Posted by jdg | Monday, September 10, 2007 |

Picture it: my little family eating ice cream and watching a troupe of chanting, yellow-shirted college students performing Capoeira, The Brazilian Art of Dance Fighting. They move very slow. Juniper is mesmerized. I keep trying to say something about it, but Wood just shakes her head at me with a stern look, interrupting me with a "Stop." A few minutes later we're walking away and I start talking about how I hope none of my kids ever come back from South America to join some group that performs Capoeira, The Brazilian Art of Dance Fighting. Wood says, "God, you waste so much energy worrying about what they'll be like in the future."

I say, "Yeah, but that's because you don't waste any. I have to do it for both of us."

"Well, there's nothing you can do. They are going to do what they like."

"Yeah. But that doesn't mean I have to pay for any lessons in Capoeira, The Brazilian Art of Dance Fighting."

"Remember when you used to play the banjo? Imagine how pissed you'd be if you'd really wanted to learn Capoeria, the Brazilian Art of Dance Fighting and your dad wouldn't pay for lessons, or, worse, he made fun of it."

"Yeah. I would want to bust a slow totally-pretend handplant-cum-cartwheel elbow chop on his ass."