When I was 5 years old my Grandmother's older sister Lena passed away. We are a small and relatively close-knit family and even at that young age I had spent a great deal of time with her. I have a couple very clear memories of this period. I don't remember my reaction to her passing, which I am sure seemed more like she was away in a far distant land than the reality of her death. She was just there one day, cooking me gnocchi's and the next gone.
My mother, always trying to do everything "the right way" thought it best to expose me for the first time to the reality of life and death. She brought me to the wake (now this is one vivid memory) and had me touch her as she lay in the coffin. I remember her being very cold and that she didn't look anything like the Aunt Lena I knew and loved. But of my earliest memories, it is this one which sticks out in the clearest of detail. In fairness to my mother it actually served her purpose, I was never after that point upset or hesitant to attend a wake or funeral. I just had no anxieties about them afterward. That brings me to Friday...

I really can't stand sitting through anything Jack Black does, how anyone can is beyond me. But it was their choice (as it should be) and I took them regardless, enduring it somehow. He was of course his usual grating humorless self, nothing new there. The supporting cast (much like with Nacho Libre) took the edge off it and I had a few laughs. They really enjoyed it so when all was said and done it was a fun afternoon.