Finding Nemo

Finding Nemo is the story of a little clown fish named Nemo (Alexander Gould) living off Australia's Great Barrier Reef, who is scooped up by a scuba diver and relocated to a fish tank in Sydney. Nemo's father Marlin (Albert Brooks) and his new found friend Dory swim all the way to Sydney to try to rescue Nemo and bring him back to where he belongs.

Dory, an enthusiastic blue tang, is one of the funniest characters in the film. At one point in Marlin and Dory's journey, they meet and are swallowed by a whale. Fortunately, Dory speaks whale so she is able to use their predicament to great advantage. The way Dory 'speaks whale' is by using regular words and pronounce all the vowels looooong and sloooowly.

I had to think about Nemo after coming back from a wonderful trip to Hawaii with my sweetie. Humpback whales choose Hawaii as their winter destination and it was fascinating to see them during our whalewatch cruise or even just from the beach.

The other reason I had to think about Nemo had to do with 'talking whale'. In the Hawaiian language, all vowels are pronounced individually. I mostly think that I am able to do about anything but where my sweetie was able pronounce Hawaiian names such as Haleakala, Wailea, Pu‘u Ula‘ula, Hali‘imaile, Ho‘okipa, and Pi'ikea, seemingly without effort, the most accurate word to describe my own efforts toward pronouncing those words would be 'whale talk': Haaaleeeaaakaaalaaa.

And maybe that's why sweetie and I are such a good match - what I can't do, she can. And visa versa off course :)

Elling

During the opening credits, we learn that the title character in Elling is a "momma's boy." When she dies he is 40 years old, and he has to be removed from the house and is taken to a mental institution where he has a roommate named Kjell Bjarne, a large man who is obsessed with food and women - although he is quite naive about the latter. Elling makes up stories about women, which Kjell Bjarne initially takes as the truth, but even when he finds out that they are fiction he asks Elling to continue telling them.

Since I moved to the US, I'm actually talking with my family more often than I did in the past when I was living less than a 30 minute drive from all of them. It also means that I'm talking to my mom almost every week as well. But as I'm over 40 and have my own place to live, I don't consider myself a "momma's boy"; I'm proud to say that I'm a "momma's man!"

PS. "Elling" is funny and highly recommended.