Beautiful Day in Northhampton....162nd show done.

It was a much nicer day today. Cloudy and comfortable....a bit nippy by nightfall.

We were presented this article by an audience member who came back to the fair after seeing our show yesterday to give it to us. She wanted us to have it. According to her we were the only picture of anything at the fair that made the paper. (We beat out rides, tigers and pig races not to mention the motor events in the grandstands. )

It was so nice that a person would come all the way back to the fair just to give us the article.

Another family (we refer to them in our loving way as stalkers) who had no intention of coming back day after day but did just to see our show. Their son loves our show and has become pretty good with the diabolo he bought from Jim.

I have been working with training Belle for next season. She is getting better and better. We work backstage and on stage in between shows. When we do it in between shows on stage we draw a crowd.

She IS cute.

Miles spreads Monkey love.

Jim and Victor Jr are working on a new routine. Not sure when it will be ready but they are working on it.

There are some really well made up and costumed clowns here. They are the Shriner's clowns. Very well done in make up and costume...they even have a clown car. Now I haven't seen their show (if they have one) but they stroll around the fair out of character but in costume. Their gait is that of your average middle aged man and they chit chat, complain, etc in normal voice and pretty much ignore the crowd much of the time I see them. Lots of circus rules regarding in public in costume in character. Odd. Imagine if you would, two average shaped, size, and build middle aged men walking and chit chatting. Now put clown costumes on them and you have these clowns. I bring it up because it has become a big topic among our group and we have overheard it among customers. One of them was in the audience watching the show and I gave them a shout out. When I said, "It's hug a clown day" he waved the kids off. I asked if they (the clowns) give hugs and he said no. In fact, while there he seemed to shun any kid that came near him. Strange.

Where is Alf...click on the picture to get a larger version.

Today we had very good sized audiences. They were good responders too.

Talking about the crowds I met a nice lady with a little toddler named Duncan. She and I chit chatted about the show and things lead to home school, politics, etc as topics. It was interesting how quietly and out of the way people have to be if they want to talk about things like that if they are conservatives. Being conservative in this town seems like an underground movement, scorned by the populous. Same for Christianity. It's a topic that is whispered. I did notice two churches on my way to the store this morning and the parking lots were empty. However, there was a good sized yoga class going on in a park square.

During the first show I explained that Princess Sayako was taking the place of Princess Cynthia because Cynthia went off to college after getting a 4.75 GPA and a full ride as a result. I then made a comment how Home schooling really does produce smart kids. Well, there were two families who were not sitting anywhere near each other) who got up and left in disgust. Their kids didn't want to go but the parents dragged them off. (I have enough experience to know when a person leaves the audience the general reason for the departure based on their actions and body language. ) Later I found out that around here Home School is misunderstood and scorned...considered a bad thing.

When I got back from the store this morning and pulled into the hotel parking lot I noticed a college aged girl dress kind hippy-grunge, just lying in the middle of the parking lot. At first I thought it was a pile of rags then a head looked up. As I got out our eyes met so I asked, "Warm place to lay down?" She responded, "Oh, I didn't realize this was a parking lot (then she looked around and said) I guess it is."

Just then here sister or friend came out of the hotel and said, "Lilly why are you lying in the middle of the parking lot." I didn't wait to hear the answer.

We had more b-day fun for Olivia. We took a tub of ice cream put candles in it (they looked like little itty bitty ice cream cones) and sang Happy birthday day again.

As Mami cleaned up and got herself ready to head back to the hotel after the shows Eddie, Jim, Nick, Miles and Amelia were out in front of the banners talking and doing silly dances while a bluegrass sounding group played on the nearby music stage. It turned out to be pretty funny as we all created our own new dance steps. My only regret is we didn't video tape it.

Hard to believe we will have done 165 shows by this time tomorrow and we get a few days off. We are all looking forward to it.

Blessings to you all.

Dorris, our 21lb Flemish giant bunny died today. She lived very long for her breed, nearly 2 full years more than average. She played the role of Victor Jr in Boy to Bunny. She has not been performing for the last 2 weeks since we've noticed her legs failing to work (first sign of the end coming). Deloris, her understudy, will continue in her place.