Today we started out early and ate breakfast at a diner directly on the corner of 86th and 2nd. I ordered the french toast and scrambled eggs and she had eggs and bacon. They sat us in the corner where we could see everyone walking by.

Our plans for the rest of the day was to see a family circus in Little Italy and then have a labor day bbq at Rita and Josh's apartment.

After getting a little lost in China town, we found little Italy and the site where the Zappa Family circus was going to be held. They had it setup in a small parking lot with bleachers about 10 rows high setup half way into the street. The circus was for 1pm, but we noticed a sign said 12pm, so we sat and waited, watching some of the performers stretching. As we were sitting, they  ended up changing the start time to the original 1pm, so we went to get lunch.

The lunch was also in Little Italy, where we sat outside and shared the lunch specials of Caneloni and Manicotti. I had a good glass of pinot grigio and she had her favorite Diet Coke. Service was a bit slow and we were sitting next to one of those old couples where the wife does all the talking and the husband just nods or says a couple of words the whole time. We were able to finish lunch 15 mins before the circus started and head back to the bleachers.

The circus was an excellent show and had lots of variety. We had heard some dogs in the background, but they never came out, so weren't sure what happened there. Otherwise, they had the following going on:

There was a very funny clown called bobo, who was interacting with the crowd. He pulled a couple of young ladies from the street and made them give him a kiss. He played a trumpet in the crowd, which he called a clarinet and the ringmaster kept telling him to stop, until he took it away and ended up playing a paper horn. And he grabbed a little kid from the crowd, who was trying to grab his hat off a broom stick.

They had a male and female gymnast who did a romantic acrobatic skit. They had a tight rope walker. They had a pair of jugglers. A band that played the same music over and over, even when the crowd requested something else. And every so often bobo would show up to interupt them with his clumsiness.

The overall production was excellent, especially for a free performance. At the end they got a standing ovation.

After the circus, we sampled some of the treats of Little Italy. We shared a canoli, a spumoni italian ice and won some string cheese at a prize winning wheel. The circus was actually part of an event sponsored by the Sargento cheese company.

We started back to Astoria at about 2:30 for the bbq. We got off a few stops before Ditmars, from where they lived, onto Broadway. I wanted to show her more of Astoria and saw this as an opportunity. I pointed out some of the stores that were there when I grew up and new ones since I moved away. We walked by my elementary school PS 70. I was very dissapointed to find they put portables and a fenced in playground, on what used to be a large open school yard where we played baseball, football and other sports when I was a kid. I felt sorry for the kids who couldn't enjoy the wide open space I was able too.

I then took her the way I used to walk back home from school. It went from 42nd st, to west along 30th Ave, where we walked into a large festival going on between Steinway and the train. We turned north on 36 st and I showed her the aparment I lived in until I was 15. Then we headed to Rita and Josh's.

At the bbq, Rita's mom, dad and uncle were there and later on their landord and 2 kids came, a neighbor and our friend Carla and her daughter. At the end we went inside to Rita and Josh's with Carla and her daughter. We went out to buy pina colada freezer mixes and after no luck in finding it in 2 supermarkets, we got a strawberry daiquir freezer instead. We sat around, drank and watched videos of a camping trip from 2 years back and a trip Grant, Rita and I made visiting Bev in SC about 3 1/2 years ago.

Afterwards it was getting late and we walked Carla and her daughter home, and headed back to the city. On the way up to Grants studio, we ran into Angela (Grants mom) and her dog Gino. They just came back from NH, a 6 hour drive, and we talked a bit, then headed back to bed.