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On the dogs and the performing arts

Guys, I think both of my dogs aspire to careers in the performing arts.

You know how I caught Yaris practicing for Swan Lake that one time?

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I think she might still be at it.  I walked by the other day and I caught Yaris standing in fourth position.  She tried to pass it off as nothing big, but it’s kind of weird for a dog to be standing in fourth position.  Or anyone for that matter.

Fourth position may have been the one I used the least.  Or third.  Probably third.  Because why use third if you can use fifth?  I kind of viewed fourth position as a transitional position or starting point for a pirouette (which I guess makes it more common than third position).  Not really a holding position.

Anyway, I think I interrupted her in the middle of practice.  Her arms weren’t in place and I don’t think she was about to go into a pirouette?  Not sure.  Next time, I think I’ll secretly observe her and see if she does pirouette.  I think that might something to see.  A dog doing a pirouette.  I wonder how she’d even manage that.

Horse, on the other hand, does not seem to find any particular enjoyment in ballet.  I’m not terribly surprised.  Ballet is pretty fussy.  I could see Yaris taking to it, especially if she gets to be prima ballerina, but not Horse.  Also, he’s not very flexible.  I’ve never caught him doing doga.

No, Horse seems to have taken a liking to tap dancing and he’ll unabashedly tap dance in front of me (I haven’t been able to get a video of it).  His happy dance seems to involve a lot of tapping.  I think he might have choreographed it himself.

It’s not the cleanest choreography I’ve ever seen, but I guess I can’t be too critical.  I think he’s only just starting to pick it up and he is enthusiastic about it.  Maybe it’ll look better as he practices.

I wonder where they’re getting lessons from.  I wonder how they’re paying for lessons…hmm.  Maybe that’s where the weird charges are coming from on my credit card (that’s another story and really not related to dog dance lessons at all).

I make! Banana nut waffle edition

The other day I had some gross bananas.  All bananas are gross to me once they get any sort of brown on them.  Bananas should be eaten when they are still green tipped.

Anyway, I had some gross bananas.  I normally make banana nut bread with my gross bananas but I’ve been trying to branch out.  Banana nut bread is all well and good, but I don’t always want to eat a whole loaf.  I’ve also been curious just how well different types of batters would do in a waffle iron.  So…I made a batch of banana nut bread batter and then dumped it into the waffle iron.

Results?  Delicious.

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But the thing is, because the recipe is for a quick bread and not for a waffle, the results are not quite waffle-like.  I mean, it’s a waffle in shape but not in texture.  The texture is still like that of bread.  Like I said, it’s delicious but not quite right.

So now it’s time to experiment with leavening and also with temperature and length of cooking.  This time I heated the waffle iron to 350degF and left it in for…a cycle.  I forgot to look at the time, but I left it until the iron reached temperature again.  I think maybe I’ll try raising the temperature next time with the same recipe and see what happens.  And then maybe I’ll change the leavening to see what happens.

As it is, it’s pretty good the next day after you’ve toasted it in a toaster (darkest setting on mine).  It crisps up a little and banana bread (or waffle in this case) is always better the next day.

It looks like I’ll have to buy a lot of bananas.