Akeelah and the Bee

So my parents are here for Thanksgiving. It's been fantastic. Saturday I didn't work at all and Monday (today) I am not working at all either.

Anyhow, for Thanksgiving lunch we went to The Olive Garden and I had Steak. It was so exciting. Then I couldn't move for the rest of the day. My stomach is very unused to processing red meat, so then I suffer. But I love red meat.

Last night we rented a movie. Always risky business when with family. It's most important it's a story line with little jumping back and forth for mom's sake. It must have enough human interest so mom doesn't fall asleep. It also has to be fairly clean or mom will be dramatically exclaiming with disgust " Sex and Violence!!!!!" through out the whole movie.

So we bought a 1/2 litre of Kit Kat icecream and we rented Akeelah and the Bee.

Oh man - it was so touching. I seriously was teary through the whole movie. The teacher in me couldn't think of anything much more touching than a kid from a disadvantaged school winning a spelling bee.

I think the last movie I cried like that was when I watched Whale Rider in Australia. That's only because a Maori kid riding a whale is almost as touching as a kid from a low socio economic back ground winning a spelling bee.

The good thing about being teary (ok - being in "full-out tears") through the whole movie was at least I was with my family. All of them were in the same state as I was.

We are a highly empathetic openly emotional family. Not in the scary way where you're scared to go to family gatherings because everyone is going to go wingy and postal on you. Just in the way where everything is just terribly touching like on Oprah and no matter what happens you'll get sympathy from someone.