Rodeo Clown

Logan, ME and Spencer...gearing up for an Alabama football game. (And, therefore making sure I have my rubber nose in my pocket because Captain Sensory Issues aka Alex, might, possibly react to 90,0000 screaming fans....just sayin...) Alabama 2011

We all have hidden gifts and I'll tell you mine: I am a rodeo clown. All those years spent in college, all those overpriced textbooks bought and wasted....renting the cap and gown.... all just money down the drain. Because I am not, apparently, a Behavioral Science major with an English minor, no, no. That career path was at one point simply under construction, but now, I know for certain, it's been obliterated... blown up in some kind of spectacular explosion (at least I hope it was spectacular! When your career/life plan falls apart you want it to be as mind blowing as it is to watch someone take down a 110 floor casino).
Yep. It would seem everything I need to know for my current career, I could have learned in clown college. Oh, how I agonized over my ACT test scores....if only I'd known I didn't even need ACT scores to attend "The Ohio College of Clowing Arts" to fine tune my savant skills. In the brochure I found online, I've learned this college promises to help me, "discover the ways of the clown," ensuring that I can create my own clown character with a unique life history. I will "learn how she moves, thinks, walks, talks, and the secrets of professional white face makeup application." (I know, It does sound amazing! I'm drooling a little too.....).

Spencer & Logan: Rolling with thee Tide! 2010

The only reason I haven't signed up already is because part of the curriculum involves making balloon animals, which, truthfully frightens me. I still haven't recovered from my time at the Cadillac Grille where every holiday in order to heighten our appeal, we would blow up a thousand, yes a THOUSAND balloons to waft about the dining room, setting an ambiance of....rubber? Mmmm, latexy.  I don't know the logic behind that corporate decision.  I do, however know, that in the course of blowing up 1000 balloons, I probably had about a fifth of those ambiance filled balls of joy explode in my face. Not to mention all the times throughout the night when the balloons would stick to the lights and burst from the heat, (usually as I was refilling some water or something...) After 12 holiday balloon blowing episodes, I may have to find some sort of horse tranquilizer to get through clown college, not to mention the dorms in Ohio are all filled up, and relocation is such a pain. Besides, the truth is (not to brag or anything) but I don't even really need Clown College. Yep. I'm that good.

I am an expert because I don't just put on the costume and transform into a clown. No. No. I live the life of a clown. A rodeo clown actually. There is a difference (I knew this even without taking "The Different Faces of the Clown 101").  Sometimes it seems my whole role as a mother to my autistic children, especially my oldest son, boils down to the art of distraction. Now that Alex is 14, and particularly bright, he even knows when I am using the art of distraction, but he doesn't care. When he is wound, and looking for a mental escape, I say the magical word he's longing for, the one from his current obsession (it was Backhoes, Elmo, Jurassic Park, Sea World, Yellowstone and now....Hawaii) ....and he is mine. It's almost like I'm a hypnotist at a fairground, "You will bawk like a chicken, and release your brother from the death grip." When I see him getting stressed, when he's overwhelmed, and rationalizing, deep breaths, leaving the situation, and taking a break doesn't work, rodeo clowning usually does.

Uh. Yeah. Maybe a little overwhelming??? (But SO FUN and Such a gorgeous
night...Never-the-less, guess how much of the game I actually saw?)

Being a rodeo clown means you have to think fast on your feet. You have to know when the other riders are in danger of being charged by an out of control bull. You have to get their attention, wave your polka dot hanky in their direction until they are charging at you instead of the awkward cowboy they just bucked off. Then you dive in your foam barrel....which just happens to have the words "Hawaii" written in bold letters  around the middle, and brace yourself for impact.

(You learn to stomach the swaying barrel fairly early on, and honestly I've stopped making the rookie mistake of falling out of the barrel once it's been tossed in the air and smashed to the ground). No, I know the importance of always being prepared. I know danger still simmers like carbon monoxide, seemingly undetectable but potentially deadly, it simmers even when the crowd is laughing, simmers while the animals seem docile and lazy,  I know not to breath deeply. To keeps my wits about me. To always keep my eye on target.

Yes. I am a rodeo clown. I distract. I save lives.  I am always on guard. I may have broken a rib here or there, and the pasty make-up does cause unwanted breakouts. But I'm good at what I do. And it's infrequently now,  that from the depths of that sweaty barrel I think, "I wonder what it would be like to be a behavioral scientist?  And,  "wouldn't it be lovely to have a desk job somewhere and do something boring like grade English essays?" I could sit at my desk, and stare out my window and wish (hope pray) that something exciting would happen to me.

Spencer: Clown in training....(Look! A pom pom! And it's red! Charge me!)