Maybe Not Free as a B(ird) Afterall

Last week, I mentioned that one of my recent "Free-B's" was going to
our wonderful neighborhood gym (note sarcasm) Synergy (Astoria, for
the Google searches) for one month, because we were going to quit this
place like a bad habit as soon as we made our mandatory 12th
appearance. Well, just like I have not been able to successfully quit
my bad habit of biting my finger nails, I was not able to successfully
make the 12th appearance within one month in order to quit the gym,
thanks to my lack of ability to count from one to four on my calendar.
Looks like I either have to get used to the terrible spin instructor
or, shocker, have to actually motivate MYSELF to expend energy in the
form of body heat and sweat. Yawn...

Another possible by-product of not being able to get my money back
from the gym is that I certainly cannot now enroll in the capoeira
classes that my heart yearns for. I've been taking the "Free-B"
classes for this Brazilian martial art/dance every Saturday that I am
able to and this weekend completed my third class and have noticed
amazing results in that time. I can almost do a full cartwheel now,
compared to when I started when I made it a quarter of the way before
crashing shoulder-first into the ground. Hand-stands are going to take
some more work, but suffice to say that I am satisfied that I pulled
off a cartwheel and a spontaneous round-house kick while "playing"
capoeira after my class on Saturday. My progress is slow, but we'll
see where I'm at at the end of September when the free classes finish.

A few weeks back, Erika and I completed our requirements for getting
married in a Catholic church by attending our mandated Pre-Cana course
way down in Brooklyn on Friday night and all day Saturday. What I
thought was going to be a forced-feeding of Catholicism actually
turned out to be an interesting class more about our marital
relationship. Poor Erika had to trudge through a workbook that used
highly-complex adjectives to describe various aspects of our
relationship - certainly not things that she's learning in her classes
yet!

Speaking of her classes, she is completing intensive-training English
4 (out of 8) this week and what a difference a class makes! She also
started working part-time yesterday in a data-entry/software testing
type of job, which will be good for her so that she can practice her
English with people other than me. Hopefully they can keep her busy
since she's out of school for a month starting next week!

J. Riley, my hamstrings and muscles in my lower back are still sore
after capoeira on Saturday. The twists, turns, and kicks are doing
their job!