AWOL Carnival

At 8:30 this a.m., my oldest male child paid me a visit in my studio and asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day. Caught me totally unaware -- ubba ubba ubba ... "Oh! I know! I want you to go with me down to this place where I want to shoot some pictures, but I'm scared to go alone." Two blocks up the street from where I work is a big gravelly dusty lot surrounded by razor-wire topped fence. During the week it's FILLED with colorful carnival booths, a few merry-go-roundy kind of rides, the trailers where the Carnies live -- and on the street are parked huge tractor trailers with the collapsed parts of ferris wheels that look like folded up octopi legs. I've been dying to shoot this stuff for weeks now ... but it's in a lousy neighborhood and I didn't think going alone was a very bright idea. Well, uh, DUH! David and I arrived to find everything cleared out, nothing but this lone elephant ride which, on Friday, was opened up and being tested. And on Friday, the elephants were brightly painted yellow and blue Dumbo's. I guess the Carnival travels on weekends -- probably some dusty parking lot somewhere for Mother's Day weekend! RATS!!!! So. I got these three measly shots, thru the fence, of stripped Dumbos awaiting a ride to ... what, the carnival ride painters shop? Talk about disappointing! Have Daddy-O Cam and Buff Male Escort and nothing to take pictures of. You can see how interestingly WEIRD it could potentially have been -- to see a carnival in a behind-the-scenes way? I mean, have YOU ever seen carnival rides taken DOWN? or folded into semis? Or stripped of paint? Me, either. It'll happen. I may just have to take my Daddy-O Cam to work, and mosey on up the street during my lunch hour.

Meanwhile, my oldest male child and I adjourned to a restaurant near home, where he treated me to my favorite breakfast food, eggs benedict, and we had a lovely and LENGTHY conversation and some giggles.

It's been a really good morning!!