Leo Tolstoy opens Anna Karenina with the line: "“Happy families are all alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” I've always thought that he had it backward - happy families have an enormous spectrum of ways to be happy together, but unhappy families would be populated with the proud or cruel and those reacting to them. Period.

But here comes the proof. Probably no other happy family spent Thanksgiving evening the way mine did. After jokes, probing into the various young ladies' romantic lives, and singing a song or two from Prairie Home Companion, we found ourselves in my brother's basement watching my middle-aged (but lithe and fit, mind you) sister together with various nieces and nephews initiating us into the hip-hop mysteries of the "Soulja Boy dance". Not only is the artist (well, Soulja Boy, of course, silly) sweeping the nation with his music and video, YouTube is thick with amateur videos of people (all in their basements, for some reason) displaying their own talents at the dance. There are even instructional videos for those of you who aren't superhuman but want to join the fun.

If your curiosity is aroused, here's a good demonstration. But, this one takes the cake, in my opinion. Their parents think they're paying for ballet lessons. Heh.

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