a gym - the memberships are wildly expensive for short-term contracts (between 60-100 pounds per month = $100-140 per month) ... I have been biding my time, because Cirque is trying to negotiate a fitness center exchange. They do this in many cities, working out a deal with a local gym which offers us free or discounted memberships in exchange for tickets. This is really only needed for Cirque's support staff. I've never heard of an artist attending an outside gym or even a yoga class - they are pretty much set, and pretty much exhausted, by their work and their training. However, the support staff and accompanying tour members are eager for gyms, classes, spas, etc.

I did get a free 3-day trial at the most beautiful gym in the neighborhood, and had a great time. I love visiting new gyms and experiencing the different environments - not to mention the wild and wacky equipment some of these places come up with. The one here features a whole area set aside for these devices, called Power Plates, which are supposed to give you a full-body workout by vibrating your muscles. "Achieving your fit, new body is just a shake away."

Home in Natick, I went to a gym that had this fun trend - the Prowler Push. You are basically pushing a sled full of weights across a stretch of Astroturf, in the middle of the gym. "High Intensity Metabolic Training! Unlease Your Primal Edge!" My favorite online tip: "If you don't have access to a prowler, you can get similar results pushing a car around an empty parking lot (make sure you have someone working the brake for safety reasons)."

...I laugh at this stuff, but the truth is I am rarely adventurous at the gym. I like my treadmills and my elliptical machines. For a change sometimes I'll try a bike or a stairclimber, or do some mild resistance work. My heart rate goes up and my mind relaxes, and for the most part this has been sufficient.

However. As my mid-thirties crawl towards my late thirties, and the effects of raising-three-children, no-longer-doing-trapeze, and genetics kick into action, I'm starting to feel alarmed. These old gym routines are simply not cutting it, to maintain my weight and muscle tone. Mulling over this problem on January 2, I was not prepared for the Turkish Personal Trainer.

TPT approached me in a kind and friendly manner - she was offering a free trial workout, would I care to join her? I jumped at the chance. And then, an hour later, I nearly had to crawl out of the gym, as she kicked my butt more thoroughly than it has ever been kicked. To any outsider it would not have looked like anything outrageous. But we were doing free weights! And when I felt a little tired, she didn't let me stop! All the cells in my body started to mutiny towards the end, I thought I would either be sick or pass out. But of course I just kept smiling at TPT and pretending like I was just fine, ex-trapeze artist and all.

48 hours after this event I was still walking funny and having trouble bending down. But I learned something from all this, which is that I really don't push myself very hard. I guess I was surprised, because I used to make a living urging other people to do one more pullup, tighten those abdominal muscles. But imagine that - when it comes to my own workouts, I am anything but a taskmaster. And I've been told by many people that it just gets harder, the older your body gets - that you will have to work more, just to maintain what you had before. This is rather discouraging to think about.

Our finances won't allow for any more visits to TPT. So I am still feeling kind of adrift with my fitness goals for this year - knowing I want to be stronger and fitter, but without any real idea or plan of how to get there.

Happy 2012!!

2012-01-01T10:24:00.000-08:00

Well, we did it!

We rang in the new year in the town of Watford, Hertfordshire, England. It's about 20 miles north of central London, a suburb of about 80,000 people. We'd heard there were bars and restaurants here and a pedestrian district, and we could get there on the Tube, and it is officially outside London - this met all of our criteria.

Admittedly, though, the flock of underage nightclubbers we mingled with en route to Watford was a little disconcerting. I'd never seen so many sparkly minidresses on drunken teenaged girls in the middle of winter. At 10:30, the obnoxiousness was already in full swing on the Underground, and when we got to Watford's pedestrian district, we found long lines of clubgoers, bouncers and cover charges and pounding music pouring out of laser-lit buildings. It wasn't exactly our scene.

We managed to find a lonely little bar at the edge of all this, a place we were glad to spend our time before midnight. This little place seemed to be owned by a middle-aged couple, and populated with a dozen or so of their friends, pretty much hurting for business. We figured that the place is usually a decent adult cocktail bar, but, hoping to draw in New Years partiers, they'd hired a DJ, making the noise level unpleasant, but closer in ambiance to the cooler spots down the road. It was to no avail, anyway - the vast majority of crowds just passed this place right by. When midnight finally came, and "Auld Lang Syne" was sung, and the owner came over to shake our hands and wish us a happy new year, I was genuinely touched.

And we were quickly out the door after that. Even though we were the earliest people heading home, and the trains were nearly empty (and Free!! London runs the Underground completely free all night on New Year's Eve), it still took us over 90 minutes to get back to our babysitter. It was well worth it. Watford, UK, added to the list!

Today, we all dragged ourselves out of bed late, and the kids and I got out the door for some New Year's celebrations ourselves. First stop - the parade.

According to various Web sites, the New Year's Day Parade in London is "one of the World’s great street spectaculars with more than 10,000 performers from over 20 countries, over half a million spectators on the streets, and a live television audience of tens of millions." I was expecting great things.

And truthfully, the kids were delighted with the marching bands, the costumed characters, and balloons. But I was underwhelmed. The quality of the performances was distinctly small-town highschool - from the bands to the cheerleaders to the teenagers wearing bad clown makeup and juggling. Where were the West End shows, the giant floats, the dazzling costumes? No Macy's Thanksgiving, this. I let the kids stay for nearly an hour before I tugged them away.

The London Transport Museum was our next stop. We are big fans of the London Transport Museum. They have a weird admission scheme, for a museum that's clearly very kid-friendly - Adults 13.50 pounds ($21), kids free. What's especially interesting is that your ticket is good for 1 year. So I bought mine last year around this time, took the kids a couple of times in January 2011, and had the chance to go again this year for free! Sweet.

Some other things I love about the LTM. They have an unadvertised indoor picnic area, where families can eat packed lunches. There is a little stand with affordably-priced drinks and snacks nearby. In the gift shop, they had kid-perfect souvenirs for 1 pound! I love that there are loads of things for kids to climb on and in, as they are endlessly entertained by imagining themselves drivers or passengers of any vehicle. My personal favorite exhibit is the digital screen showing the year-by-year construction of the London Underground. And I love that they made such great use out of this beautiful old flower market building (it was converted in the 1970s.) We stayed till nearly closing time.

A good start to the new year. Time to think about resolutions...

New Year's Eve ... somewhere in the UK?

2011-12-30T15:45:00.000-08:00

For anyone not familiar with this annual ritual, here's the scoop. Greg and I have celebrated New Year's Eve together every year since 1994. (it's the only holiday we can say that for). This will be Year 18. And the best part? Each year, we have been in a different city at midnight.

In the past, there have been some spectacular years and some not-so-spectacular ones. Some years, one, or both of us, was onstage performing. (although never too busy for a midnight kiss). Occasionally, a gig would put us in the same city for a successive year, which necessitated driving at high speeds out of the city to a nearby suburb before the clock struck twelve. Silly? Sure. But nice to have such a tradition? Absolutely.

This year is presenting greater challenges than most. We have been assigned (by Totem) to be in London for the second year in a row, and Greg has to work till 9pm. We have no car. And finding a babysitter was like leaping through hoops of fire. But an agency sitter has finally been booked, the Underground maps have been carefully analyzed, and I am determined for success this year as well.

I just realized that my list of all of the cities we've been to is being kept exclusively in the back of a dog-eared, beaten-up old journal, and I'd better replicate it before the darn thing gets lost or destroyed in our travels. Here is the full list:

1994 Las Vegas, NV
1995 Portland, ME
1996 NYC / Garfield, NJ
1997 Boston, MA
1998 Berwyn / Paoli, PA
1999 Williamsburg, VA
2000 Doylestown, PA
2001 Providence, RI
2002 Caribbean (on a cruise ship, at sea)
2003 St. Louis, MO
2004 Binghamton, NY
2005 Johnston City, NY
2006 Vestal, NY
2007 Atlantic City, NJ
2008 Garden City, NY
2009 Bethlehem, PA
2010 London, England

South Kensington, London

2011-12-28T11:33:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's the travel exhaustion talking ... but I've been a serious nervous wreck since arriving here in London early this morning. I suppose I am normally pretty scattered - every time we arrive in a new apartment, there is so much to figure out. But today this was combined with 5 people's jet-lag and sleep-deprivation, meaning we're all on edge. And to add to that, I'm living just 1/2 mile from my old apartment near Kensington Gardens ... which I could have chosen, and probably should have chosen ... it was really quite an excellent place, and familiar. I knew everything about the apartment, the neighborhood, the distances to things, the local shops, the public transit. Instead, I chose to stay somewhere new, thinking there was a chance it would be even better than Prince of Wales Terrace, and it would be closer to the good grocery store, the museums, and the Underground (all these proximities are true).

Our new place, a 1/2 block from the Natural History Museum, is in a beautiful location, but it is honestly one of the oddest and least-well-appointed apartments we've stayed at. ...it's not that it's grungy. In fact is has some strangely-chosen luxuries, like radiant-floor heating in one of the bathrooms. But the list of "things missing from this apartment", which I make in every city, seems much longer in this one. How can a fully-furnished apartment not have a single large knife, a washcloth, a potholder? Why do parts of it, like the particle-board dressers and the stained, ratty carpeting, look like they're from a cheap motel? (this is a "penthouse" level, top-floor, 3-bedroom 2-bathroom apartment in one of the poshest neighborhoods in London). Why do the kids rooms have no dresser drawers, but gigantic wardrobes instead? And for Christ's sake why, again, is there not a single place to hang a coat in here? No coat rack. No hooks. Not even a closet.

On the bright side - this is the first place we've stayed that will have basic housekeeping service every day. woo-hoo! I may not even have to make the beds or wash the dishes.

I am getting ahead of myself. I first wanted to mention that our flight over here went smoothly. Everything went according to plan with the shuttle and the airport, and the kids even slept a few hours on the plane. (more than I can say for me and Greg). It was so funny when we arrived in London, I guess our flight was early because they put us in a holding pattern. This is what it looked like on the screen in front of us (note Heathrow far to the left):

I took Ayla and Isa out for a walk this afternoon. I was hoping we would bump into some kind of kids' playground. It was distressing to discover that in South Kensington, green spaces are heavily gated and locked, open only to private owners. We ran into several of these. I guess they are determined to keep out the vagabonds... and truthfully I haven't seen any homeless or disturbed-looking people wandering around this part of town at all. But what about the children who want to play outside?

Our entertainment here simply will have to take other forms. The girls and I walked over to the Brompton Oratory and explored inside the beautiful old church. Then we wandered into the V & A Museum to admire sculptures, miniature paintings and jewelry. All of these kinds of things are free.

OK, sleep deprivation is hitting hard and I might fall asleep on my keyboard. Signing off, from London!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T18:34:00.001-08:00

It's the first time my Mom and Dad, in 30 + years, have not gone to Plattsburgh on Christmas morning. Since Grandma is no longer there, traditions are changing. I was happy to be here with them to spend the whole day in Natick! Of course with the children there was much excitement (beginning around 5:45am). Here were the top Santa presents this year...

Remote control car. It is a frighteningly powerful little machine; and it has to charge for 4 hours in order to drive around for 15 minutes. But when it drives, watch out! It is a total off-road vehicle, able to flip over and keep driving upside-down.

I have been insistently referring to the first American Girl to enter our family as Aylenka ("little Ayla" in Russian diminutive form) but Ayla is having none of it. This is Little Ayla ("she's not Russian, Mom"), her heart's desire. And my mother added to the joy by unearthing a bag of handmade Cabbage Patch Kid clothes from my childhood, many of which fit Little Ayla wonderfully.

Isa is at the age when happiness = bouncing. (it seems to last several years, actually). Hence, the Hopper. Her favorite Santa gift is a toss-up, though, between the Hopper and her Furreal puppy, which barks, and walks.

Phew. It's been a very busy and festive few days - cousins, aunts, uncles, friends; running around doing last-minute shopping and wrapping. But I think overall, we are going to remember this as a relaxing Christmas holiday, with sugar cookies, a gingerbread house, a turkey dinner, carols, and watching the Nutcracker (Bolshoi Ballet version on DVR). We loved our online London Advent Calendar; we mourned the lack of snow; we went out for walks and admired the neighbors' Christmas lights. We played chess. I finished knitting myself a hat. Greg and Baz read Choose Your Own Adventure books together. It has been about as cozy a day as I can possibly imagine.

So, truly, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Hometown

2011-12-19T21:06:00.000-08:00

Arrived tonight in my hometown of Natick, Massachusetts.

The day was a travel blur, getting the kids out the door early in the morning, and spending most of the day cooped up on an airplane. (here's a picture of them eating some last San Francisco sourdough bread on the flight). When we got here, it was a rush of settling in, getting everyone dinner and pajamas and hauling all of our suitcases upstairs. I barely had time to look around, until I got the kids tucked into bed and then stepped outside into the night air.

A cold, clear night. Still, quiet, in that non-city way. Stars. Christmas lights decorating the houses. And I breathed in the familiarity of this place. My hometown - it's like a part of my skin, so ingrained that I don't think about it, the curves of the sidewalks, the streetlights, the shapes of the trees. This, despite the fact that 2012 will mean I have spent as many years living away from here, as I did living here.

It doesn't matter - the first 18 years of life here shaped my identity, and in the following 18 years I have always come back. Mom and Dad are still here, in the same house I grew up in. They've made some changes to the house, of course, and my perception of it has shifted over the years - but it is still truly the place of my roots.

Being here at Christmastime is especially special. My mother loves to decorate, and this year she has gone all out with snowmen and holly and musical-toys and Christmas tableware. The children are thrilled. For me, it's all quite familiar - but she points out that this is only the second time we've been here on Christmas morning with our kids. Every other year we've divided our time between Greg's family and our Plattsburgh family. I think it just feels so familiar because this is where I spent all of my first Christmases, in this routine of home.

It will be a busy week - we are also taking two days to go see Greg's parents in New Jersey, and then filling the rest of the days with cookie-baking, long walks, get-togethers with other family members, and exploring Mom and Dad's brand-new camper!

Morning Run

2011-12-18T12:21:00.000-08:00

Totem holiday festivities

2011-12-17T20:11:00.000-08:00

December 14 was our big day on site, with Totem's Christmas celebrations. The other Moms and I were all there on site at 10:30am, prepping for the final Nutcracker rehearsal, accomplishing vital tasks such as decorating helium balloons to look like mice.

The real events began later that afternoon, starting with the arrival of Santa Claus:

It was awesome, to see Santa rappelling from the top of the circus tent!!! He came down to lots of cheers and excitement, and the kids all ushered him inside the Tapis Rouge tent, for the performance of the Nutcracker.

The Nutcracker (Щелкунчик) was actually a 30-minute show (including a 5-minute segment in the middle where the kids just sit and watch the film) ... it was based on the story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, which was made into a 1973 animated movie. Apparently all Russian / Ukrainian children grow up watching this movie (I imagine it's something like How The Grinch Stole Christmas or A Charlie Brown Christmas, in popularity). Our children's task was to act out the film.

We were so proud of them! Here is a link to the video - it's too large a file to post on Blogger, so I put it on Vimeo instead.

After the show, Santa had presents to give out to the children, and kids got to sit with him for photos. We were so happy that Kelly, Kai, and Tenzing came to see the kids' show! And here is a photo of my kids with Santa and their cousin Kai (Tenzing was having none of this).

Afterwards, in the kitchen, there were cupcakes and candy canes and happy children and exhausted parents... !

Bay Area circus schools

2011-12-13T21:04:00.000-08:00

San Francisco must have the highest concentration of circus schools in the world. I visited FIVE of them. There is at least one more significant one, and numerous smaller programs (trapezes rigged in people's apartments, etc.) It's really quite astonishing. When I asked whether there is much interaction / communication between the schools, the answer was generally no. How does this whole system function, then? I was told that there are simply enough interested circus students in the region to support all of these different organizations.

We'll start with the big one: Circus Center. Certainly the most well-known and prestigious school in San Francisco, Circus Center has also probably seen the most tumultuous times of any of these schools, including having to shut down this past winter and completely re-organize their staff and financial systems. However, we had a very warm reception there from both the new Executive Director and the General Manager, both of whom are feeling very optimistic about the school's future. The school is a non-profit, and has been in existence for approximately 20 years.

They have the somewhat complicated gift of this incredible building. For $1 rent from the city of San Francisco, they reside in the old Polytechnic High School Boys' Gym. (the Girls Gym is the home of AcroSports, see pix below). It is a sprawling old space, with the big gymnasium in the first picture, plus numerous other smaller studio spaces, offices, and locker rooms. It has enabled them to draw the top performing artists in the region to train and coach here, and to develop professional track programs in aerial arts, acrobatics and clowning. (currently only the aerial program is running).

To take an Aerial class at Circus Center (90 mins), the Drop-In Rate is $35, and the Session is $360 for 10 weeks.

Next - AcroSports. It seems extraordinarily weird to have this alternative circus school a half-block down from Circus Center, in an almost-identical looking building from the outside. Look at the photos below - on the left is AcroSports, on the right is Circus Center.

On the inside, there are some similarities, especially in the main, big space. But the downstairs of AcroSports is a kids zone, to accommodate the dozens of children's classes that run there every week. AcroSports prides itself on youth programs and "urban" circus arts, which include parkour and breakdancing. They have an entirely separate program called City Circus, which is a "professional circus ensemble and training program of Urban Circus Arts". AcroSports has been in existence, as a non-profit, since 1993.

To take an Aerial class at AcroSports (90 mins), it is $38 for a drop-in class, or $396 for an 11-week session.

Today we drove over to Oakland, to explore the smaller, eclectic circus training facilities in the East Bay. Our first stop was the Athletic Playground, in Emeryville. Tucked into a corner of an industrial building, the space opens up into three nicely-appointed studios. Greg and I admired the exposed wooden beams and floors, and the wall murals.

They seem to focus on Conditioning classes (specialty - Monkey Conditioning!), Acrobatics, and Yoga, with a handful of aerial classes offered, and space offered for artists' training. There seems to be a lot of playfulness and creativity bouncing off the walls in here. The ceilings are not tremendously high for aerial work. But apparently the space is home to quite a few serious circus artists - in our few minutes there we bumped into Sam Luckey, and narrowly missed seeing Cohdi Harrell. Most of their programs are for adults, but they have recently begun offering kids' classes as well. As far as I can tell it is not a non-profit, and it opened 3 years ago.

To take an Aerial class at the Athletic Playground (60 mins), it is $20 for a drop-in class. They don't offer sessions - instead there are 1-month memberships, with unlimited classes, for $155. (there are only 1 or 2 aerial classes on the schedule each day).

Our next stop was only about a block away, the Head Over Heels Athletics Arts facility. Though the entrance is a bit hard to find, this is a mega gymnastics space, and the school itself has been around since 1977! With circus classes offered for about the last 10 years. My kids were dazzled with loads of pint-sized gymnastics equipment, and the space definitely had all the trappings of a long-established serious gym. (trophies, gymwear shop, teenaged staff, etc.) The circus equipment is stationed in the middle of the room, just a handful of silks, ropes, and static trapezes. They certainly have the height for it - Greg estimated about 30 feet. So, while you get the sense that circus is just a secondary program here, it's nice to see it so well-integrated and accepted into a mainstream gym. HOH is (to my surprise!) a non-profit organization.

To take an Aerial class at HOH, you have to sign up for a full session, which is a 90-minute class, $270 for 10 weeks.

Last stop on our tour: Kinetic Arts Center in Oakland. This LLC seems to be the newest school in the East Bay, it opened in November 2009. The exterior of the building is disturbingly ugly, corrugated-steel-industrial-yellow-no-windows. But inside it's warm and bright. There is a main class area, and a smaller studio in the back. They have a fairly comprehensive curriculum of aerials and acro, and a healthy number of kids classes and oddities like "Pre-Parkour" and "Contortion".
They have the well-known Helene Turcotte as an aerial instructor. Jaron Hollander is the owner and head coach of the school ... though I've never met him, his biography indicates that he trained at Circus Center, Make A Circus, Dell Arte and Circo Arts.

To take an Aerial class at Kinetic Arts Center (85 mins), it is $32 to drop in, or $255 for a 10-class package.

Phew. It was quite overwhelming seeing so many circus facilities at once; I'm not sure I've fully processed all of it, or figured out what a growing circus movement might look like in other parts of the country. But in the meantime, I've recorded these glimpses. All of it will help us envision the possibilities, as we keep moving forwards with the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts.

Family Times

2011-12-11T21:27:00.001-08:00

Today's numbers:

9 miles run - 4 loads of laundry - 3 meals - 5 suitcases half-packed - 10 bead necklaces made - 1 playdate - 1 cultural event

The cultural event was a production of Nutcracker Sweets, just across the street at the Creativity Museum, which we attended with my sister-in-law Kelly and my two adorable nephews, Kai and Tenzing. Everyone really enjoyed the show. It was a modified Nutcracker story, simplified for very young children. It still had the main characters and dances, and the gist of the plot, but everything was just a bit more colorful, and in shorter segments. The whole thing was 50 minutes long. I'd highly recommend it for people with little children who want to get a taste of this holiday classic. Personally, it made me crave the full ballet. And my only real complaint about the production was the music. They had a nine-piece orchestra - which is substantial, and expensive, and certainly must have contributed to the too-high ticket prices ($25 each for mid-level seats). But a nine-piece orchestra simply can't do justice to Tchaikovsky, so the music just sounded kind of thin and shabby. And they didn't even stick to the Tchaikovsky score, they kept sprinkling it with other things. I would have much preferred recorded music in this case.

Baz, Ayla, and Isa had a great time with Kai and Tenzing this afternoon, building forts and playing firemen around the apartment. The boys are three years old - still babes next to my big kids, but certainly old enough to be active players. I'm so glad they're having time together.

I am continually impressed by my kids' creativity and resourcefulness when left to their own devices. So often, especially at the Cirque site, I watch them with no toys whatsoever, thrilled to be with the other kids, completely able to make up their own games and arrange their own kingdoms. Though I sometimes feel like a lax parent, preferring to pick up a book rather than join them in games at the playground, I can see that my kids often learn the most when I simply step out of their way.

The kids on site are all like this when it comes to language and communication, as well. I have always been in awe of their ability to play with each other, with no common words. There is no awkwardness or defensiveness. They simply engage each other, and find some way of interacting. Often times it looks like clowning, or charades. They can just act out silly things and get each other laughing.

Despite all the goodness of today, by the time Greg came home at 8 I had been with the kids for 10.5 hours, and just asked him to take over so I could retire to my room. They are such good kids - so full of laughter and imagination and life - but I still need to turn off Mom after a certain amount of time.

Christmas season blur

2011-12-09T22:51:00.001-08:00

The days are becoming exhaustingly busy. The kids' Nutcracker production may be the death of all of us, it's hard to tell at this point ... most of us Moms are bleary-eyed from long hours of sewing costumes and running rehearsals. I'm also trying to tackle Christmas shopping, start packing (only 9 days left!) work on some pressing issues at the circus school, and maintain all the regular stuff - exercise, language classes, kids' activities, doctor's appointments.

It is good to be busy, although difficult to find balance. I feel I've tipped just over the "too-busy" line this week. (no real complaints, I'm usually desperate to fill my time!!)

In the meantime, the Totem cast is dragging a bit. This always seems to be the case at the end of a long city with 10-show weeks. Everyone is tired and more prone to problems. One result of this is that there are a surprising number of changes in the show this week - acts that are out, and replacement "second" acts. It's interesting and fun for us to watch our artist friends stepping into new roles, and to see the show continually evolve (no pun intended).

The school kids have had a squabbling kind of week. The problem is this - Ayla and Sophia decided they wanted to learn sign language. Partly just for the fun of doing it, but partly because then they could have a secret language! The boys took immediate offense to this and professed that they, too, would learn sign language, prompting some other kind of escalation from the girls, and to some written secret-code creating, and eventually starting in on "well, you two speak Russian together, that's like a secret language!". I was quite amused by Yahor's conclusion after all this, which was "OK, maybe no one should be allowed to speak any language that not everyone can understand." Yeah, right, that'll work. Fortunately, today at school they'll have Talking Circle, their weekly opportunity to air concerns / grievances. It's like a family meeting, and here's hoping the teachers can get everyone settled down.

49 square miles surrounded by reality

2011-12-07T22:48:00.000-08:00

As I expected, our final weeks in San Francisco are flying by with a sense of "Wait! We haven't seen / done everything yet!!" But there are only so many hours in the day, and we are really quite busy here. The kids are immersed in rehearsals for Щелкунчик, a Russian adaptation of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. Rehearsals are 3x / week for about 2 hours each time, so it has definitely impacted our schedule. All of our regular Russian and English classes are still running, Marina and I have re-started our morning meetings, and and we are pretty continually cycling around to the library, playground (Yerba Buena) and Children's Creativity Museum. We've even managed some more ice-skating.

My dear friends Rebecca and Andre Dhondt came to visit for a long weekend. This is one impressive couple - they left their 3 kids (ages 10, 8, 6) in the hands of a highly-choreographed network of family and friends, used credit-card reward miles for their flights and a new camera, and spent four days making the absolute most of their getaway adventure. They went to Muir Woods and Alcatraz and Chinatown, tried out recommended restaurants and spent an afternoon with newly-acquainted friends fishing for crabs on a boat. And at night they went out dancing till the wee hours! They even made time to spend quality time with me and my kids - one night they watched the little ones so Greg and I could get out for dinner; Andre and I went running; Rebecca and I went out for breakfast and thrift-shopping. Overall they were delightful houseguests and filled my apartment with tulips....

This past Monday we spent the whole afternoon at Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf. (Monday is a much less crowded time to be there, thank goodness!) Greg and the kids explored the Mirror Maze, which Baz claims is his favorite thing in San Francisco. We shopped, watched street performers, got free chocolate at Ghirardelli's, and explored the Hyde Street Pier, with its beautiful old ships. We had lunch at Boudin's - including taking a tour of the bakery and learning about the fascinating history of the place. It claims to be "San Francisco's oldest continually operating business", started by the Boudins of France, who were among the first to settle in the San Francisco Bay area in 1849. They claim that the original mother dough starter yeast has been in every loaf of bread for over 150 years. Along with the history of the Boudins is the history of San Francisco itself, including the Earthquake / Fires of 1906, the Depression, and the hippie culture of the 60s and 70s. ...after all this learning, we all thoroughly enjoyed our lunch in the cafe, pizzas and soup breadbowls made of delicious fresh sourdough.

With the arrival of December, we all officially click into Christmas mode, with some 99-cent window lights from Goodwill, an online Advent calendar, and some till-now-forbidden Christmas carols on iTunes. Somehow it feels weird this year to be getting ready for Christmas with such mild weather outside. But, the excitement cannot be contained. Letters have been sent to Santa, and the kids are counting the days till they can bake Christmas cookies with their Grandma Terry. Every day, it seems there is something festive. One evening we were watching window-decorators. Isa and I went to a Holiday Sing-Along at the library. This evening we splurged on a pedicab ride home. Now, if I could get my shopping done, that would be a really good thing...

First lost tooth

2011-11-30T09:54:00.000-08:00

Ayla lost her first tooth yesterday! She is 7 years old, it's pretty late, so I expect more to follow quickly. She already has several more loose. But there was great rejoicing this morning with a new dollar coin from the Tooth Fairy.

Sunday

2011-11-27T22:37:00.000-08:00

This is a Martin Luther King, Jr memorial, near our apartment, that we explored today, the kids enjoyed walking behind the waterfall.

It was such a mixed-bag of a day.

From the despairing feeling of early morning (Greg leaves early on Sundays, and the day stretches out in front of me, an unscheduled wasteland waiting to happen)...

To actual tears of pride and delight when Baz barreled across the entire courtyard, all by himself, on the unicycle I bought for him...

To frustration at dealings with the other parents - parents who change their plans at the last minute and don't tell me, gatherings poorly organized and haphazardly attended, and the only thing that's ever consistent is inconsistency...

To the quiet calm of an un-busy evening at home with the kids, all of us buried in our books...

In the end, Sunday passed, my least-favorite day of the week, and it was OK. It had its good moments, like this one, the kids decorating the Christmas tree at the Cirque site. They are all practically bursting to celebrate Christmas, but in our household I have a strict Not Before December 1st! rule. That goes for Christmas carols, letters to Santa, etc. Once December arrives I will be as much in the spirit as any of them (and madly doing my online shopping, as well - the good fortune of being back in the States for the holidays this year)!

Discretion

2011-11-26T07:26:00.000-08:00

In case it isn't obvious from my blogging, I like to talk. I like to communicate all my thoughts and feelings and I'm really not too worried about who hears them. I am often surprised by others' reticence or privacy concerns, and if I cause offense to other people it is most likely because of saying too much, too openly. Every once in a while I receive a little slap on the wrist, from someone telling me I should watch what I say... and I remember for a little while, until it fades and something flares up again.

This week, I've had two instances of these sorts of flare-ups - both from people, not friends of mine, telling me that I need to learn to shut my mouth sometimes. In the first situation I was accused of pushiness - in the second, gossiping. I think I'm guilty of both. A good deal of both scenarios, right now, can be explained by sheer boredom. I simply don't have much to do - so, a personal project, or a juicy story, become an elixir for me, something for me to feast my energies on temporarily. Which I suppose is fine until it crosses someone else's comfort threshold, and that's not always apparent to me.

I worry that boredom doesn't fully explain it, though, because even in my busy working life I was not famous for discretion. I just say what I think, as soon as I think it. And my worry is that this quality is going to limit my success in life; the most successful people, I think, master the skill of when to speak and when to remain silent. Not just successful in work - but also in interpersonal relationships.

All I can do is to try to be better. I can try to listen more and talk less; stay out of other people's business; think before I speak. I would like to ask, to all of the blog readers out there who are friends of mine, for you to help me in this quest by letting me know if I have overstepped a boundary, or if I have spoken when silence would have been wiser. Somewhere in my brain, a particular sensitivity gene is not well-tuned, and I know of no other way to shape it, other than to solicit your constructive criticism.

P.S. I held off on posting this for a while, as I contemplated that saying, "Well-behaved women seldom make history". Seriously considered a whole alternate attitude. Then decided that "Life is a long lesson in humility" is a better quote for today.

Giving thanks

2011-11-24T21:39:00.000-08:00

As expected, things have brightened considerably this week.

Yesterday, I had a meeting with some VIPs who gave me their time, attention, and some of the things I've been requesting. It was a great relief and confidence-booster.

Today, Thanksgiving Day, was un-festive except that Jeff and I did a Turkey Trot in the morning! I left here at 6:30am in pouring rain, but by the time we got to the starting line, the rain had decided to take a break. The course, in Oakland, was seriously hilly, making the whole thing more challenging than expected - but with Jeff keeping me company, I blasted through my old PR of 29:30, finishing at 28:02! I'm very proud of that!

The kids and I went to see Totem in the afternoon (Totem has two shows today - Baz and Ayla had a regular school day, as well), and then we enjoyed a terrific Thanksgiving feast in the kitchen afterwards. Our cooks outdid themselves, and I hadn't realized, until I sat down, how comforting turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes could be. Because, even though I am mostly quite fine with skipping out on Thanksgiving traditions, it still feels strange that all of my family is gathered without me, celebrating the usual way.

Well, there is one way that I can maintain a Thanksgiving tradition - by taking time to think about the things I am grateful for. The list is too long to include here... my life is one precious gift after another. But closing my eyes tonight for sleep, all that's there is gratitude.

We ice skate!

2011-11-21T18:58:00.001-08:00

Spent a wonderful afternoon today at the Yerba Buena Gardens, across the street from our apartment complex, teaching the kids to ice skate. (OK, and having a bit of a refresher course ourselves.)

Doldrums

2011-11-20T20:43:00.000-08:00

Dictionary.com defines doldrums as "a dull, listless, depressed mood; low spirits." And that has been me these last few days. For no particular reason - it is just the same sad slump that comes over me once in a while, with those heavy question, what am I doing here? and why am I spending all of my time dealing with laundry and temper tantrums? ...it comes back to the ego, again, my sense that I should be More Important Than This. Which is humbling to realize, all by itself.

I suppose it's been a rough week for many reasons. There is a lot going on right now at the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts - changes, big wonderful events, future-strategizing that needs my attention. We have announced to the world that Robin is leaving in the spring, and we've begun the search for the next Managing Director. The uncertainty of all that gives me just a low-level anxiety. ... then this week I had an unpleasant interaction with someone on the site, which reminded me all too clearly that my goals and wants do not matter a damn to the Totem community. It is simply not about me - nothing here is - which I've known forever, but every once in a while it gets rubbed in my face.

Add all that to the general drudgery of stay-at-home mom life; and my increasing concern that Isa is backsliding, reverting more to babyhood and clinginess than she should be, and therefore I have somehow screwed up - and perhaps my doldrums are no surprise.

So, I keep trying the old standby pick-me-ups .... yesterday Isa and I watched Totem from the expensive seats in the front center section; today I took the kids to the Museum of Modern Art; tonight I'll probably try to absorb myself in a new novel. Hopefully the gray mood will lift; it always does.

More images of the Bay Area

2011-11-18T21:40:00.000-08:00

We continued to explore for the first part of this week. Here we all are at Point Reyes National Seashore... Greg and I at the Lighthouse, and the kids with their Grandma Terry and Grandpa Ron.

We also made it out to Alcatraz. That was pretty interesting. Although Greg scoffed at the whole idea of making a prison into a National Park, and part of what's interesting on the tour is that Alcatraz wasn't that scary of a place - it was really just a regular prison, and the prisoners weren't treated too badly at all - it was still impressive to step inside an actual giant old jail, with its isolation chambers and stories of riots and famous convicts. Of the kids, Baz was the most fascinated; Ayla liked it "except for the sad parts"; Isa didn't really get much out of it, but she was happy to go along for the ride.

The week with Mom and Dad passed quickly. In our 3-bedroom 3-bathroom apartment, it was the first time they'd ever stayed with us that they had a bathroom to themselves! ....Mom and I enjoyed morning walks along the waterfront; the two of them sampled several of the local restaurants, and watched the kids one evening so Greg and I could get out for dinner; and the weather was absolutely beautiful, with only one rainy day. My Mom, having just retired in July, hasn't had a month yet without some significant traveling, and she is still waiting to see if any feelings of boredom settle in... so far, not.

They left on Wednesday, the 16th - now we are settling back into a "normal" routine, done with sightseeing for awhile.

Seeing more of San Francisco

2011-11-13T21:57:00.000-08:00

We are in sightseeing mode this week, with my parents visiting. It occurred to me today, as we were passing through the financial district and pointing out to the children every bit of interesting architecture, lobby artwork, etc. - is this getting to be overkill? OK, kids seeing the world and all, but is the constant "look at that!" making them jaded? If we were living a "normal" life in Philadelphia, would I be continually pointing out interesting things for them to observe?

...Maybe I would. And maybe this is just a natural parenting thing... at a certain point they're going to cross over into adolescence and they will be interested in nothing I want to show them, right? So perhaps I should just seize the moment right now - my curious little sponges at age 8, 7, and 4, are ready to gaze in fascination at every funny sign, colorfully-painted house, or beautiful sunset I can point out to them.

We went to Sausalito one day, on an open-topped tour bus that was incredibly windy going across the Golden Gate Bridge! This was just me, my parents, and Isa, and we enjoyed Sausalito's cute streets and beautiful hillside homes, and being able to look at San Francisco from a distance.

Today we took all the kids to Golden Gate Park, for another chance at the Koret Children's Quarter, and then for lunch at the home of a distant cousin, in a stunning apartment next to Ghirardelli Square. (So of course we went to Ghirardelli for the free chocolate!)

These are only a few of the sights we've seen this week. We've been all over the place... Ferry Building, Haight-Ashbury, Chinatown, Creativity Museum. Twice to Fisherman's Wharf, and we've still barely gotten a taste of all of the entertainment there. (street artists, tacky museums, crazy shops, etc...) Mom and I walked to City Hall one day, and today she explored the Botanical Gardens. In between all of it, we're finding time for the little things we appreciate when Grandma and Grandpa are in town... time for walks and talks, time for them with each of their grandchildren one-on-one, help with housework and childcare, and reminiscing about past trips and experiences.

More to come.....

Day out with Isa

2011-11-08T21:58:00.001-08:00

The sea lions at Pier 39

Aquarium of the Bay

Biking to Golden Gate Bridge

The giant bow and arrow

An amazing school of fish, over our heads in the tunnel at the Aquarium...

Images from the weekend

2011-11-07T21:43:00.000-08:00

It was Ilya's 5th birthday. Nastia always outdoes herself with birthday parties - she organizes game after game after game, lays out a full-day's-feast worth of food, and the parties, in Russian fashion, go on for upwards of 4 hours. It's exhausting just to be a spectator. One of her games was "little girls do their Moms' hair" and we took this photo afterwards to show off their designs.

Very back row: (Yahor, Baz)
Back row: Sasha, Natasha, Nastia
Front row: Elise, me, Olga, Oyuna

Today, Monday, we only ventured out for a few hours in the afternoon - trying not to exhaust Greg too much, he's up to 10 shows a week and he is suffering from a pretty bad head cold at the moment. But we did do some exploring around San Francisco today, including driving down Lombard Street with its crazy hairpin turns. We also stopped at Baker Beach and let the kids put their hands in the Pacific Ocean for the first time, and then made our way into Golden Gate Park for a couple of hours of bike-riding and playgrounding.

But the weather is getting colder, and we couldn't bring ourselves to stay out once the sun began to set. ...I should say, Greg and I couldn't. The kids had to be dragged out of the Koret Children's Quarter. Fortunately we have 6 more weeks in this city, hoping for decent weather so we can head back another day.

Quitting

2011-11-05T21:49:00.000-07:00

So, tomorrow morning is the US Half Marathon here in San Francisco. I should be frantically scarfing down pasta and trying to get to sleep early. But I'm not. Because I bailed out on the race.

My decision to quit came only a few days ago, but my feeling about it since I the summer has been unequivocal dread. I signed up for the race on the heels of a successful 10k. I had joined the Totem Running Club, a very loosely organized group, and the sense of camaraderie combined beautifully with the pride of accomplishment. I wanted more of that. I thought, "I really don't want to run another half-marathon. But if we do all the really crappy long training runs as a group - this could be OK! it could be really good!"

The group runs did not happen. Things just seemed to come up, constantly, to get in the way. They were usually things like parties and vacations, because all of the other group members are childless Cirque support-staff members. Plus, a few of the key people involved had steady running partners, so they, at least, were not alone.

I plugged along for awhile, managing to pull off as much as a 10-mile run. Then Annual Leave happened - those two weeks of trekking all over the country, and flying to a funeral in the middle of it, wiped out my running momentum. By the time I got here to SF, with only two weeks left till race day, I was feeling not only dread, but panic. To add injury to insult, my bad hamstring ached increasingly, whenever I ran more than a couple of miles. I pushed through a miserable 7 miles one day, about a week ago, and dealt with lingering pain afterwards, and then thought to myself, why am I doing this?

This was going to be unhealthy for me, physically and mentally; I hadn't trained adequately, and slogging through 13 miles was going to be nothing but agony, especially with San Francisco's hills, and with a 7:00am race time. This supposed "team" of runners wasn't even traveling to and from the race together - I was on my own, on a train - and I was going to have to pay a babysitter, since Greg had to work. When it came down to it, the only reason I could find to do this race was because I wanted to be one of the gang, and I didn't want to have to tell everyone I was a quitter.

I finally decided that this was not a good enough reason to put my mind and body through this hell. I spent about 24 hours obsessively imaging different stories I could tell the group. And in the end I finally just told them the truth:

I didn't train well enough for this. I'm afraid I'm going to injure myself. I am not going to run the race.

...there was some disappointment; a couple of "it's OK" pats on the back; a couple of avoiding-eye-contact silences. I am sure my bailing out isn't great for their morale; but in the end, it matters very little to any of them. I've lost $92 in race fees, donated to some charity or other; but I'm also saving money on the travel and the babysitter and the wheelbarrow full of comfort food I would probably be indulging in to get through this.

It's funny how much anxiety I had about making this decision. But since the decision was made, I've been fine - relaxed, happy, relieved. Making the choice that is right in my heart, affirming my gut-feeling, turns out to be very healing. I thought I would feel like a terrible failure... but it was when I was running that I felt that way, running too slow and not long enough and not well enough for this race. The pressure is gone and my head feels clear.

San Francisco Apartment

2011-11-02T22:48:00.000-07:00

Our apartment... heavily influenced by The King.

Some photos

2011-10-30T22:26:00.001-07:00

I've been into photographing sunrises lately, trying to find a little bit of joy in my otherwise-resented early morning runs. Yes, I have signed up for the Half-Marathon one week from now, but I haven't trained well at all and I'm feeling real dread about it.

One of Isa's favorite things to do these days is to write words, sentences, whole stories - she says what she wants to write, and Mom or Dad tells her the letters.

Teachable moment as we stumbled across the Occupy San Francisco site today. This past week their encampment has been raided by poilce, and across the Bay in Oakland the police used tear gas on the protesters. The lively crowd around this site seems undaunted.

And finally, my kids with their cousins - they're thrilled to spend some quality time with 3-year-old twins Kai and Tenzing, who live in nearby San Anselmo.

San Francisco premiere

2011-10-29T22:24:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to enjoy the tradition of Premiere dinner, with its ice sculptures and roses decorating the real tablecloths, and despite the ultra-gourmet food which I find impossible to eat. The ambience feels special, and it's always a reunion of sorts for all the family members. So it was tonight.

The show itself - it's been a while since I've seen it, so I was excited when the lights when down and the music came up. All familiar - except that, in the first act alone there were three onstage problems. First, Fabio missed the bar on his last solo trick in Carapace, and landed on his rear on the trampoline. Second, one of the unicycle girls fell off her unicycle, when the wheel hit a bowl on the floor. She ran offstage, and the whole act fell apart, the other girls didn't know what to do. A long minute or two passed before she rejoined them onstage, to thunderous applause and standing ovations. Third was in Fisherman, when Micha pulled in his fishing line and there was nothing hooked to it! He had to reach down to find the grocery bag.

None of these things was show-stopping, of course - just noticeable, mistakes I'd never seen happen onstage before.

Later in the evening I was mostly reflecting on absences - the people who are missing from the tour here in SF. There is a wife, lost to a marital separation, an artist rehabbing an injury, and another inexplicably gone. I realize, 18 months into the life of this show, it is probably just the beginning, as many more people change, leave, arrive. I talked to a technician about this today, who is leaving for a 1-year sabbatical soon. He credits the constant change to an organization that makes these things possible, that embraces its employees' need for growth and movement.

First impressions of San Francisco

2011-10-28T22:49:00.001-07:00

We've been in San Francisco for a few days now. We have an apartment near the Museum of Modern Art. It's 1 mile from site, which means that we're walking! Every day, lots and lots of walking. Greg usually bikes down to work. ....so, although my legs are tired, I'm really happy here - being able to walk or bike to site, grocery stores, clothing stores, etc. is wonderful.

San Francisco feels like an easy, comfortable place to be. Ah, America... familiar shops, currency, foods, language. Despite that level of ordinary-America, though, I've also noticed a number of things that seem quite distinctive to this city.

Dogs in grocery stores

Surprising number of adults riding scooters

Street names carved into the sidewalks

More-than-usually visible homeless people (having to teach the kids to step around the bums passed out on the sidewalk, daily)

Friendly bike culture in theory, but aggressive car traffic and very few bike racks (photo thanks to bikeinthecity.com, a new favorite Web site)

Hills!! They weren't kidding about these hills.

The rest of the cross-country trip

2011-10-23T22:22:00.001-07:00

First, before I forget, the video I promised last time, of our intimate encounter with the buffalo in Yellowstone.

The second week of our trip cross-country met an unexpected turn, with the death of my grandmother, in upstate New York. I got the news the night we left Yellowstone, and the grief and stress of making arrangements to get to the funeral consumed me for most of the next couple of days.

In the meantime, we drove. We drove down through Grand Teton National Park, and into Utah, staying a night in Salt Lake City. We pressed onward into Arizona, driving all the way to Flagstaff. The weather improved dramatically, but our access to cell-phone and Internet coverage did not, which kept me in ruraphobic anxiety. I tried to communicate with my family via sporadic text-message, and whenever a few bars appeared on the cell phone, Greg would pull the car over, so we could try to make flight and hotel reservations.

At a certain point on that second day, it looked like my trip to New York might be impossible. The flight schedules and costs were becoming so complicated and excessive, I really began to question what I was doing. But the more I questioned it - the more I said to myself "maybe I shouldn't go" ... the more I would break down in tears. Greg was especially supportive, insisting that we keep trying to find a way, that he and the kids would be fine without me for a couple of days, and that this was family, this was important. With his firm backing, I pressed on, and eventually got a flight booked. My heart immediately felt lighter, and during the next few days everything felt bearable, because I knew I was doing the right thing.

On Tuesday, we spent the day in the Grand Canyon. We hiked, we picnicked, we soaked up the scenery. Although the kids seemed less awed by it than we were, they were happy to be outdoors and running around. And although I felt, mid-way through the day, that I'd get more satisfaction hiking this canyon solo, it was still a marvelous thing to show them. We managed to hike down into the Canyon a bit (and back up!!) - to Ooh-Aah Point, where we had this picture taken.

I flew out of Phoenix on Tuesday night, and 48 hours later I met back up with Greg and the kids in Las Vegas.

In the meantime, they continued the journey. Greg brought them for a second day to the Grand Canyon, and they did some more hiking. Then he moved all kids and luggage a few hours away, to Henderson, NV, outside Las Vegas. There is a great pool here, and so the kids spent a good amount of time swimming. That is, when they weren't eating at McDonalds or Dairy Queen. When I got in the car in Las Vegas, Ayla was quick to rattle off everything they'd consumed since I'd been gone: "We had Happy Meals, and waffle cones, and Fruit Loops, and pizza..." Ah well. They all seem to have survived this "Supersize Me" experiment, and I'm back now to care for their little arteries.

On Thursday, they went to the Hoover Dam (see picture. do they look a little like scurvy is setting in?). They picked me up late that night at the Las Vegas airport. And Friday was our Las Vegas Day!

Greg dropped me and the kids at the Flamingo, to meet up with Kitsie and Chris, who were just at the end of their week-in-Vegas vacation. It was so nice to see them, and they walked us around a bunch of the nearby casinos, showing us the sights. The kids were fascinated by the birds and koi in the Flamingo gardens; the spray-paint artist performing on the street; the wax figures outside Madame Tussauds; and the gondoliers singing in the Venetian. I brought them into a magic shop, but they were much more interested in the practical jokes on sale, rather than the real magic tricks. We spent $25 on soft pretzels for lunch (gotta love Las Vegas) and continued on to Treasure Island and the Mirage and Caesar's Palace. I was sure they would love the Atlantis animatronic-statues show, but in truth they were all terrified by it.

From there, we hiked around, through Aria and the Crystals shopping center, through Monte Carlo and New York, New York. I had a meeting lined up with a potential circus employee, so I did that while Greg walked the kids over to Excalibur and to see the MGM lions. We met up for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, which was an excellent treat for everyone (good food, amazing decor, and they even had a balloon artist and a magician going table-to-table! we were enthusiastic audience members and tipped well).

A bit of hurrying got us back to Aria in time for the 7pm Viva Elvis show. We had used our complimentary tickets for this - Greg gets 4 comp tickets per year to any Cirque show, and when possible, we like to use them to see other shows ourselves. Elvis was one that we'd never seen, and we thought the kids would enjoy.

There are signs outside saying "No Kids Under 5 Allowed". So of course we lied and said Isa was 5. It turns out they're not so worried about the little ones disturbing the show - they are worried about their ears, because this show is rock-and-roll LOUD. Seeing Isa's smallness, they issued her some earplugs, and all was fine.

I thought the show was great!! Quite different from any of the other Cirque shows I've seen - it relies heavily on video footage from Elvis, which is really quite compelling to watch. Occasionally it does take away from the circus acts going on in front, this is true. The best acts were the ones that either had no video footage (like the beautiful "One Night" acrobatic act on the gigantic suspended guitar) or just let the video dominate the scene, like "Love Me Tender"'s footage of Elvis in the Army. There were occasional wrong notes, like the superhero characters in the otherwise-brilliant trampoline/parkour act. Others I especially enjoyed: the high bar "Return to Sender", the hysterical movie clips spliced together showing Elvis kissing dozens and dozens of actresses, and the power of "Jailhouse Rock". "Can't Help Falling in Love" was a tear-jerker. Overall, it was really a well-done show. Word has it that it is closing down very shortly for a re-working, so I will be interested to see which parts they change.

Whew! It was a whirlwind, as Vegas is supposed to be.

On Saturday we drove to California, to Sequoia National Park. We had a fairly brief visit there - a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon, and a couple of hours on Sunday morning. But we accomplished the main task, which was to see GIANT TREES. AND we got a glimpse of a family of black bears running through the woods! A mother and two cubs.

The other disturbing bit of wildlife we came across in Sequoia National Park was a tarantula, walking across the street. Thanks to Greg's super-eyesight, and reflexes not to run the thing over, we got some pictures. But it made me nervous - I had no idea these things were out in the wild in the southern U.S. Not sure that knowledge is really contributing anything good to my mental health.

Confession here: By this time, I was honestly getting sick of this trip. Though the kids were having lots of great experiences, and being generally well-behaved, and Greg was being a great sport, I was the one getting stir-crazy and irritable. Missing my routines, my kitchen, my "me" time. Sick of packing and unpacking the suitcases every day, and spending such long hours in the car. So I was not sorry to say goodbye to the wilderness, and get on our way to the vast civilization of San Francisco!!! To celebrate, Greg let me stop at Whole Foods for lunch. Woo-hoo!

Grandma

2011-10-21T22:46:00.000-07:00

Marion Miller - March 27, 1924 - October 16, 2011

I am writing from Plattsburgh, New York, at the airport, after saying a final goodbye to my grandmother today. I helped my father write the eulogy, which my sister gave at the funeral service, and in the process I collected many stories and memories of this beloved woman.

Marion Bouyea was the second of 6 children, and grew up in Dannemora, New York. Her father worked at the local prison, and her mother was a housewife. Marion was the first female in her family to go to business school and then get a job (at the bank).

She fell in love with Edward Miller shortly before he left to fight in World War II. Some of our earliest photos of her come from that time period, when she would send pictures to him overseas. When he came back, they were married, and subsequently had five children (Ron [my Dad], Jim, Kathy, Marilyn, and Rob). Her role in those years was primarily a homemaker, but she also held down her job as a bank teller.

My aunts and uncles' stories of those years are always fascinating.

KATHY: When we were kids, we shared a garden with Uncle Willard and his family, who did most of the work. We’d sneak in and steal carrots from the garden, and wash them off with the hose to eat them raw. Mom found us out every time – we didn’t learn till later that it was the running water of the hose that gave us away.

JIM: The only mistake she ever made was to let her brother Vernon babysit us when she had to work. It was like we’d remodeled the house every time she came home.

ROB: She stopped coming to my football games after I got hurt one time. She couldn’t watch the games after that.

MARILYN: One time Bob, my date, was waiting for me at the door, but Mom wouldn't let me go out until I balanced my checkbook, which had a 2-cent discrepancy. Bob said, "I'll give her the 2 cents!" But Mom said, "Oh, no, you won't" and made me stay there until I found the error.

Her children grew, and some moved away. My Dad settled in Massachusetts to raise his family. And as I grew up, trips to Plattsburgh were a regular ritual. We came for at least a week in the summer and a week at Christmas, always staying with my grandparents. Their house remains etched in my memory, especially in a tactile way - I can remember the feel of the furniture, the dishes, the staircase railings, the doorknobs. There was always a jumble of who's-sleeping-where, always a vast spread of home-cooked food, and there were always card games after dinner. Their home was a warm and welcoming place, a place guaranteed to find a sympathetic ear, a refuge. Grandma was always up before dawn, and the early-risers among us would often join her for quiet conversation at the breakfast table.

She continually baked doughnuts (impossible for anyone in the family to replicate), and fresh rolls, and peanut butter balls. She knitted and crocheted constantly, and all of us in the family own afghans, sweaters, mittens and washcloths that she made for us.

Memories were made, now by even more family members - her sons- and daughters-in-law, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren.

BOB (son-in-law): Remember that time I brought that whole bag of fish in her kitchen and the bag broke? There were fish covering the whole floor of the kitchen, and she just laughed.

TERRY (daughter-in-law): She was always smiling, always so happy to see her family. I remember even the first time I came to Plattsburgh, she made me feel so welcome.

SHELLY (granddaughter-in-law): She sent birthday cards to everyone in the family, every year!

SHANNON (granddaughter): She taught her grandkids to play pinochle. Inevitably we all forgot, and she had to re-teach us every time we played.

LISA (granddaughter): Her face would light up whenever she saw her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

EMILY (great-granddaughter): Even when she was getting older, she could always make us laugh.

JEREMY (grandson): She was the only person who could balance my checkbook when I had my first bank account, the smartest math whiz in the family.

ERIK (grandson): I remember playing card games with Grandma – Uno, Skip-Bo….

ERIN (granddaughter): She learned to use the Wii at the Senior Center!

However, my grandmother never learned to drive a car. She never used a computer, never figured out the VCR. And I don't think she ever fully understood the strange career path I've taken, no matter how often I brought photos and videos. But no matter how old-fashioned or out-of-touch these things seem when I write them down - Grandma never seemed remote from my life, no matter how infrequently I saw her (or, towards the end, no matter how much her memory faded.) I always felt close to her, in the unspoken bond of a shared history.

At her funeral, when I looked around at all of the relatives in attendance, I realized this is the same bond that connects us all. People who see each other perhaps once a year, who sometimes have very little in common on the surface - and yet we have known each other all our lives. Something deep in our hearts connects us as family. It was important for me to be there with all of them, and remember that.

The last paragraph of her eulogy was this:

We know that she would be happy to see us all here together – the loved ones who made up the fabric of her long and beautiful life. We hope that we can continue her spirit of tremendous generosity and love of family – for she has left a spark of herself in each one of us. Marion, Mom, Grandma, Nana – we love you.

Wyoming

2011-10-14T22:10:00.000-07:00

Day 4 - we spent the day driving through Wyoming. Our first stop was Devils Tower, the nation's first National Monument. Neither Greg nor I had ever been there, but Greg remembered it from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. (A movie I've never seen. Greg says I should see it. Any other opinions out there?) It was a very impressive place, and great to get the kids out for a walk in an amazingly peaceful wilderness.

In all of the sites we've gone to so far, there are very few visitors. Mid-week in October, apparently, is off-season for South Dakota and Wyoming, and the parks and monuments are blissfully quiet. Although the weather isn't fabulous, it really is allowing us to see these places without crowds and rush.

At Devils Tower we saw rock-climbers. And listened to a woodpecker. And saw prairie dogs.

After that, with Baz and Isa complaining of serious holes in their sneakers, shoe-shopping could wait no longer. We found a shoe store in Sheridan, WY, and gratefully fitted them out with two new sturdy pairs of Columbias. With amusement I noticed that Greg handled most of the fitting and transactions - a pleasant change, I can't remember the last time he shopped for shoes for the kids!! Nice for me to be able to step back. And then on the way out we went through the conversation that I think every set of parents goes through, multiple times - "damn that was expensive. how can they outgrow their shoes so fast?" "didn't we just buy them shoes six months ago?" etc. :)

From there, we had the treat of driving through Granite Pass, some big and beautiful mountains with winding roads up and down. Incredible views, and snow!!

Back down to earth, we have just arrived in Cody, Wyoming. At this motel, we splurged on a "Family Room", which includes two double beds and two twin beds. Baz gets to sleep in a bed, for the first time this trip!! Every other night, the girls have shared a bed, and he's been on the floor in a sleeping bag. The funny part is, the girls have been fighting with him over it, complaining that they, too, want a chance to sleep on the floor.

Day 5 - Yellowstone National Park

This morning we drove into Yellowstone. The kids were psyched to see wild animals; the ranger at the gate gave them a checklist, to keep track of how many they saw. Greg and I were mostly in awe of the scenery - the beautiful snow-capped mountains, plunging canyons, lakes and waterfalls and streams and forests; every corner you go around is like another picture postcard.

We were surprised at a couple of things. First, an amazing amount of the forests are burned trees, and the new growth of baby pines. Apparently there were some major fires here in the last few decades, we need to learn more about this.

Second, I didn't realize quite how cold, and how off-season Yellowstone would be in October. It turns out that tons of the park services , lodges and campgrounds shut down for the season in September; the lodge we are staying at, Old Faithful Snow Lodge, has one of only two dining rooms open in the park in October - and it closes for the season tomorrow. Most of the roads in Yellowstone are entirely shut down to cars from November 1 - April 15. That's nearly 6 months! I would never have believed it, without being here to see for myself. How can the most popular and well-known national park in the US be so difficult to visit for half the year? ...it is based, I assume, on Yellowstone's clear and ever-present mission to be responsible environmental stewards. They could blast the snow out of this place and put heated rest stops throughout the park, but instead they let nature set the course.

Being here in the off-season, of course, has its perks. There is a quiet emptiness to the park, very peaceful. However, the cold and wind and drizzle has been daunting, and it has kept us from hiking quite as much as we'd like to.

Nevertheless, our first day in the park was filled with many great things. We checked out the giant Lake, and the Yellowstone River waterfalls, and the breathtaking Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Then we discovered the hot springs, and hiked numerous trails around the geysers in central Yellowstone. Towards the end of the afternoon, we were finally rewarded with buffalo sighting! It went like this...

"Stop the car!! Buffalo!!"

"Oh, look, another buffalo! Who wants to get out of the car and get a little closer?"

"Oh My God Buffalo."

After seeing just a single buffalo here and there, we turned off the main road and found ourselves in an incredible herd. We counted 120 of them. There were babies too! We were all completely enthralled. They were so close to the car, we couldn't get out, but just rolled down the windows and gaped at them. They were amazing.

With that, and the fading light, we made our way to the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, for a night of rest before beginning our second day of exploration.

Day 6 - Yellowstone / Grand Teton / get the hell out of the cold, rainy mountains

The Snow Lodge is a beautiful place to stay. At $235/night, it was by far the priciest place on our itinerary, but the ambience of the place lived up to it. Decorative soaps, lamps, and woodwork; a lobby with cozy furniture and a roaring fire; convivial lounges and dining rooms; board games and puzzles to lend out at the front desk. But the weather was getting worse - temperatures, which had kindly climbed into the 50s on our first day, were forecasted for the 40s the following day, with rain. Paying such a steep price to stay somewhere for a second night, when we might very well just be cooped up in the lodge, seemed ridiculous - we decided to cancel the second night's reservation, and head south.

Before we did that, though, we did get to see Old Faithful erupt, and explore the geysers a bit more. They are really quite astounding. Here are some hot springs that are on Lake Yellowstone. Which boggles my mind ... Lake Yellowstone is known for being dangerously cold, with water temperatures in the 40s. Swimming is prohibited, due to the danger of hypothermia. And yet, all around the Lake, even immediately adjacent to it, these hot springs are bubbling over and trickling boiling-hot water into the lake. Ground temperatures in many of the surrounding areas are so high that plants can't survive, and people aren't allowed to walk. How is it possible that the lake can be so ungodly freezing?!

We also encountered even more buffalo, in a large herd that was making itself comfortable in the geyser basin around Old Faithful. These were astonishingly bold buffalo, who were all over the paths and impossible to avoid. It was fairly nerve-wracking, as you can see from the video in my next post.

Before leaving Yellowstone we got to cross over the continental divide. To our delight, the small body of water at the mountaintop is called Isa Lake!! Half of Isa Lake drains towards the Pacific, and half towards the Atlantic.

Greg, with his usual ridiculousness, decided to juggle 5 snowballs at the Continental Divide.

We made our way down to Grand Teton. Everyone raved about how beautiful Grand Teton was. But it was raining. So, we could see some beautiful landscapes from the windows, but no place seemed like we really needed to get out and explore it on foot in the drizzle. By that time we had decided to cut our losses with the mountainous regions of Wyoming. The chill and wet were too much for us ... the forecast is 70 degrees and sunny for the Grand Canyon. So we plowed ahead, southbound, through the cuteness of Jackson Hole, and into the hours of fairly empty, though pretty, driving between there and Utah.

The Great American Road Trip - South Dakota

2011-10-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

I had to give that title to this blog entry, because it's a slogan I keep seeing on the tourist materials. And it does feel that way... like we're taking part in some great tradition - especially when so many of my older relatives have responded enthusiastically to my recent blog posts, enjoying their own memories of similar trips!

I have a different perspective, this time around, than I did as a kid. I appreciate different things ... much more attention to the history of how things happened, and the people who made them happen. I'm less interested in the spectacular, and more interested in the personal stories. And of course, a big part of my attention is focused on the children's experience. What are they seeing, what are they learning? What will they remember about all of these places?

So, we've been staying for 2 nights in Keystone, South Dakota. It's amazing to be in these tourist towns in the off season. So many hotels, restaurants and shops are already closed for the season. The big sites are very quiet. And in some ways I understand it - it's COLD here! Early morning temperatures are in the 30s. So, my running has been practically non-existent this week, as I can't handle running in a dark, cold, empty, strange place. (see "ruraphobia" from previous entry).

Our first stop today was Mt. Rushmore. We stayed warm by trekking around the site, and learning about the sculptor and the amazing process of creating the monument. Most interesting for us - the site is under its annual maintenance right now, you can see a tripod perched on top of Teddy Roosevelt's head, and some little workers up there at the top. We got to see the riggers at the bottom of the hill hoisting supplies, on a series of pulley ropes, to the upper team, and one of the men stopped to talk to us about their work. Fascinating! Below you can see the bag of supplies being carried up the ropes.

In the afternoon, we went to the Jewel Cave National Monument. The kids had never been in a cave before, so we took the 1.5-hour guided tour, exploring the rock formations and learning about spelunking. (Which, by the way, is not a cool term to use among serious "cavers" these days. The joke goes that cavers rescue spelunkers.) The kids' favorite parts of the tour were imagining different shapes in the rocks, and the time that the ranger let us experience total darkness by turning out all the lights in the cave. It was quite intense.

We were sightsee-d out after that adventure, so we declined to stop by the Crazy Horse monument on the way home. We could get a pretty good look at the site from the road, and as Baz complained, "it's not even finished yet!" ... so, I guess they can take their children to that one, instead.

Our hotel in Keystone has a kitchenette and an indoor pool, so we were happy to have some more time here this evening. Now we're all going to sleep early - tomorrow morning, Wyoming awaits!

Cross-Country - MI, IN, IL, WI, MN, SD

2011-10-11T20:28:00.000-07:00

Our first two days traveling cross-country were spent almost entirely in the car. The kids were quite well-behaved on the first day, but by day 2 Baz was extremely restless, and driving us all crazy.

In the meantime, we had brief experiences in La Crosse, WI (nothing really memorable about it, except that our motel had awesome Halloween decorations in the lobby)...
Rochester, MN; and suburban Chicago, IL.

I was fascinated by the changes in the countryside as we traveled. Minnesota was filled with farms and windmills. These turbines, hundreds of them stretching as far as the eye could see, were just extraordinary to observe, and the wind farms just kept popping up all along the highway as we drove. I am guessing that they weren't there when I came this route with my parents, as a kid (around 1986?).

Then we got to South Dakota, and everything looked different. South Dakota is just endless, empty prairie, punctuated with hundreds of billboards. My mood dropped dramatically as we proceeded through this state. The sheer emptiness of it, the giant stretches of nothingness, make me incredibly anxious. What if the car broke down? What if we needed something? I honestly find it hard even to spend an afternoon driving through here. Is it some kind of phobia?? let's see what the Internet says.... Urban Dictionary says I might have

Ruraphobia - (n) A condition resulting in severe fear of leaving urban environments and entering rural environments.

That sounds about right... it's just beyond me, how people can be comfortable living out here.

I don't know if it was that, or Baz's troublesome behavior, but by the time we'd finished dinner on day 2 I was at my breaking point in our tiny hotel room. These quarters are just too close... no space for me to even sit apart, nevermind find the space I need to clear my head. So, in the evenings I have been retreating to the hotel lobbies with my laptop!

Nevertheless, we press on with our sightseeing adventures. In South Dakota we have actually visited a lot of places! We started with the Corn Palace in Mitchell. Yep, it's a building covered with dry husks of corn, a bit of folk / street art that they've been continually re-doing for decades. You can see the lifts outside the facade, they're doing what they call "Corn-by-Number", matching the different colored corn husks with the artist's drawn images.

On day 3, of course, we went to Wall Drug (!) and spent time at the Badlands. It was so windy and cold!! We had a hard time appreciating the vistas, when the sharp wind felt like it might blow us over a precipice. By the afternoon, though, the sun had come out, and we braved some of the hiking trails. With my husband's typical gung-ho energy for these kinds of things, we ended up on a much more challenging hike than planned, scaling steep rock slopes beside dangerous cliffs. I kept envisioning one of my not-so-coordinated children falling into a ravine, which made it hard to enjoy. But we were rewarded with some beautiful views, and a great sense of accomplishment.

Here are a couple of other images of our day at the Badlands. Yes, that is Greg juggling 5 rocks.

We were exhausted after that, but couldn't resist stopping at the Prairie Homestead, where the kids could dress up like Laura Ingalls Wilder and explore a real pioneer's homestead from the early 1900s. We've been reading the Little House on the Prairie books to them, so they were extremely excited about this. Between the costumes, the farm animals (prairie dogs! chickens! a goat!) and the old-fashioned housewares, it was hard to pull them away from this place.

We had one more stop left on our itinerary - we went to the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, where we learned about the Cold War, and the 1000 missiles that were silo-ed all over the Great Plains region for nearly 30 years. It was pretty fascinating, to step back into that time period and to hear about how it all worked.

We drove onwards to the gold-mining town of Keystone, where we're beginning part 2 of the South Dakota adventure. More to come!

Last Toronto photos

2011-10-11T20:01:00.000-07:00

Before I move on to photo-chronicling this cross-country adventure, I have to post a few last photos of our time in Toronto. Toronto really was a great city, in a lot of ways, and I tried to document some of the best things about it.

1. Bikes. OK, so Toronto was a big-city traffic kind of place, and we couldn't let the kids bike on the streets. But nevertheless, Toronto has a lot of cyclists. I loved these art installations - all over the city you could find occasional bikes, painted in fluorescent colors, locked up to bike racks. ...The bike rack itself also deserves mention. One of the nicer-designed city fixtures we've encountered, it also resembles the Russian letter "f". So everywhere we saw these (which was everywhere), Isa and I would say "fff! fff!"

2. Speaking of awesome bike racks, check out this one! In the funky neighborhood of Kensington, spelling the name in a simulated bike chain. (that's Isa in the green dress in front).

3. Another image of super-cool Kensington.

4. I loved this reflection of the CN Tower on a nearby building.

5. These regular commuter trains, with their unusual shape and color, made me smile every time I saw them.

6. And finally, one of the kids - Baz and Ayla are showing off the art project that the school students all did together, making an elaborate scene entirely out of recycled materials.

For the kids, nothing's better than playing with friends, and in the last couple of weeks of Toronto, Isa and Kiana had some good times together...

On the road

2011-10-10T22:11:00.000-07:00

We've hit the road! for our two-week cross-country driving adventure.
Day 1 has been fairly uneventful. The high point was dinner at a mega-shopping mall outside Chicago, the bliss of American retail therapy, and buying myself an iPhone! I'm very excited about it, but I also love its pretty white box and I'm afraid of damaging the phone, so thus far I am just carrying around a pretty iPhone box.
And now we are trying to get to sleep in a scrummy motel in La Crosse, WI... At $54/night how can you complain?

Counting the seconds....

2011-10-07T10:32:00.000-07:00

The artists are all just dying to get through this week. On Monday we will begin Annual Leave, our once-a-year 2-week vacation. Even though we have lots of shorter breaks, this one feels like a bigger deal. Cirque flies everyone home to their families at this time. Those who choose not to fly home have the equivalent airfare to go somewhere else... so some people are going on real vacations, to lie on the beaches in Mexico and Hawaii. No matter where they're going, everyone is just desperately eager to get there. These 10-show weeks have been draining for everyone.

So, here we are again, tearing apart our apartments and testing the limits of our suitcases...

Talent Show

2011-10-04T18:46:00.000-07:00

The Russian wives organized a Kids Talent Show this past weekend!
Baz did magic tricks with Yahor, Ayla and Isa danced, Ayla told jokes with Sophia. Among the other children, there were songs in English, Russian and Mongolian, hula-hooping, dancing, and little plays. We had a great crowd of supportive adults. Nastia says she'd like to make this an annual event!

Wearying of Toronto

2011-09-29T20:16:00.001-07:00

I'm ready to be done with Toronto. We've been here for ages. I'm sick of schlepping back and forth from the site on the long, undependable bus. I'm bored with hanging around site all day with Isa (which I often do to avoid schlepping back and forth all day on the bus.) I don't even want to watch the show anymore. (You were all waiting to see how long it would take me to say that, weren't you??) We've seen the sights. The artists are all exhausted from the 10-show weeks. Let's wrap this one up and move on.

This weekend's activities

2011-09-27T11:40:00.000-07:00

On Sunday night, the 54 crew (carpenters, riggers, technicians) hosted a giant party on site, with the theme "I Love the 80s!" It was their most epic event to date. It included raised DJ platforms and a band stage, a gigantic disco ball, colored strobing lights, old-school video games and an inflatable running course, and a flair bartender. Just about the whole Totem community attended, most in elaborate 80s outfits. Here is a picture of some of the little girls, a blurry swirl dancing under the lights.

Then, on Monday, we finally visited the CN Tower. Since we arrived here in Toronto, we'd been put off by the price - for our family of 5 merely to ride up to the observation deck cost us $108!! ...but we felt we had to do it before we left Toronto, and Monday was a beautiful day for it. Here are Greg and the kids, sitting on the glass floor. The second picture is the view looking down through the glass floor. It's pretty cool. $108 cool? I'm not convinced.

In the evening, Greg and I got out for a dinner date, and went to see Second City. This well-known improv troupe has a permanent theater here in Toronto, a half-block from our apartment. Shows 7 days a week! It was a great treat for us to get out to see some live theater on a Monday night. The show itself was very good - more sketch comedy than improv, but we had a lot of laughs.

Team Evolution!

2011-09-24T18:38:00.000-07:00

The Totem Running Club officially had its first race today - the Toronto Zoo 10k! It was great. More hills than expected, but perfect weather, and animals on view.

Running, this past few months, has been mostly a hardship for me. My hamstring has continued to ache periodically, my mind has been distracted, and my heart's been with Bikram Yoga. (which, unfortunately, is just too difficult for me to get to on a regular basis.) But this Running Club has given me a new boost of energy. It's fun to run with a group! I run faster, the time passes more quickly, and I feel motivated to do more.

So today we all piled into the Totem van at 7:00am, groaning and complaining and laughing our way to the race site. We all finished with times we were proud of (mine was 1:04:30) and shared high-fives, post-race snacks, and more laughter on the way home.

The other members of the group are all Cirque employees, support staff on the tour. They include a technician, a schoolteacher, and staff from Tour Services and the Box Office. Jeff (white shirt, center) is the unofficial team leader, and he is Totem's Company Manager. It's a nice chance for me to get to know a different set of tour members.

So now, I have to decide if I want to tackle the Half-Marathon. It's just 6 weeks away, in San Francisco, and the other runners have already registered... I'm sure it will sell out, so if I'm going to do it I've got to commit now. I dread the training. But I really do like running with this group, and it would be a great accomplishment to do two half-marathons, wouldn't it? and I'll have the rest of the winter to sit on the couch (or, lie in the yoga Hot Room) - right? ...I'm trying to talk myself into this. My aching hamstring, and the memories of long, cold, lonely runs last fall, are trying to talk me out of it. Decision to come shortly.

Celebrating Ayla's birthday

2011-09-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

Today was Ayla's birthday party. (Her actual birthday is Tuesday, she'll be 7!)
We looked at a number of different options for her party, but when we discovered Creature Quest online, she wanted nothing else. This is a company that will bring live animals to your location. And we're not talking about cats and dogs here. The animals included a chinchilla, a tree frog, a scorpion, a tarantula... and for every animal, the handler would talk a bit about it, and then pass it around for the children to hold or pet. The kids were thrilled!! The tarantula was perhaps the biggest hit. To my surprise, this tarantula was not de-fanged. Apparently you can't de-fang a tarantula. It wouldn't bite the children, our handler assured us, because the kids looked nothing like bugs. ? We trusted her, and the kids all got to feel the sticky feet of this giant spider walking along their hands and arms.

I love the fact that no one in our apartment building was the least bit concerned about us doing this, in the community lounge downstairs. There were no special reservation forms to fill out for the room, no waivers to sign, no one calling a halt to a party full of exotic animals. This is one of the things I really like about Canada. The less-litigious culture, and slightly-European value set, makes for a more trusting social environment. Gay people will get married, you'll bring your own bags to the grocery store, and no one will raise an eyebrow if you want to give your children a live coral snake in a room of their building.

My girl is growing so fast... here she is, having birthday cake with her friends.

A few photos of life on tour with kids

2011-09-16T20:16:00.000-07:00

The discovery of a snail gets everyone excited. In Russian it's улитка.

They've had a couple of special school projects... one day it was cooking in the kitchen, and chef Mia taught them how to make pretzels. (Isa was the Guest Assistant Chef)

Today was another event, they went and did a Lakeshore Cleanup at the beach right next to the Cirque site. Baz and Ayla were amazed and impressed with the amount of trash to be found on beaches.

So, it's hard to see what's happening in this photo, but it was a moment I wanted to capture. Totem's Artistic Director sometimes teaches a Ballet Barre class for the artists, and one afternoon Gipsy and Isa wandered into it. She let them stay (though their attention didn't hold out for the whole class) and it was super-cute to see them imitating the adults.

There is Wi-Fi in the kitchen, and artists are often chatting with their family and friends on Skype. Here is Alya, with her daughter Alisa on her iPad, and Gipsy and Isa eagerly saying hello. The girls drew pictures for each other and held them up to their screens.

Every once in a while, Greg keeps Isa with him while he trains, so I can get out to a yoga class. Here's Isa, playing contentedly at the top of the stairs while Dad whizzes glowballs around.

Totem profiles - Olli Torkkel

2011-09-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

Olli Torkkel, age 33, from Helsinki, Finland, is an acrobat in the Rings Trio. A lifelong athlete, before coming to Cirque du Soleil he was working in Finland as a professional gymnast.

Olli’s gymnastics career followed a traditional, high-powered route in the early years. He started around age 5 or 6, and became part of a gymnastics club. The club traveled to meets internationally. His terrific skills kept him competing at a high level throughout his school years and beyond – when Cirque found him in 2009, he was earning a living competing and coaching.

Now, he has spent two years immersed in the world of Totem. He likes this life a lot. When he’s not working, or hanging out with his “circus family” of close friends and colleagues, Olli can be found reading, or studying, as he pursues a business degree. For the most part, though, he is happy to take things one day at a time, enjoying the adventure. “Compared to gymnastics…. It’s kind of the same but more fun. There are none of the disappointments of gymnastics competitions. You get the reward from the audience every night.”

Videos, pictures, stories

2011-09-12T19:13:00.000-07:00

This is a mix of different videos and pictures of our experiences over the past week. The first one is a video clip showing a typical lunchtime conversation with Ayla. Here she is telling me about her current school art project, which has something to do with Andy Warhol.

One of my favorite places to be is backstage when something new happens in the Totem show. Whenever a new act performs for the first time, or someone in a new role, everyone gathers around the video screen to watch attentively. And when the act is over, you have a scene like this:

Shandien is our new Hoop Dancer. She is the sister of Nakotah, our regular Hoop Dancer. Some parts of the show will now be a duet, and she'll be backup in case Nakotah ever has to miss a show.

We had a very unusual week, because Greg was leaving Totem to attend the wedding of some dear friends of ours. So finally, after a year and a half of training, Greg's understudy was called in to work. They spent a lot of time over this past month getting him completely prepared to fill in for a weekend's worth of shows. Due to Dmitri's other responsibilities in the show, however, they had to train a second person to fill in for Greg's "cues" during the show. So it was odd and complicated, but in the end everyone was ready. It was too funny for us to see two other artist friends in the show dressed up as the Scientist! Here they are....

The wedding was in New Jersey. Greg was a groomsman. This meant that the five of us had to be out the door by 5:00am. It would have been around 8.5 hours driving, if we hadn't hit the flooded-out areas of southern New York! Major highways were shut down, and we were improvising detours, and running into scenes like this:

We found ourselves driving through the mountains on dirt roads, not at all sure that we were going to make it to the wedding on time.

But get there, we did. Greg was immediately whisked off for bridal-party duties, the kids and I put on our fancy clothes, and the festivities began. It was an unusual, and beautiful wedding. Our friends, David Smith and Rachel Katz, had decided, instead of one taking the other's last name, to pick an entirely new last name for themselves. Their choice? Darwin. So now I have a lot of practice to do, calling them David and Rachel Darwin. (I've known Dave for over ten years, and Rachel for probably five).

To add to the adventures, they had James "The Amazing" Randi as their officiant, Dave carried Rachel across a pile of broken glass, and there was pre-dinner entertainment by their magician and juggler friends. (Greg included). The fashions and the food were top-notch. And there were many tear-jerking moments! Like their amazing personal vows to each other, and their dances with their parents. When I saw Dave dancing with his Mom, I actually got all choked up from the Mom's point of view... imagine that I might do that someday with Baz, as a tall grown man! It is impossible and beautiful to picture.

The next day we rushed through Pennsylvania, visited with Greg's family, and then spent today (Monday) making the long drive back to Toronto.

Toronto School of Circus Arts

2011-09-07T19:51:00.000-07:00

Today we finally got to visit the Toronto School of Circus Arts. Due to traffic problems, we ended up with very little time there... but we still got a glimpse, and got to speak with the school's owner, Decker LaDouceur.

This morning, the facility was being rented out for a special event; you can see the group in the picture. And you can also get a glimpse of the beautiful space... one side of it, with the flying trapeze rig, has 39' ceilings, and 14 aerial fabrics hanging. This winter they're expanding, knocking through a wall to add an additional 5000 square feet of space. The light that comes through the windows is particularly wonderful.

TSCA is the first privately-owned circus school that Greg and I have come across in our travels, so we were especially interested to talk with Decker about the history of the place and its current operations. He and his wife do the lion's share of the work, from admin to teaching to cleaning! They have 18 total on staff, and more than 400 weekly students. It is a labor of love, and heartwarming to see. The school has been in operation for 13 years, 3 years in its current space.

I wish we'd had more time, but very glad that we got to see the school, in any case.

Trip to Montreal (or... Being Spoiled)

2011-09-06T18:52:00.000-07:00

We had a double-dark this week. But instead of relaxing / adventuring, we had to use our two days to go back to Montreal (6-hour drive each way) for Baz's orthodontist.

I mentioned before that Baz has a Palatal Expander contraption in the roof of his mouth right now. I didn't go into too much detail about how difficult it was for us to make this happen. Doctors in Canada did not want to work with us when we said we could only be there for a few weeks, and would need to coordinate treatment with orthodontists in other cities. The one we finally got to agree, did so on condition that we take a trip back from Toronto for a check-up with him. Then, he gave us a full package of records to bring to an orthodontist in San Francisco.

So, this week was our trek back. We rented a hotel room, and since it was on our dime, we went low-budget, staying at a bland cheap chain hotel somewhere in the north-middle of the city. Views of highways out the window. The area had so little resemblance to the elegant Vieux-Port that I'd gotten accustomed to! Even the French language and signage had a raw edge to it, as the neighborhood had heavy populations of other ethnicities.

Having 5 of us in a hotel room was not the most fun I've ever had. When the kids went to sleep we couldn't do much but sit quietly in the dark. I slept poorly, waking up at every small movement or sound of the children. And in the morning, Baz was up at his usual 7am, which meant that the rest of us were, too. Here he is trying his best to stay quietly out of our way.... he's reading a book by the light of the window. :)

I'm worried about this because we have a lot of plans, over the next few weeks, to stay in hotel rooms. We're attending a wedding next weekend. And then in October, we are planning to spend a full two weeks driving across the country, staying at cheap motels and lodges throughout. And somehow I've got to stay sane throughout.

When I was a kid, when my family traveled, we camped. All in one small camper or tent. We never even had the luxury of hotel rooms. And every other family I know travels together to some degree... sleeping everywhere from motel rooms, to cabins, to cars! ...so why am I feeling like I can't handle these kinds of living quarters, that I'm going to go batty unless I have an apartment suite?!

Deep breaths. First, I must acknowledge that I have been spoiled for almost a year and a half now. Everywhere we go, we are swept into these beautiful lodgings, with separate kitchens and bedrooms, and we carve out our own spaces. I have gotten used to this travel routine, and to spacious apartments and some measure of privacy.

Second, as I think I've mentioned before, I have a powerful need for solitude. In the evenings, after all of the responsibilities that I handle during the day, I absolutely must have an hour or two shut up by myself. I often wish this wasn't the case... that I could get just as much solace from social interaction; but it just doesn't work for me, and I've come to accept that.

So in our travels I will simply have to take time for myself when I can; and when it's impossible, I'll take more of those deep breaths and try to stay in the moment. Hopefully, the adventures will be worth it.

On our way home we pulled off the highway to visit a Big Rock!! It's the Bleasdell Boulder.

Niagara Falls

2011-09-01T19:39:00.000-07:00

On Monday, we did the family trip to Niagara Falls, Canada side. As everyone reported, it was beautiful, and touristy. We managed to stick with just the Falls, taking the kids on the Maid of the Mist boat for the full water-spray close-up experience - and we avoided venturing away from the waterfront to the more ridiculous attractions.

The highlight for me was this exquisite rainbow, which lingered for the last half-hour or so of our visit. We attempted numerous times to get a cute photo of the kids under the rainbow. But the sun was pointing directly in their eyes, and none of the tricks / acting coaching we tried worked at all. ("just close your eyes, and then when I say go, open them really fast and smile!") You can see how it went.

In the end, the best photo I got had none of us in it...

Some Toronto photos

2011-08-27T18:54:00.001-07:00

Isa, practicing her "ta-da" hand.

To keep reminding us that it's not just foreign countries that have bizarre signage. We see this sign every day at the bus stop, so if any of you have a clue what it means, do let me know.

I managed a quick walk through Busker Fest today. There are quite a number of circus acts and rigs set up. It's funny to think that, as a teenager, this would have been my idea of heaven. Now, I am mostly irritated by the detours it's causing in my commute to and from the Cirque tent. :( in any case, I wish I had more time / energy to enjoy the festival, but c'est la vie. This act caught my eye, two girls performing a hoop act in a wooden cage. The hoop act was nothing exciting; the best parts were when they climbed around inside the cage!
(note to self: get Greg to build cage for circus school. will have numerous uses I'm sure.)

Last of all, a glimpse of the Totem artists in between shows....

The Islands

2011-08-22T19:24:00.001-07:00

Since we arrived here, everyone on tour has been raving about the Islands. Toronto has a series of small islands in Lake Ontario, a short ferry ride from the city, which are basically set up as public recreational parks. There are beaches, walking paths, and little attractions like kids' rides and a petting zoo. (no cars) Today we finally managed to spend a day out there, and it was as wonderful as everyone claimed.

To begin, I joined the Totem Running Club (newly formed) for a run around the islands, while Greg, my parents, and the kids did some exploring. What a great place to run! We had perfect weather, a fun group of people, and gorgeous scenery.

Then, after a picnic lunch, my Mom and Dad rented a quadracycle so we could explore a little further. We had a wonderful ride... Ayla made huge leaps today in her bike-riding confidence, and started asking us to ride her bike at every opportunity, all day long. We are all so excited about this!

I loved this image of Grandpa Ron and Isa, which I took during one of our riding breaks. Isa has a deep affection for her Grandpa Ron, and takes every opportunity she can to spend time with him. Of all of us, he is often the one most patient with her 4-year-old whimsical self ... her arbitrary and delighted observations of the world, her odd sense of logic, her complete absorption in the present moment.

We weren't finished yet. I was determined to get at least a few of us in a canoe - which I hadn't done since I was a kid, and something my kids had never experienced. Ayla bowed out - she was too nervous about the possibilities of capsizing, and sharks. (?) But Greg, Baz and Isa were game, and so we spent an hour paddling around the lagoons. It was great fun, despite a couple of mishaps caused by my adventure-seeking husband (I got knocked over in the boat at one point by a low-hanging branch, and we got stuck on a log in a swamp!) ...I was mostly just amazed by the peaceful joy of it. Listening to the sounds of the wildlife, coming up close and personal with swans, feeling the fall of the oar in the water.

At the end of the day, Mom and Dad took us out to dinner, and I just felt like I could not have imagined a better day. We are all going to sleep tired and happy from all that fresh air and sunshine.

Canadian National Exhibition

2011-08-21T19:07:00.000-07:00

My Mom and Dad are visiting, and that's helping me to get out to see a bit more here in the city.

Today we tackled the enormous Canadian National Exhibition, a sort of World's Fair / State Fair. I'd never been to anything on quite this scale before... like a giant amusement park, bazaar, carnival, agricultural expo, arts festival, and craft fair all in one. The midway alone - with its endless stretches of carnival barkers, games, and deep-fried food - was the most extensive I've ever seen.

We went to shows - the Strongman show, the Aerial Acrobatics / Ice Skating Show, and the Superdogs show. All of which were very entertaining. I have to say that the Aerialists were not super-impressive - strange choices of apparatus and choreography, and basic tricks. Here's a photo of a doubles act, performed on a horizontal triangle. Why not a trio act on a triangle? I have no idea. But hey anything is more fun to watch over ice. Note that there was no ice skating / aerial overlap (which is a fun concept and has been done before)... in this show, the aerialists were carried out to their apparatus by the ice skaters. It must be really hard to stay warm... we were all chilled up in the bleachers, what's it like for those aerialists??

There were rides for the children. There were marketplaces - wholesale products, specialty, international, craft. There were music stages, and farm animals, and buskers. It was exhausting sensory overload. In our 8 hours there we did not manage to see even half of the attractions! ...Here are the children admiring the sand sculptures. This art form / competition brings to mind numerous questions. Such as, who are these professional sand sculptors? Well, thank goodness for the Internet, you can check out the World Sand Sculpting Academy "the global network of sand sculpting experts". I had no idea that you can do sand sculpting as a corporate team-building activity.

My eyes are closing as I'm typing... that is what a day of CNE ("The Ex") will do for you. Off to sleep, with visions of caramel apples, miniature horses, dogs jumping through hoops, and Ferris wheels.

First Day of School

2011-08-19T19:09:00.001-07:00

Baz started 3rd grade today, and Ayla started 2nd grade.

The orientation meeting, while just covering basic information, was a crowded trailer buzzing with multiple languages being translated at once. The new child starting 1st grade this year is Russian, with Russian-speaking parents, and he is starting in French immersion. We were also joined by the Chinese students and their interpreter.

They are making an effort to overlap the studies of the Chinese-school students and the Canadian-school students a little more this year. So, while the Chinese will still have their own trailer and an independent curriculum, one of Cirque's teachers will work with them a few hours a week, and in exchange their teacher will be giving a Chinese class to our kids once a week! Baz and Ayla seem partly thrilled and partly worried about it.

I do hope we can build some stronger ties with the Chinese girls - they've been on tour with us several months now, and few of us can remember their hard-to-pronounce names, let alone hold a conversation with them. They are still so young, and so shy about trying to speak English.

The other new challenge for Baz and Ayla this year is that their Math class is being taught in French. It's part of a program to gradually immerse them in French - if we stay for more years on tour, each year they would add another class taught in French. They both came home today saying, "that was HARD."

As an icebreaker game to kick off the school year, the kids had this scavenger hunt assignment. They were turned loose on the Totem site, exploring all around the common areas to find people with the listed qualifications. It was great fun.

...So, our summer vacation is over. It was short. I feel a bit discouraged that we accomplished so little. I had great ambitions of sight-seeing, skill-acquiring, goal-achieving. In the end, we did very little - spent a lot of afternoons at libraries and playgrounds. But we did have to move to a new city in the middle of it. We managed to squeeze in a handful of lessons, as well, in swimming, Russian and ballet. ....mostly, though, the kids had a break, and I suppose that's what summer is supposed to be for!

I enjoyed spending the day on site today. Spoke some Russian, caught up with some people I hadn't seen in awhile, sat in the sunshine and got used to the layout of the new site. It's a big, nice site, with plenty of space for kids to play and trailers surrounding an outdoor picnic area by the kitchen. There's wildlife too!! the kids got to see raccoons, a praying mantis, and several grasshoppers today.

Our Toronto apartment

2011-08-14T13:13:00.000-07:00

Toronto days

2011-08-12T19:27:00.000-07:00

We are settling in to our new Toronto routines. All of the families live in one apartment building here, and so there's a great energy - part college-dorm, part extended-family-holiday. We knock on the door when our next-door neighbor's pillow fights get too loud. We meet in the lobby and head to the local playground together. One of my English students just visited me, at 10:30pm in her fuzzy pajamas, to deliver her classwork and check on our next meeting date. It's all pretty fantastic.

Across the street from our apartment is a place called Metro Hall. It contains a branch of the Toronto Public Library, which thrilled us until we found out it's only an adult research library. So we are still trekking around trying to find a good children's library here in downtown.

Outside Metro Hall are some fun statues and fountains. Here is our favorite - these are our adopted pets for the season, the Babbits. This name is still under debate - we are trying to combine "rabbit" "bear" and "beaver", although some voters want to include "donkey" and "giraffe" as well. Nevertheless, we visit our pets on a regular basis, and we can even look down on them from our window, 20 stories up!
A description of the artwork can be found on page 5 of this PDF: http://www.toronto.ca/culture/pdf/artwalk_nov4_03.pdf

Today we launched new Toronto classes. Here are the girls clearly warming to their new ballet teacher, Angie, at the National Ballet School of Canada. It's a beautiful studio, in a beautiful building, six levels of soaring spaces with tons of glass and light and modern art. (it reminds me a bit of Ecole Nationale de Cirque actually). Feels quite exciting to be there, where the real ballerinas train!

And then Nastya started Kids Russian class today! It was an overly-large group, because the older kids are on summer break. So there were 11 energetic little people speaking four different languages in Nastya's apartment this afternoon, and I thought she did a great job. I'll do whatever I can to help this class keep going. My kids have homework, learning to write their names in Russian.

Баз
Ейла
Иса

Toronto

2011-08-06T19:08:00.000-07:00

We have arrived here, in the largest metropolis in Canada. This city is huge! And we are staying right in the middle of downtown, about two blocks from this:

It's the CN Tower, 1815 feet tall and for a long time, the world's tallest tower.
We will, at some point, go up in the fun elevators to the Sky Pod, but we're saving our pennies, it's $23/person!

In the meantime we are doing the usual settling-in things, finding the grocery store, unpacking, filing complaints with the building about items that are missing or broken.

We did sneak out for a couple of hours yesterday to a nearby beach.

My kids, as it turns out, are out of practice with beaches. They are nervous in the waves. They complain of the cold. They don't know what to do with themselves in the sand. How did we end up with this bunch?? I am hoping to get them out there a few more times this summer, so they can get the hang of it again.

Greg and I weren't especially good examples, I have to say. With the air temperature below 80, and the water of Lake Ontario freezing, we didn't want to do much more than sit on our towel. We are getting old that way.

More to come as we adjust to our new living space and explore our surroundings...

Whirlwind New York trip

2011-08-05T16:52:00.000-07:00

We changed our travel plans last-minute, and decided to make a quick trip to the States in between Montreal and Toronto. We first went to Massachusetts, to visit my parents and my old hometown of Natick. Then we left the kids with Mom and Dad, and drove down to New York City for an overnight!

It was an excellent visit. We checked into the Hotel Pennsylvania, right in midtown Manhattan across the street from Madison Square Garden!! The hotel was built in 1919, and had a grand, elegant feel to it. At least, the lobby and public spaces. The rooms were a little less glamorous - quite small, and not renovated in a great many years; but all of this felt like real New York City.

Then we were out in the streets - walking through Times Square, and Rockefeller Center, and finding a wonderful Italian restaurant for dinner. We were on our way to the 8pm showing of Zarkana at Radio City Music Hall.

Zarkana was impressive. It's a big-scale show - including a 15-person flying trapeze act and a 15-person banquine act. There is a ton of video projection, as well.

But I had mixed feelings about the content of the show. Greg and I both really loved the Flag Manipulation and the High Wire and the Handbalancing acts. The Sand Painting was just about the weirdest thing I've ever seen in Cirque du Soleil. And the other acts had pros and cons - clean skills but poor presentation, or interesting presentation but not-too-dazzling skills; Greg and I both thoroughly disliked the music, which is rock-opera-esque. It's weird having the main character as a singer, and to have him singing melodramatically in English throughout the show. The video projections are occasionally marvelous, but often just distracting. An example: when the Roue Cyr act is going on, with a bunch of Roue Cyr artists spinning around on the stage, the video projections show lots more identical artists spinning around above and behind them. Instead of giving you the effect of a hundred Roue Cyr artists, it instead makes you question the real ones. Is the whole thing just CGI? I really hate it when technology gets in the way of circus, so that you appreciate the human feats less.

It's a strange show, and especially strange to be in this groundbreaking role; it will perform in gigantic theaters in Madrid and in Moscow, next. The show is designed to be staged in exceptionally large, unique theater spaces for longer runs, 6 months or so. To me it feels quite un-Cirque... but what is Cirque, these days, anyway? The company has expanded its definition continually over the last 25 years. It is always changing and trying new things. And so, we'll see how Zarkana fares in the world... so far its reception in New York seems excellent, and the seats are full.

Being in New York City is, to me, energizing and inspiring. The next morning I took some time to write in a new journal, here is what I wrote...

---------------------------------------------------------

There is no place like New York. I'm convinced of it. There may be other crowded cities, but none with the rich diversity of this place. It overpowers the senses. People-watching feels impossible, with the swirl of constantly-changing faces. I love the energy here, though it can feel exhausting.

Studying the map of the city brings back a sprinkling of memories. Though I've never spent any significant time here, for 20 years I've had moments in the Big Apple. I remember coming here with my mother to see my first Broadway show, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Years later, I was sitting on the floor at the Port Authority, heading back to Washington DC after a visit to Greg, when we were first seeing each other. There were the times Greg and I saw Philippe Petit, Alegria, Lazer Vaudeville. I remember being a stiltwalking toy solider at the NY Public Library one year. There was the time on my birthday, a few years back, when I asked Greg to watch the kids so I could take the train up, and spend the whole day walking around the city by myself. Then there was that Thai dinner with Ludger, and taking the kids to the Bronx Zoo...

In any case, I am here now, and the city continues to bubble and boil and burst at the seams with all of its color and life. This morning I have been in the dank crowdedness of the subway, the fresh greenness of Central Park, and the jostling corridors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

There seems to be no quiet time here, no real open space or room to stretch. Millions of people with all of their own ideas and agendas zoom around in mass anonymity. Nothing is strange here. Every imaginable type of person, clothing, behavior, all just mixes together. It can be a little bit dehumanizing. What are we all doing here? Does anything I say or do matter to anyone else? How is it at all possible to make connections in a place like this?

--------------------------------------------------------

It is greatly satisfying to me to know that I'll have another opportunity soon to find out, when we spend a couple of months of 2012 actually living in New York City with Totem. Another one of my life's dreams will be fulfilled!

With that, it's off to Toronto....

Montreal ballet

2011-08-04T19:45:00.000-07:00

Four of the Totem girls (Ayla, Isa, Gipsy and Dasha) took ballet lessons this summer at Ballet Divertimento in Montreal. It was great fun for them to be in a real studio, with barres and mirrors and other dancers running around. And they loved their teacher Odette. Here is a short video of their final performance:

Pictograms

2011-07-31T08:20:00.001-07:00

Canadians seem to really like pictograms, and we've come across a lot of weird ones. Here are a few of my favorites.

This is posted outside a metro station. My kids didn't get it at first, but if you read the French at the end it sort of makes sense: Every Person Counts. (public transit)

This is the standard sign on the metro, asking you to give up your seat for any of these unfortunate types.

You've got to wonder about image #3. ??

In case you weren't sure where you are, from the top sign, there's a helpful pictogram.

I have no idea.

You're not alone if this one takes you a minute. It's a sign for a spa!

Totem profiles - Yann Arnaud

2011-07-28T18:39:00.000-07:00

Yann Arnaud, age 32, from Chennevieres, France, is an acrobat and a character in Totem. His main act is on the Rings, pictured. Yann is the husband of my aerialist friend Adelaide, and father to Kiana, age 3.

He grew up outside Paris as a very restless and active child. His parents put him in swimming, then soccer, but it wasn't until the age of 10 that he found gymnastics. At first he was just practicing on his own, but soon convinced his parents to let him take a class. His talent came out very quickly - in his first year he was put into competitions. By the age of 11 he was training every day and was on his way to competing at an international level. But at age 14, a back injury sidelined him. Though he didn't stop training completely, he had to greatly cut down his practice for several years.

Yann rebounded, and by age 17 he had won a national championship on the high bar, and integrated into France's national gymnastics team. He met his future wife, Ade, at the national training center; they were married in 2003.

However, at age 21, he injured his back again. He was in a cast for three months. At that point, he decided he was done with competitive gymnastics. He spent a couple of years coaching, but then heard they were looking for acrobats for a show at Eurodisney, and jumped at the opportunity. He discovered that he loved being onstage. When auditions for Cirque du Soleil came through France in 2002, he auditioned. Two weeks later he found himself in Montreal.

He trained for two months in Montreal and joined the cast of O in Las Vegas. He spent two years doing the lyra act in O, and then left Cirque to be part of the creation of Le Reve, Franco Dragone's marvelous Las Vegas water circus production. He spent five years with Le Reve; then it was time for a change, and he auditioned to re-join Cirque du Soleil with Totem.

He's now on a rotation with the Rings act, performing 2 out of 3 shows. And in every show, he is one of the Neanderthal characters. He appreciates, on Totem, the ability to save money on tour - compared to the shows in Las Vegas, where artists pay for their own housing and transportation and food. And he is enjoying being part of the community here, which is more like a big family. Here's my favorite picture of Yann with his little girl.

Visitors, part 2

2011-07-27T19:09:00.001-07:00

The last half of July has brought more wonderful visitors… my Aunt Marilyn, Uncle Bob, and their friends from Plattsburgh; my old friend Scott Jameson from Massachusetts; and my parents.

Mom has been here for the last several days, and her visits always give us an excuse to get out sightseeing. This week we managed the swimming pool at Parc Jean Drapeau, the Biodome, the Botanical Gardens, and Parc Safari.

The Biodome and the Gardens were decent. Lots of plants and animals I had never seen before. Ayla and I especially enjoyed the Chinese Gardens and the water lilies.

But Parc Safari was the biggest hit, I think. It's not too often that you can pet a zebra, or feed a yak. And though a part of me found it creepy, the endless stretch of cars driving through this yard of domesticated wild animals, there's no denying the excitement of taking photos like these:

We also enjoyed the rest of the park. This is what the underneath of a lion looks like. No, it's not on top of our car... the carnivorous felines were kept in a separate place. This photo was taken from the Lion Tunnel!

Here's one of our funniest images of the day... they gave this crane a mirror. He just stands there all the time, staring at the mirror.

Towards the end of the afternoon, it started to rain. As you can see, this lion didn't mind it too much. And for us grownups, this allowed us to avoid going to the Water Park! Not too many tears shed. Parc Safari really has a lot to see and do - we were there for nearly 5 hours even without doing the water park.

So, Mom left this morning, heading back to Massachusetts. We've changed our plans for the week between Montreal and Toronto, and now we're going there - to Natick, for a few days. We're going to leave the kids overnight with the grandparents and go to New York City to see Zarkana! So that should be exciting.

Now, it's just packing, and more packing, and a few last days here in Montreal. I took my last class this morning at Bikram Yoga Montreal. It's been awful. I only managed to get there about once a week over the last two months; I really disliked the classes and the studios, and they rarely run early-morning classes, which is the only time I can go. In the beginning, I sent this email to Bikram Yoga Pittsburgh:

"I'm just writing to say I miss you all! I am in Montreal now, and the Bikram classes are not the same. They turn the heat up too high, drink water during class, and say things like "this should hurt! feel that pain sensation!" ugh. What's more, the teachers don't learn the students' names, and I'm missing the gentle encouragement, joking around, and telling us the benefits of each posture, that you do so much of in Pittsburgh. I tell the teachers I started practicing in Pittsburgh, and they know you guys! They admire you so much. I didn't realize how lucky I was to begin Bikram classes with such world-renowned instructors. Anyway, only a few more weeks here and then I'm off to Toronto, where I will try again to find a studio that's as close-knit, supportive, and down-to-the-basics real as you all are. And hopefully my journeys will lead me back to Pittsburgh one of these days."

(sigh). Hoping for better luck in the next city.

For now, it's a beautiful sunny day here in Montreal and it's time to get out and enjoy it!

A glimpse of wow

2011-07-25T18:24:00.001-07:00

It's nice to be the family of a Cirque du Soleil artist. Today we got a 2-hour private tour of the Cirque international headquarters (IHQ)!!

Greg arranged this for us , because last year, he was in Montreal for 6 months without us. We never saw the artist residences, or the studio. So it was especially nice for us to be able to explore. We had already looked around the outside of the grounds quite a bit - a change for Greg - he was here in the wintertime and everything was covered in snow, he never spent any time outside. Now it's a beautiful summertime, and there is lots of green space, and people are enjoying the sunshine.

Taking photos is not allowed inside IHQ. In the creation room, where new shows are being staged, you have to check your cell phone at the door. They're not kidding. But they do give tour participants a nice little booklet at the end of the tour, with some photos of the interior.

A couple of figures - CdS employs some 5000 people, 1500 of whom work at IHQ. The building was constructed in 3 parts, from 1997-2007, and it's massive - but they are still outgrowing it, and having to keep some offices off-site.

We saw the 2 cafeterias, the outdoor sand volleyball court (which converts to an ice rink in winter), the physiotherapy area, the training gymnasium, the kids' schoolroom (at Ayla's request), the 7th-floor party room, the library, the rainwater-collection systems, the water-filtration system, the shipping and receiving departments, the head-cast displays, the shoe factory, the prop-making areas, the wood shop, the extensive costume department and the fabric collections, the fitting areas. We capped it off, at Baz's request, with a visit to Guy LaLiberte's personal office. (he wasn't there at the time.) He has a nice outdoor patio. We peeked in the window at the Michael Jackson show in rehearsals. We generally had an awesome time.

Our guide, Frederic, had lots of interesting bits of trivia to share with us. Like the fact that when the artists land in the 8'-deep foam pit, they can't climb out, it acts like quicksand, they need trainers to pull them out. When a show is first developed, the library orders every imaginable piece of media existing about the topic at hand - such as Elvis, or evolution - for the creators to use for inspiration. The costume department, ever-busy, has to replace all of the costumes for O every 6 to 8 weeks. That's what the swimming pools will do. They catalog and archive everything. Every type of material used in a costume is preserved and recorded in a database. Thousands of fabrics are collected and displayed for the designers to reference, but they still, oftentimes, choose to make something from scratch. Wigs, every hair sewn in by hand, can take months of full-time work. They make 3500 pairs of shoes per year.

Besides all of this learning, today's tour served an important role for me - it re-energized the sense of purpose, and passion, that I have being on the periphery of this amazing company. Greg, too, felt inspired by the experience. He says that, in the day-in, day-out of touring with a big company, you can forget the genuine goodness of the people behind the scenes, who are all working hard as well, trying to do their very best for these shows. Cirque du Soleil seems like a truly good company, deeply committed to the welfare of its people, and the surrounding community. If it has any fault, it must be that, by examining every repercussion, thinking through every side of a problem, and carefully considering the feelings and needs of the whole universe, it can be bogged down in slowness and indecision. But cold, or thoughtless? I think it will never be.

We are excited for the Michael Jackson show (it seems the whole company is!) It will debut in October, and tour arenas. A permanent Michael Jackson show is also in the works for Las Vegas, a couple of years down the line. There are always new projects, more things to tackle, and the Cirque du Soleil world just continues to expand.... it is a privilege to witness it.

Les Minutes, part 2

2011-07-24T07:49:00.000-07:00

Another clip of Les Minutes, ENC's street performances - this one involves a high-wire walk! maybe 30 feet up. It's called "Slackline" - as you can see it's a tightwire rig, quite well-built, but it's so long, the wire really becomes slack and wobbly in the middle. The artist, some kid named Pierre, is barefoot. He's not using a balancing pole, but does have a safety cable clipped to the wire, dragging behind him. Quite a feat.

Totem in the heat

2011-07-23T10:07:00.001-07:00

So, it's hot here. OK, it's not as hot as it is where all the rest of you are - New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, etc. But it's still hot, and you should all be grateful you don't have to wear a monkey costume. :) Here are a few images of Totem's Montreal heat wave.

Acrobats getting some sun between shows.

Nikita in the ice cooler.

And on really hot days, besides water, they also break out the Gatorade coolers in the kitchen.

And this is not about the heat, but just a sign of Canada's sense of humor. Sorry it's blurry - it's the over-the-highway sign during a heavy traffic jam outside Montreal. As you sit unmoving in your car for 30 minutes, you can enjoy the message saying "Public Transit. It's Your Choice."

Des Feux, & misc.

2011-07-20T20:49:00.001-07:00

I think I've mentioned that Montreal is the city of a thousand festivals in summertime. (it's really kind of overkill). July includes l'International des Feux Lotos-Quebec, a huge international fireworks festival. Cirque du Soleil's schedule is actually structured around this festival, with early shows on Saturdays and Wednesdays, because the fireworks are viewed at the waterfront. Each evening of the event, one country does a 30-minute show at 10:00pm. We haven't attended any of the previous shows, we are early-to-bed types ... but decided tonight, the USA night, we'd let the kids stay up. It was a glorious show, full of all kinds of intricate designs, different types of firework shapes than I had ever seen before. It had the theme of "The Wizard of Oz", and if you were close enough (we weren't) you could hear the accompanying music. Still, someone nearby had a radio, and we were able to catch the last notes of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" during the grand finale...

In other miscellaneous notes from today....
- My English/Russian lessons continue with Marina, though some days I feel like neither one of us is making much progress! I love spending time with her, though, and I think if we just keep working at it, we'll eventually see improvements.
- The girls had ballet class with Odette, at Ballet Divertimento. We are struggling now to find a place for them to do ballet in Toronto, not having much luck.
- My English classes were held this afternoon in the kitchen. Not ideal, because it's very noisy and busy. The kids, especially, can't focus. But the conference room is always occupied here in Montreal, and it was simply too hot to be outdoors. In Toronto it looks like all of the families will be staying in one apartment building! Which I'm really excited about. So we will probably have classes there, instead, for a couple of months.
- Then I took the kids to see the show today, always enjoyable. Nothing too surprising in the show today... Ante lost a devil stick handstick in the audience, which I think was a first; hand-to-hand replaced roller skates, Massimo & Denise are only doing 5 shows a week right now which is hard for everybody I think! And Russian bar only 2-bar version, as Tamir is in Washington DC welcoming his new baby girl into the world! We can't wait to meet her in Toronto.
- There was a BBQ this evening, hosted for the CdS headquarters folks. It was okay. Baz attempted to imitate Yahor's tree-branch trick, where he leaps from a chair to the branch (a la Frogs / high bar) - Baz landed on his back in the dirt, there were some tears and a trip to see Anouk. All is OK.
- Otherwise just nice visiting with people... chatting with Olga about our cross-country itineraries this fall, getting thank-you cards signed for the school teachers (last day tomorrow!) etc. another day at site.
- And tomorrow I'm getting up early for yoga... I am determinedly getting to Bikram classes once a week or so. Wish it could be more often, but the schedule just won't allow it. I really hope I can live someplace, in future, where I can get back to going every day.

More of the circus festival!

2011-07-17T07:34:00.000-07:00

The kids and I were delighted to be able to catch one of the Ecole Nationale de Cirque's street events yesterday. These are big performance-art projects, held outdoors in various locations of the city, during the three weeks of the festival, two or three times a day. There are at least 5 or 6 different shows, and they're all called "Les Minutes". The one we caught was "Les Minutes: Revolution" and Kyle says it's one of the most-fun shows that they do. As you can see from the attached video, it was super-fun. In fact, I can't think of anything that could be much more fun than 49 of the fittest young circus acrobats in the world playing a big French version of Simon Says in the middle of the city. The whole event was about 20 minutes, I cut it down to a few minutes of highlights here, just so you can get the idea. It totally made my day.

Today's adventure was Le Cirque Invisible, which, I must admit, I enjoyed less.

Everyone raves about this show - basically because of its pedigree. The performers, Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée and Victoria Chaplin, are undeniably two of the most groundbreaking VIPs in modern circus. According to their biography, this show has been touring (and evolving) for 30 years. "Legendary figures, pioneers of the new circus genre and inventors of a unique style..."

so, I was impressed, and felt I should see it. But that didn't make me enjoy the show.

The show is essentially a long series of prop-comedy gags, some more entertaining than others. Jean-Baptiste and Victoria take turns on stage throughout. While her bits are usually quite lovely - some remarkable use of costumes and acrobatics - his tend to be goofy, trite, and over-the-top. I was tired of watching him by his second appearance (and he must have appeared twenty times or more). Above all I was blown away by the excessive use of giant comic props, which must be an absolute nightmare to pack and pre-set. There must be hundreds of items used in this show, many used for only a few seconds. Every time they brought out something like a giant tuba, a long magic table or a mardi-gras-sized buffoonish costume, I was mentally calculating the shipping containers. Truly horrifying. Maybe this contrast was greater to me because we just saw Circa last week, which used almost no props at all...

(and let's not even mention the doves, ducks, and rabbits! how ever do they travel internationally?!)

It is somehow inspiring and worrying, at the same time, to see these two performing onstage. Knowing how old they are (according to Wikipedia, Victoria is 60, Jean-Baptiste is 74!) a big part of me doesn't want to see them up there. Shouldn't they be settling down somewhere enjoying their grandkids at this point? But admittedly, Victoria is still lovely to watch... who can imagine moving with that much elegance and strength at the age of 60? ...overall, though, I just think their time has passed. I'd rather pay tribute to them in some other way.

Circus week

2011-07-12T20:44:00.001-07:00

Really, nothing can center my world like circus performances, and this week is off to a great start.

We are just wrapping up Greg's double-dark, two full days off. We spent most of it in Plattsburgh, NY, visiting my extended family.

On our first day in Plattsburgh, I took a group of people to see Circus Smirkus! It was our second year doing this, and second year feeling proud watching Aaron Berman in the show.

Aaron is a talented young aerialist from the Philadelphia area, he has been training at the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts for a few years now. Seeing him shine onstage is wonderful, and I'm quite sure this is just the beginning of his performing career.

A good afternoon was spent with circus acts and cotton candy, and we headed back to my aunt's house. Here's a bunch of us in the pool - that's me and my cousin Lisa, with all of our kids.

Today, after a few last visits and shopping (just like the Canadians, we stocked up on groceries and household goods before driving back across the border - prices are so much cheaper in the U.S.), we came back to Montreal, and left the kids with a babysitter so we could partake of a Montreal Completement Cirque performance. This one was called Wunderkammer, by an Australian group, Circa. Circa's mission statement is pretty fun: "...we progress with ceaseless inventiveness... guided by safe danger and fuelled by love and respect."

We were glad to have seen the show, but had to give it a mixed review. It had some gorgeous moments - a brilliant opening manipulation number with a hoop; great solo trapeze; a hand-balancing piece in pointe shoes; and a beautiful group acrobatic act that had all six artists throwing each other around in quite original ways. The show was heavy on dance-acro, incredibly physically demanding for the artists who were onstage for almost the full 90 minutes.

However, here again was a show bogged down by a wacky director. Entirely too much writhing and dragging people around, and too many burlesque moments. It seemed to us that many great bits in the show just had no finish, no punch line, and you were constantly left wondering, where is this going?? Glimpses of interesting ideas disappeared, and there were only a handful of times you could really exhale and grasp a concept in front of you.

This lack of simplicity was, I'm sure, mostly intentional, and I had to admire the way the acts flowed into one another, continually changing shape, rarely beginning or ending obviously. I loved how a performer would finish a particularly challenging routine, and instead of disappearing offstage, would simply join in with the group for the next set of maneuvers. The structure of the show was anything but boring.

I'd like to see more of Circa's work - apparently they have several shows, and multiple casts, though this is the first time I've ever seen them.

Cheers to Montreal Completement Cirque for bringing so much international talent to one place! And the circus festival is just beginning.

We have a mad week ahead. Greg, in addition to his regular work schedule, is going to appear on the Today show Thursday morning (just as the Scientist character, not juggling). So there are extra rehearsals for that. And it's the President's Tour this week, extra meetings. Myself, I have a full schedule of teaching classes, running kids around to activities, and welcoming round 2 of visitors. It's nice to be busy!

Le Village

2011-07-08T19:17:00.000-07:00

This week I discovered a new area of the city, Le Village, Montreal's gayborhood. What a great place! Decorated, closed off to vehicle traffic, and full of interesting shops and restaurants.

I liked this sign a lot - it translates to "It's Summer - The Street Belongs to Pedestrians!"

But my favorite discovery here must be this art installation. The poles are all free-standing, you can run around among them, and the letters light up at night. The rough translation of this phrase is: There will be a place for each of the freedoms that you will grant to yourself.

This "manifest" explains the concept of the work very well. "... this installation reminds us that the most essential thoughts surround us, without our even guessing, and that we just need to change perspective to see them in full view. And if the trees sometimes hide the forest, the tops of this grove reveal a message of hope."

Just beautiful, really.

And the other small moment of beauty today... after 4 weeks, I finally succeeded in getting a library card!!! :)

Visitors, part 1

2011-07-07T18:55:00.000-07:00

It's a month of many wonderful visitors here in Montreal. First was Patrick McGuire, a very old friend of Greg's who is a performer in Quidam. Quidam is now touring arenas, and he had a few days off in between cities. A whole bunch of the Quidam cast came, actually.... it's something of a tradition, whenever a Cirque show has a double-dark within a few hours of another show, a contigent of tour members will make the journey out.

After that, my dear friend from Circomedia, Ludger Hollmann, came to stay for a few days. Ludger was using Montreal as his first stop on a 7-week journey cycling around Northeastern Canada, alone. We were all amazed to see his bike fitted out with carrier bags including a tent, a cooking stove, and everything he'll need to live on the land. I sent him out the door nervously this morning; he is so excited to be off on his trip.

The photo above was taken from the clock tower on the waterfront, which has a beautiful view of the St. Lawrence River and the Old Port, including the chapiteau.

Happy Canada Day!

2011-07-01T19:57:00.000-07:00

Who needs the beach? We love our urban fountains.

Summer in the city!

....Today also has to go down as The Day in Which Random Quebecois People Chatter Away At Me in Completely Unintelligible French, and I Pretend to Understand Them. It just kept happening. Must be something in that patriotic-spirit air.

In any case we sampled the Festival International de Jazz, messed around in public fountains, and whiled away some time in our new favorite, overpriced English-language bookstore. A fine holiday, all in all.

Baz

2011-06-30T18:46:00.001-07:00

If you know Baz, you probably won't be surprised to hear that he's found a real niche in karate these past few weeks. It's brand-new for him, but it has just the right mix of focus/concentration, physical energy, and warrior-mystique to fill pretty much all of his needs. I love peeking in at him in class, seeing his ultra-serious face in rapt attention. We really like Studio Breathe, where he attends the classes up to 3 times per week.

Also I promised I wouldn't post a photo, but Baz's other big adventure here in Montreal is that we had a palatal expander installed by a pricey orthodontist. Multiple dentists & orthodontists had told us we needed to get this done - his upper jaw is simply too small. The adult teeth don't have space to come in, and he's compensating with a crossbite. So he's got this device in his mouth that I have to turn with a key, once a day for 4 weeks, which will open up his upper palate. He'll keep it in for another 3 or 4 months after that - including a couple of braces on his front teeth, to keep them straight as the mouth widens. I was a bit shocked that we had to get into this already, but so far it is going pretty smoothly. Though Baz was very resistant to the early appointments preparing for this device, now that he has it, he's being great - carefully following all instructions, and taking it as a serious responsibility.

Ecole Nationale de Cirque

2011-06-28T04:33:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we finally got a glimpse inside North America's most prestigious circus school, Montreal's Ecole National de Cirque. Kyle, a first-year student there, gave us a tour of the place after his classes had finished. He's in the middle of a three-week required summer session, which is a simple training regimen to keep them in shape during their break. (well, simple... if 5 hours a day of hard physical work can be called simple). Between this, and Kyle's performances in the upcoming circus festival, Montreal Completement Cirque, he will really only have the month of August free for summer vacation.

We were happy to have this tour of ENC, which is not the easiest thing to arrange. You can't just drop in and ask to walk around the school - appointments must be scheduled in advance, and students are limited in the amount of visitors / hours they can bring people in. This is just one of many rules that govern the workings of ENC, preserving its privacy and exclusivity. Visitors (or students or employees for that matter) are not allowed to take pictures or videos inside the school for posting on the Internet. (photo below from their Web site!) And Kyle explained that from a student's perspective, there are a myriad of other regulations - such as no training without a teacher present, which can be a challenge for these ultra-driven circus students who want to be training at all hours of the day.

While the environment seems, to outsiders, in the words of a friend of mine, "not warm and fuzzy", there is no arguing about the extraordinary caliber of training that takes place inside, or the incomparable facilities they've built for it. Infusions of funding from the Canadian government and private sources (Cirque du Soleil is their biggest donor) have provided for multiple soaring studio spaces, walls of windows, smaller classrooms, dormitories, offices, meeting rooms, and the most comprehensive and beautiful circus library I've ever seen.

The main studio spaces themselves are dazzling to walk around. With 40-foot ceilings covered with rigging grids, everything is custom-designed for circus. Powertracks, swinging trapeze rigs, Chinese poles, Cyr wheels, trampolines - the rooms are simply circus heaven, and surprisingly uncluttered - even the rooms where equipment is stored are spacious and neatly organized. On one of the higher floors, there is a huge, light-filled studio which is rented out by professional artists and companies who come in to develop work. As Kyle says, there is always something going on at ENC, shows being created, famous performers visiting.

As a student, Kyle's studies are intense and highly planned-out. Every student takes a certain number of general classes, including dance, acting, flexibility and "muscu", which is physical conditioning. They each have a primary coach for their specialization, and occasional guest professional artists as instructors. While some students come in as generalists, without a specific plan, others, like Kyle, know their specialty beforehand. Students are primarily Quebecois, with a sprinkling of Americans and Europeans.

It is an inspiring place to visit, especially after seeing the student shows a couple of weeks ago. If the future of circus is here, it's looking very bright indeed.

Our Montreal apartment

2011-06-23T18:45:00.000-07:00

Enjoy this bit of silliness from the Kennedy kids...

First images in Montreal

2011-06-21T20:15:00.001-07:00

Finally – after a few weeks of problems with my camera’s batteries and connecting cables (…ok…full disclosure… I simply lost these items completely, and have spent these few weeks hunting for replacements) – I finally have the ability again to upload photos! Here are a few from the past two weeks.
The first is Isa in our Montreal apartment, painting.

Here is a pretty picture of the little girls of Totem at the Montreal Premiere. The fresh roses laid out on the tables were a big hit. The girls brought them in to see the show, and if that didn't mark them out as special enough, Gipsy and Isa stood up in the audience and danced along with the Finale!

The girls shown - at the top is Sophia, and then from left to right it's Alina, Alyona, Dasha, Ayla, Isa, and Gipsy. The roster of children changes frequently... two 8-year-old girls (not pictured) have just joined us, and two of the other young girls are away for the summer with their Moms, we'll see them again in Toronto.

I thought this was great - a couple of school students from another Cirque show joined our Totem school for a day last week, and they all planted vegetables together. Showing some plants is Sylvie, one of the heads of the Supervision of Minors department - they are able to visit us more frequently now that we're near CdS headquarters.

The summer in Montreal is simply beautiful - temperatures in the 70s, gorgeous sunshine, the waterfront, and a city just teeming with people from all over the world. We are happy to be here!

Totem profiles - Fabio Luis-Santos

2011-06-19T13:19:00.000-07:00

Fabio, age 24, comes from Itajai, in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. He was an energetic kid, and at age 9 his parents sought an outlet for him in a local gymnastics school. He was immediately hooked, and by age 10 was training there every day.
Throughout his teens, Fabio was sponsored by the local and state governments to compete in gymnastics.

At the age of 22, Fabio heard that Cirque du Soleil was auditioning gymnasts in Brazil. He traveled to the audition. 6 months later, he was offered a job with Totem. He is one of the “frogs”, the high bar acrobats who open the show in the act called Carapace. It was an original creation for Totem, so he spent months in Montreal developing this act with the other gymnasts.

The touring life has been great for Fabio. Before joining Cirque, he had never traveled outside of South / Central America, and now he’s seeing the world. At the beginning, he needed a Portuguese interpreter – now he speaks English comfortably. He loves the energy of being onstage, and the great structure that Cirque provides.

But he does miss his family and his hometown, and is looking forward to going home at Annual Leave time in October this year.

One Year

2011-06-17T18:34:00.000-07:00

It has been one year since I left Philadelphia to join the Totem tour with Greg.

Things I’ve learned

About Cirque
- The Cirque du Soleil performers, with their superhuman beauty onstage, are really ordinary people behind the scenes. Like the rest of us, they have insecurities, weaknesses, and bad moods. Uniquely, however, they are able to let go of all of that when they walk onto the stage. And truth be told, they are above-average beautiful. When they walk around outside, they are striking.
- a Cirque du Soleil touring community, which I initially perceived as completely equitable and hierarchy-blind, really isn’t. Artists are given many more benefits, privileges and considerations than any of the supporting staff. Though it seems unfair at times, everyone seems to accept it as necessary and inevitable.
- Officially, the costume department is not responsible for sewing your personal items. But if you show up with a child’s torn or damaged clothing, chances are good that someone will help you out.

About the kids
- They are, of course, resilient. They have adapted to our new lifestyle with barely a hiccup. In place of a physical home, we have our family unit – they know that, where-ever we go, Mom and Dad, Baz, Ayla, and Isa will always be together. I believe this gives them the security they need to cope with the constant changes.
- Their exposure to other cultures and languages is working out exactly as I’d hoped. They completely understand now that people surrounding them may or may not speak their language. They know how to grapple with this. And they understand how hard it is to learn another language, from their own studies of French. While I do not have children chattering away in Russian or Chinese just yet, they are absorbing the importance of all of it, and opening their minds to the learning process. It’s invaluable, and I can see a big difference in them already.
- They are book-smart, my kids. We’ve always known that. But I appreciate this educational system, which continues to challenge them in academics, but also gives them many opportunities to stretch their wings in other areas. They run, they climb trees, they dance in the aisles of the circus tent. They plant fresh vegetables and eat them; examine treasures brought back from the rainforest by one of their teachers; they memorize the flags of all of the countries of Totem’s staff. …I know that every good elementary school provides diverse opportunities, and I am just glad that the Totem school is able to do so, as well.

About me
- I can do this.
- The things in my personal life that aspire to be good at: parenting, housekeeping, physical fitness, language study – are mildly improved by having more time. But they are still far, far from perfect.
- Based on the above, and also, I expect, on the fact that I’m getting older – I am becoming more accepting of the things I will never be. A cook. Fashionably dressed. A parent who loves open-ended playtime with her children. etc.
- I am an organizer / instigator. This is who I am. No matter what situation I’m in, I feel a need to structure it and move it forwards. I get a lot done; but I don’t relax and enjoy the moment very well.
- Every city, I arrive, and find in the apartment a dozen different things that I’m missing, that I feel I can’t do without. Instead of rushing out and buying everything - my recent strategy is to write everything down. For a few days I pine away and lament the absences, but after a week or so, 90% of the things on the list really don’t seem to matter anymore.
- I have no idea how anyone survived a touring lifestyle in the days before Internet.
- In most ways, I look around and realize that I am living all of my dreams. Right here and now! I am in a beautiful apartment, right in the heart of a big, French-speaking metropolis. I have time for hobbies, and for my family. I am a (peripheral) part of Cirque du Soleil, and so continually surrounded by my strongest passion. What’s more, my other passion – the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts – thrives without me, and will be there whenever this particular dream path comes to an end. It is a life of such near-perfection, everything I have ever wanted, that I can only feel an immense gratitude.

ENC shows

2011-06-11T20:14:00.001-07:00

We were lucky enough to arrive here in time for the annual end-of-year shows of the Ecole Nationale de Cirque. ENC is the creme-de-la-creme of circus schools, and their end-of-year show primarily features the 3rd-year, graduating students, though the 1st- and 2nd-years have supporting roles. There are two entirely separate productions: This year's shows are Pomme Grenade and Messa.

I saw Pomme Grenade first, this afternoon, with the children. I am so glad I brought them to this one, and not the other. Pomme Grenade was a really fun show. The director kept things upbeat, moving, and colorful throughout. The opening scene was just a joy, people moving through space, with acrobatic vignettes emerging, and disappearing, fluidly. It was a show of constant surprises, as acrobats dropped down from the ceiling and popped out of trap doors.

The featured acts in Pomme Grenade left nothing to be desired. The elegant handbalancer; the beautiful hammock choreography; the Korean plank (new to me, I'd never seen this rockin' skill before); the masterful cigar boxes; the lyra with its exquisite final sequences on the upper rope. I thoroughly enjoyed the hoop-diving, the amazing trampoline tricks, and the rotating pole act. (what on earth was that?) Overall, everything I'd hoped for in an ENC show.

Then, this evening, Greg and I went to see Messa. First off, thank goodness I didn't bring the children to this one, with its bizarre theme (religious cults?), dark and scary lighting and sound effects, and long bits of dullness. It might have turned them off modern circus for good. Even I had so much trouble with the uncomfortable directorial choices, it was hard to see through to the artists. ....Everywhere that Pomme Grenade had beautiful acrobatic transitions, Messa had people acting like lunatics. Use of TOHU's extraordinary space was limited. Costumes were uninspired, lighting was bleak and depressing.

Of course it had its moments. The aerial sequence, with the entire cast suspended on aerial equipment, filling the stage, was a moment of true beauty. The diaboloist was great, the straps guy fantastic, the Roue Cyr girl mesmerizing. The comic lyra act was a welcome chance to exhale and laugh. I think that despite their crazy director, there was some real talent in the cast.

I haven't mentioned how happy we are to visit our young friend, Kyle Driggs, who is a 1st-year student at ENC this year. He took part in the pre-show "animation" for Pomme Grenade, and even among these elites, stood out as exceptional. Kyle is a gifted juggler from the Philadelphia area, who made PSCA his home for the year or two prior to ENC. We gave him as much support as we could there, and watched his discipline and performance skills evolve. We were thrilled to send him on to Montreal, where he could really flourish. He's promised me a tour of ENC soon, so more blogging to come on that.

Back at home - Greg has finally arrived, and spent his first hour here rearranging all of the apartment furniture, as expected. Now we can relax and sort out some kind of routine for ourselves here!

Back in Montreal

2011-06-09T19:05:00.000-07:00

It has been quite a week! Last days in Pittsburgh, packing up our lives again, and transitioning out of the country again to Montreal. I lost my camera-battery-charger, so there will be no photos for this blog post, but I still have plenty to write about.

Our last few days in Pittsburgh were good. The kids and I explored the Three Rivers Arts Festival and the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, and spent another hot afternoon cozied up in the Carnegie Library, which had become one of our favorite haunts in the city. We said bittersweet goodbyes to our scenic bridges, the Strip District, and of course to my beloved Bikram Yoga.

Being so close to the site, we were able to observe some of the tearing-down of the tent. The "fly-in guys" made their usual appearance - this is a crew of who-knows-how-many tech guys & girls who fly all over the world tearing down and setting up the tents. One of the technicians told me that on Tuesday, they had to work 6am-2pm, and did a mad scramble to get the main poles down before the thunderstorms rolled in - with success! The whole show was loaded up on tractor-trailers and sent off to Montreal.

Tuesday, travel day, was just bizarre. First, the travel & lodging people were unable to get us a late check-out for our apartment - our shuttle to the airport didn't leave till after 4pm, and we had to vacate by 11am. So they got us another apartment for the day! It seemed a little silly beforehand, but I greatly appreciated it as the day went on, a place to just unwind out of the rain, do last bits of laundry and feed the kids.

Greg had to leave early Tuesday morning, because he had a show booked in the Philadelphia area. Although it seems insane, Greg continues to book occasional shows during his weeks off from Cirque. Whenever this happens, it's a good deal of stress, as he has to rehearse all of his old material, haul all of his equipment out of storage, etc. But he's determined to keep doing this, just to exercise those muscles and not lose his ability to do the 1-hour show. Even now he's having a harder time with the traditional juggling skills like beanbags, clubs, devil stick - because he's spent the last two years rolling balls in a cone. So, as much as I roll my eyes about these bookings, I do understand what he's trying to do.

The kids and I didn't go with him, because Cirque did a nifty thing - they chartered a plane for us to Montreal. Apparently this is something they do now and then! though most of the people on tour had never experienced it before. When a plane is chartered, all employees and their families are given free seats. However, they don't reimburse anyone the cost of their own travel. Many of the artists made their own plans anyway, especially those who owned cars. Nevertheless there were 113 people on the flight. ...I expected this experience to be tons of fun, some sort of VIP / party bus kind of trip. But it turned out to be rather ordinary. There really wasn't any difference from a regular international flight, except for seeing more familiar faces. Everyone pretty much kept to themselves and we arrived in Canada uneventfully.

In my little clan, things started to fall apart after that. At the customs desk, the kids all acted rambunctious and badly behaved while the official grilled me - why was I traveling without the kids' father? If he's working here, where is he and where's his work authorization? Did I have a letter, signed by him, authorizing me to take the kids out of the country? ....all rather difficult, but we did get through it.

The shuttle bus on the way home took forever, stopping at a number of other places. We were the last stop. Baz and Isa had fallen sound asleep by that time. When we arrived at the second-to-last stop (around 10:45pm), I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to call the apartment to get someone to let us in. I got a little panicked, and I saw one of our travel & lodging staffers outside the window, helping with another building. I told the bus driver I had to ask her a question, I'd be back in a minute, and I jumped off the bus and ran in the building to ask her what to do.

When I came back outside a couple of minutes later, the bus was gone.

....Oh, it was one of those moments. If you are a parent, you have probably had moments like this, when your world starts spinning in an absolute panic. The children are gone. You have done something stupid and turned your back at the wrong moment, and the children are gone and the longest minutes of your life ensue.

It couldn't have been more than five minutes. Maybe ten at the outside. I don't even know what I was doing - running to Joann, running to other Cirque friends, pacing around the street, telling myself it would all be OK.... and then the bus driver circled back from where-ever the hell he had gone with a bus containing no adults, only my three tiny children, and I scrambled onto the bus, finally breathing again, trying to communicate in broken French. I never did figure out where he had gone or what he was thinking. My belief in his good character was further shattered when he dropped us off outside our building - by that time Isa had woken up and was screaming at the top of her lungs - with all our suitcases, in front of a locked door, late at night, and he left us there.

Our very nice property manager, Adam, thankfully appeared only a few minutes later, helped us with our suitcases and got us into the apartment. Once the kids were safely tucked into their beds I could finally catch my breath, and begin to look around.

We've got a great place here in Montreal. What a location! A block from Notre-Dame Cathedral, about two blocks from the waterfront. We're on the 9th floor... from my bedroom window I can see the cathedral and the river and the science museum. And it's a 3-bedroom apartment, spacious, comfortable. I'll be sure to post a video soon.

The only thing I'm really not excited about so far is the swimming pool. It's a "rooftop" pool, which sounds awesome - but it's an indoor pool. What's more, it's a small, cold, deep indoor pool, with no comfortable chairs around it. The kids are all in over their heads, and I am not at all interested in getting in with them. I think we'll be buying some floatation devices just to keep them occupied.

We've walked around the Old Port a little bit, and I am thrilled to be back here. I forgot how much I enjoyed this city. I love speaking French. I love the street performers and the shops and the fountains. We're going to have a great time here!

To kick off a new summer activity, I took Baz today to his first karate class! We found a studio here, and his friend Yahor is also taking the class. They are very excited about it, and Nastya and I are happy to have found something like this for them. They can go to class as often as 3 times per week, if we can organize ourselves. ...and for me, I'm enjoying having the time hanging out with Nastya. Today was Russian day, and we talked all afternoon. Admittedly, on Russian day she does a lot more of the talking. But my comprehension is really improving! I can understand so much more now. Even if my speaking is still at baby-level, I can definitely see progress.

Getting through the week here.... Greg comes up on Saturday evening, only two more days with just me and the kids. The hardest part for me is not having an hour free to get out for exercise, even at 6am. (it keeps me sane!!) But I can do this, just a couple more days.

Catching up

2011-06-03T18:55:00.001-07:00

A number of things have kept me away from the computer this week, but the biggest one is that my 3-year-old HP laptop abruptly died. It had been giving me signs of discontent for some time - in recent months I hadn't been able to use the webcam, Wi-Fi, or anything requiring sound. But we persevered, HP and I. Until the morning that it simply wouldn't start.

I was persuaded to switch this week to a Mac. Why do I feel like I'm too old to be undergoing such a conversion? ...nevertheless, so far I am charmed by my little MacBook Pro, which came into my household just this morning. Apple sure does care about aesthetics. Every detail of the packaging and purchase-experience has been well-thought out. And you know, getting this machine up and running was almost comically easy. I am usually prepared to spend days trying to configure a new computer. But guess what? Here I am, blogging, instead. Yay Steve Jobs.

I have thoroughly enjoyed Pittsburgh over the last ten days or so. What an amazing city this is! I love so many things about it. It's so walkable, bike-able, and green. The bridges and rivers are beautiful. I don't normally pay much attention to architecture, but it's fascinating here - I love street scenes like this one, with a jumble of new and old buildings. ...I like the neighborhoods, the people, and the businesses I've come across here.

We spent a good amount of time this past week looking at animals, at the Pittsburgh Zoo and the National Aviary. I have to voice one complaint - the Pittsburgh Zoo seems to be completely inaccessible to pedestrians. Our trek with 4 adults and 9 children on a school field trip can only be described as arduous. How can a park, ostensibly about nature, contrive surroundings with no nearby bus routes or even sidewalks?

It's hard not to forgive them, though, when you get a close look at animals like these.

The Aviary was surprisingly great, too. (I think that should be Pittsburgh's tourism tagline. "Pittsburgh. Surprisingly great!") My mother, Isa, and I did this one, and were able to observe the most colorful tropical birds we'd ever seen. And Isa, of course, loved the penguins.

One last place I have to mention is the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh. Here's something I'd never seen before - a giant, beautiful, ornate cathedral that is not a church - it never was a church - it is a university building, a place to revere education. Besides this grandiose main space, there are "Nationality Rooms" all around the perimeter - rooms that were sponsored by different cultural groups in Pittsburgh, classrooms designed in the style of a historical period in their country. To take a self-guided tour, we were handed a cassette recorder and a key. We unlocked each room, played the tape recorder, and locked the door again on our way out. Totally marvelous.

In the middle of all of this exploring, I spent a full weekend doing an intensive course in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. This pursuit is partly for fun, but I've always really loved teaching English, and it's a great chance for me to take it a little more seriously. Many of the ideas we explored are going to come in handy immediately, with my Adult English classes and Kids English classes at the Cirque tent.

Behind the scenes photos

2011-05-22T19:15:00.000-07:00

It was a hot day in Pittsburgh today. Totem's HVAC system was having troubles keeping up. There were guys up on the tent most of the afternoon manipulating the ventilation systems, and for a while they were just hosing water on the tent to try to cool it down.

After the last show, Greg took me and the kids around the backstage area for a tour. Here are the kids checking out the skateboards underneath the stage. This is how the technicians and artists get around under there, because the space is only a couple of feet tall.

"54" had a post-show barbeque. 54 is the technicians' tent - the carpenters, riggers, stage techs etc. And they are known for having the most-fun parties. Greg finds this grill quite amusing - they custom-built it, at the bottom, so it could be moved with a forklift. This is because everyone drives forklifts on the site all the time. Regular castors on the bottom of a grill would fall apart.

And last of all, a glimpse of the stage from the artists' point of view.

Miscellany

2011-05-21T18:55:00.000-07:00

Today was an exhausting day. For me it started with a 6am run, and a 9am Russian lesson. Then we tried to go out for a family bike ride. Within the first 10 minutes, it came to a catastrophic halt - Ayla again lost control on a downhill, this time spinning out into a full-on wipeout. There was quite a bit of dirt, some blood, a whole lot of tears. We limped ourselves home and fussed over Ayla for a while, making sure there were no serious injuries. I let her stay home for an extra hour, but she just got more and more melodramatic and miserable. Finally I dragged her into school, and from that point on she was fine.

Then I was touring some friends around the site, and watching Isa and Gypsy playing together... then somehow I spent the rest of the day, four hours, downstairs at the pool. Kids + swimming pool = total happiness. First it was just me and Isa, then Ilya and Nastya joined us, then Baz, Ayla, Yahor, and Francois (husband of our Artistic Director). Nastya had just come from the Chinese grocery on the Strip, with all kinds of Asian sweet treats. The kids enjoyed the sealed-plastic cups of some kind of chewy Jello, and then eventually turned them into diving objects.

We are all just so excited to see the sun, after over a week of relentless rain.

Oh, the Totem kitchen. How I love it. I love it because it is such a daily challenge for me. For those of you who don't know my day-to-day habits, I am NOT a cook. And I have a particularly bad tendency to eat the same bland foods every day. Although I may not avail myself of the myriad of fantastic choices in the Totem kitchen as often as I should, it is a daily reminder for me; and a much better example for my kids. They have the opportunity to try everything under the sun, well-prepared, at no cost. ...Nevertheless, once in a while the kitchen staff crosses my comfort threshold, and I find myself acting like a child again, "ewww!!" This week it was Baby Octopus on Skewers.

My new passion

2011-05-20T19:34:00.000-07:00

OK, it's time to write about my latest obsession:

I took them up on their Intro offer - $20 for 14 days of classes! And I managed to attend 10 CLASSES during this time. I am quite head-over-heels in love with this crazy, cultish, hardcore, awesome form of hot yoga. I don't even know how to explain it... the sauna-like hot, humid air, the dripping sweat, the spine-bending and muscles engaging... I've learned a lot in these two weeks. The biggest thing I've learned, though, is that Bikram is a route to the true focus of yoga. While I imagine people can discover this in any form of yoga (or physical practice, for that matter) - Bikram is really showing me what it means to be in the present moment. Let's not imagine I can actually do this yet - my busy little mind is nowhere near ready to quiet down. But I can glimpse it. I can understand what it takes to follow an instruction, and ignore the zillions of possible distractions. In my Bikram class no one drinks water. Or wipes away sweat. Or adjusts clothing. Everyone just breathes.

Every day now, I'm figuring out how to get to yoga class. (I even attended the 6am classes a couple of times). And though I had re-started running a few weeks ago - actually completing the Pittsburgh 5K run on May 14, with a decent-for-me time of 29:50 - it has taken a temporary backseat to my starry-eyed affair with Bikram.

It feels so good to be getting back into my body again. I had a rough 6 months after the half-marathon last fall - the hamstring injury, and limited fitness options in a few cities, had me in pretty poor shape by the time I arrived here in Pittsburgh. But I am now optimistic - it's going to be a strong and fit spring and summer! ...here's a little inspiration from Bikram Yoga Pittsburgh...

"You're never too late
never too bad
never too old
never too sick
to start from scratch and begin again"

Totem profiles - Louis-David Simoneau

2011-05-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

Louis-David, age 22, is one-half of the beautiful duo trapeze act in Totem. He and his trapeze partner, Rosalie, have the fairly unique distinction of having leapt immediately from their graduation at l’Ecole Nationale de Cirque to a contract with Cirque du Soleil. This success was not simply a stroke of luck – both Louis-David and Rosalie have spent many years honing their exceptional skills.

Louis-David is French-Canadian – he grew up in the town of Magog in Quebec. As a child, he had many interests – he loved all kinds of sports and all kinds of school subjects. When he put his mind to something, he could succeed at it. Gymnastics was something he tried on-and-off as a kid. But it took the spark of interest in circus, at age 14 – and an audition at ENC at which he was not accepted to his chosen program – to focus his mind. He spent a year training gymnastics intensely, and on his second try, he was accepted to ENC. He began his studies there at age 16.

His first love in circus arts was hand-balancing, and he imagined himself doing a hand-to-hand act. But an advisor at ENC, early on, steered him and Rosalie towards duo trapeze. The rest is history, as they have created, with “Lovebirds”, the most-universally-adored act in this immense production.

On tour with Totem, Louis-David enjoys the traveling, getting to see and experience new parts of the world. If he had more time, he says, he would love to do even more sightseeing. But in the meantime, he is also treasuring the experiences he’s had working with great people such as Robert Lepage, and the other artists on the show.

Premiere, and Pittsburgh

2011-05-11T20:14:00.000-07:00

We had no idea what a cool town Pittsburgh would be. This is a mural depicting our neighborhood, the Strip District. It is as colorful and fun as the mural suggests. Leaving the Strip, Pittsburgh also has beautiful rivers, bridges and walkways, fascinating architecture, nifty street signage and diverse, friendly people. With only a very small effort, they gave me a library card which allows me to check out 50 books at a time! And we have just barely arrived.

Here are Baz and Ayla partaking of Edible Flowers at the local Farmer's Market.

And Isa, enjoying the panoramic view where we went bike-riding this afternoon.

It feels like this is going to be a great town for us.

Today was Premiere. On our 6th city, I think I have finally gotten the hang of this system. It works like this:

In between cities, and really up until Premiere date, families have just about no contact with each other. It's silly to even make an effort - everyone is content to take this time with their families and they seem to need no socializing, this lasts for about 10 days.

On Premiere evening, everyone comes together. All of the families show up at the tent for dinner. The cooks prepare an overly gourmet meal at which my children and I can barely find anything to eat. Tonight's highlight was a chocolate fondue fountain. Drinks are, for one night only, on the house. Families re-connect and make plans. And most people dress up! For once, the girls and I got the hang of this part, thanks to a last-minute shopping trip to the funky Strip stores this afternoon.

We watch the show and love it. We gasp and giggle at changes or slip-ups.
At intermission, the children run around the back of site terrorizing each other, despite our Tour Services department's insistence that they stay within certain boundaries, always accompanied by an adult. ... the fact is, they are getting more comfortable here, we all are, and we are beginning to rely on each other to help keep the kids in line... while still allowing them to be kids, and to develop a social world in this crazy situation we've put them in. As you can see, our Totem gang of children is big, and getting bigger all the time - there are several others not pictured here, and two more babies are due this summer.

Watching the show this evening, I marveled at the connections I've made in these past 11 months. Little things, small threads of knowledge and communication. There's the acrobat I was helping to find a parking space this afternoon. There's the performer who was just telling me about her overly-indulgent vacation week. There's the guy recuperating from an injury, and here's the aerialist who's missing his faraway wife and daughter. I begin to know their stories, their backgrounds, their personalities; which enriches, for me, the already exhilarating experience of watching the circus. And when I'm here in the tent, and the music begins, I can't imagine wanting to be anywhere else.