I'm Back

Christmas this year was wonderful. Santa gave me a new digital camera, an action that will result in your having to look at many of the pictures I will take. My apologies in advance. I also received the Complete Special Extended Edition of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Guess what...more SEAN BEAN!!! And speaking of Bean, it was Mr. Bean's Birthday two days ago, the 6th of December. Rowan Atkinson is now 51 years of age, Happy Birthday, Mr. Atkinson! Yesterday was Nicolas Cage's birthday, a man who I will never ever find fault with. Mr. Cage originally introduced Johnny Depp to the silver screen - and in my opinion that deserves a lifetime contribution to film award! I also received the film Dear Frankie, from the UK and starring Gerald Butler (The Phantom of the Opera - The Phantom). I love it! It's about this mother and her deaf nine-year-old son and her own mother. The family is constantly on the move, for reasons later revealed in the film. The son, Frankie, writes to his father constantly, who is on the ship ACCRA, sailing around the world. Frankie has never met his father (not since he was a baby), and looks forward to each letter he receives from his father. But, Frankie's mother, Lizzie, made up the entire story about Frankie's father and she has been writing to Frankie all along, just so she could hear his voice (he doesn't speak). Anyway, the plot progresses and Lizzie finds that she needs to find a man to impersonate Frankie's father for a day. Enter Gerald Butler. Butler agrees to pretend for one day, for a sum of money, that he is Frankie's father. But from the first moment, you can see that this is more than a business transaction to all concerned, including Butler. He bonds (I can't say it any other way) with Frankie, and they end up spending another day together, accompanied by Lizzie. Walking home, Butler and Lizzie have a private conversation and Lizzie reveals the truth: She left her husband after he beat Frankie and rendered him deaf. As Butler says goodbye to Frankie, Frankie speaks for the first and only time during the film, asking when Butler will come back. That's the first serious tear-rendering part. Butler leaves, after he and Lizzie share a shy first kiss, and then Lizzie goes to see Frankie's real father. It turns out that he has been sick for a long time and he's now dying, with maybe a few days left. She refuses to let him see Frankie, and leaves. But she tells Frankie that his father is sick, very sick, but loves Frankie very much. Then we cut to her and Frankie reading Frankie's father's obituary - Tear-rendering scene number 2. Lizzie later goes to close out the mail box that Frankie had been writing too and finds a letter - from Frankie. As she reads it, she realizes that Frankie knew all along that Butler wasn't his father. And that's how it ends, pass the tissues, please.

I also got some other things - A super dooper reindeer pooper, three volumes of Truly Tasteless Jokes, and perfume from Victoria's Secret. I'm not sure what my family is trying to say - I think that they are the tiniest bit conflicted.

Fabulous Christmas, fabulous New Year's, and now I am back at school. I'll start class on Monday - pray for me.