8-10-11
The kids and I are in Orlando this week. We’re fortunate enough to have a flexible timeshare with units here—which turn out to be the best vacation resorts at our disposal within reasonable proximity. Williamsburg, VA has the next-best set—despite being much further away from our hometown—but somehow those units are even less available than the Orlando ones. Yes, it takes a little planning!
We’ve done Orlando’s Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios before—on those huge, no-expiration ParkHopper passes. Actually, I purchased these passes years and years ago in 2004--and we've been back, using them, in all but two of the subsequent years! I found some phenomenal deal online—and, believe me, I’ve looked more than once for a similar deal in the past year or two to no avail—and bought these passes when Fiona was under the age of 3 and could get in free! She’s nine now and using the ‘child’s’ pass that I originally bought for Alex. Anyhow, the passes each had 7 days of those main theme parks and several ‘bonus’ park days—which, for our intents and purposes, include primarily their two water parks. We’ve just about used them up—today might be our final day, and I think I’m going to have to purchase one additional ticket today to finish up the passes (yes, we’ve gone in different groupings several times).
You know, there is one other big theme park in the Disney package that we’ve avoided. It’s the Animal Kingdom. While we find exotic wild creatures to be as fascinating as does anyone else, we hesitate to support any industry that may harm them—and I do include capture and confinement as a form of ‘harm’. Yes, I do realize I bought a multi-theme park pass whose proceeds is likely divied up without regard to which we actually choose, but I’ll only go so far to make my point—and I’m sure somewhere they’re tallying how many visits each park gets.
Now, I don’t think I’ve expended much effort on this topic on my blog—partly because I find the factory farms to be so overtly offensive and noxious—pure evil. Zoos, circuses and pet shops run the gamut in offensiveness, but are, dare I assume, never even close to as offensive as those factory farms? So, no, I don’t make a big deal about them, generally—only trying to avoid supporting any cruelty to animals that we can ‘easily’ avoid.
Despite not being a daily issue in our life, I have been confronted with making choices around this more often than I prefer. I’m definitely one of those folks who enjoys a good show, and the call of the circus and the zoo does not fall on deaf ears here. In fact, I have a hankering for traditions, as well, and the idea of children going to the zoo and circus strikes a nostalgic chord in my veins. Therefore, I felt particularly pained for several years in a row when my children’s classmates attended the travelling circus in Savannah and my children sat out. Alex and Fiona were in agreement with my reasoning, but I felt terrible that they were the only children missing the circus, time and time again.
I think I occasionally made an effort to make it up to them, but last night’s visit to see the ultimate circus, the Cirque de Soleil, was more satisfactory than I had anticipated. See, I hadn’t really been considering the above issue—not beyond thinking, “Whew, we can go, since they don’t use animals.” I knew that simply from reading animal-rights lit in the past. However, when we got to the circus last night and bought drinks and popcorn and cotton candy, I was suffused with excitement. I haven’t been to the circus since I was a little girl, and my kids had been never!
Poor Michael got to hear me excitedly recount the rundown of different acts on the phone late last night—the incredible bicyclist act and the unbelievable trampoline finale in addition to the more traditional clowns and trapeze artists, etc., etc. Those traditional elements really completed the show for me, actually. Now, when my kids hear the other kids relating, “I went to the circus…”, they’ll be able to shrug and think, “Yeah, but I’ve been to the best circus in the world!” instead of feeling like they’re missing out. Hurrah! How soothing to my ‘mama’ conscience!
Yes, the ticket price was exorbitant, and I compounded that after the show in Cirque’s gift shop. As I walked into the store, my gaze fell on a brightly colored, funky handbag that I exclaimed over. Fiona loved it, too. Totally not in my general taste, but so fun and fabulous…anyhow, as usual, I checked the materials and found, to my surprise, that the bag was not leather—so, in addition to not exploiting animals for entertainment purposes, Cirque also avoids using them for their products. Fantastic! Again, I don’t give leather too much thought beyond not wanting to support the general industry—but I love the look and feel and utility of it, in general, and have many times purchased second-hand leather items with much happiness. I’ve been sad, though, that I have a tough time finding the most desirable items in the best shops in non-leather versions. So, that I could buy this featured handbag that I’d been drawn to, guilt-free, well, was too good of an opportunity to refuse! It really wasn’t such a ridiculous price, even though it was over twice what I’ve ever paid for a purse--$79! Nope, not bad in comparison with a host of designer bags, right? Still, it took a little pep talk to myself to do it!
What a treat to be able to participate in a huge, mainstream event that we usually have to avoid. And the handbag was the icing on the cake. It was akin to what I imagine it would be like walking into a vegetarian McDonald’s! You have no idea what it was like as a veg teenager to stop with my track and swim teams post-away-games every single time and only be able to eat French fries—and, yes, I’d be just as starving as the rest of my team and for some reason never considered bringing anything else to eat. Just awful. Blessings on Burger King for now having a veggie burger! Again, my satisfaction as an adult was great at being able to take my own veg children to a fast-food restaurant and let them play on the Burger King’s mazes and such there—just one of those parts of being an American kid. However, in that case, the kids, for some unfathomable reason, didn’t like the veggie burger—so that satisfaction was somewhat abbreviated, though it still completed my American mama’s experience, at least (and healed some of that old deprivation)! In Cirque’s case, though, the kids loved every minute of it!
I suppose, you know, that it’s one thing to make a choice myself. I chose to be a vegetarian and thus chose to forego certain traditional choices on principle. I made that choice myself, and I sacrificed according to my beliefs. It’s a little different feeling, though, with my kids. While they are in complete agreement thus far, thankfully, on the principles of being vegetarian, I still strongly wish to minimize their sense of sacrifice—as much as possible. I suspect part of that may be out of fear that the alternative—to turn their backs on animal welfare—may look too attractive, for the most selfish, obvious, pleasure-seeking reasons, of course. So, again, yes—it was a fantastic relief to be able to participate in enjoying the most ultimate circus last night with them!
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