A couple things…

1. I got the email that ‘excessanddoess’ is expiring Jan 30, and I got a little pang of sadness that I won’t be renewing it.

2. I made my first official banana split yesterday. Don’t laugh! According to Jef, there are specific rules and I have been doing it wrong all these years. You have to use vanilla, chocolate AND strawberry ice cream, bananas split lengthwise, whipped cream, strawberry and fudge sauce, nuts (which we didn’t have) and apparently pineapple (which we also didn’t have). True banana split aficionados will probably also want a cherry on top, but I’ll have none of that, because cherries are the devil’s fruit*.

3. We watched ‘Mad Hot Ballroom‘, a documentary about a program in NYC public schools teaching ballroom dancing to 5th graders. They go through a required 10-week class, and if they do well, a small group can participate in a competition against other public schools across the city. It was interesting to see these kids put their hearts into something they really have no role models for - ballroom dancing isn’t exactly main stream. What little ladies and gentlemen they became, and what a good age for it. Old enough to learn the steps, and young enough to not be too self-conscious. The documentary, or the impact it made on the school system, I’m not sure which came first, has also inspired a major motion picture w/ Antonio Banderes called ‘Take the Lead‘.

*If you want a kid to like cherries, then don’t make all cough syrups cherry-flavored.