The Shrine Circus (again).

The Shrine Circus (again).

Took the kids to the Shrine Circus yesterday. Duncan has been going since he was one year old. He's had enough of the circus -- at least according to him he is. Calvin still has fun watching the acts and got a pony ride, a plastic "light-up" sword, and a big balloon from one of the Shriner clowns.

I could take a minute to discuss the nature of clowns and why they can freak-out some kids. From my understanding, most clowns fall into two categories: the white-face harlequin and the happy-hobo. Both type can mess with what parents drill into their children, "Don't talk to strangers!" And what could be stranger than some large, garishly decorated person getting right in your face and acting weird. Neither Duncan nor Calvin have any problems with clowns but some of their friends get creeped out by them.

The art form of the Circus is somewhat in decline. Between TV show-based tours, Disney on Ice, 24 hour cartoons and DVD players in most cars, an actual dog and pony show can fall a little short.

The show started with a Tiger act. It was pretty low-key compared to some of the other acts but the trainer had both a pretty good comedy schtick and lots of information about the plight of tigers in the wild. All of the tigers came from a wild animal rescue preserve in Florida and all of the money the act gets goes to saving more tigers.

There was also a dog act, a cat act, a bear act and an elephant act. On the human side they had a trapeze act, a quick-change magic act, a bmx trick act, a motorcycles in a metal ball act and a few others I've forgotten.

We ended up with 12 people in our group with TJ and I, Duncan, Cal, both grandmothers, TJ's aunt, her granddaughter, a friend, a friend of Cal's and his mom and little sister. It was quite a crowd.

After the circus, 9 of us went to eat at Hideaway Pizza then went home and relaxed.