Spelling Bee recap

Dom made a valiant run into the fourth round before bowing out in the face of a {gulp} medical term that I use nearly daily: mesentery. He spelled it with an ending "ary". Ah well... we are very proud of him. I refused (and Dom agreed) to have him become one of those 24-hour-a-day spelling mavens - if you don't know of whence I speak, then rent "Spellbound" (the 2003 documentary, not the Hitchcock thriller) and see why this thing can be unhealthy.

The host was terrible - his enunciation was poor, and it definitely cost some of the kids. For example, he kept pronouncing "oratorio" as "arratorio", and the student spelled it with a leading "a". Then the jerk says "I'm sorry, ORATORIO (pronouncing it with a leading "OR" sound) is spelled..." I think he's related to the officials who did the Super Bowl ;-)

The most touching thing occurred when we got home (I had dropped Luca off at basketball before going to Syracuse for the bee with Dom and Angela and Luca spent the afternoon with a friend; Emmy and Gabey stayed home). Emmy had made Dom a congratulatory banner with the words he got during the competition decorating the banner, and a message that she would buy him the video game of his choice as a reward. I gave her $20 for watching Gabey, and she gave that and another $20 to Dom immediately. That was such a sweet gesture!

Dom is taking it well - he is working on building a railroad layout with Luca as I type. He is a bit miffed at the judge, not only for his crappy enunciation, but also because he was kind of cynical whenever the kids would ask him something. Dom got a word that I didn't know (Angela did, and I am sure Dolores knows it, Brucie): "adobo". I guessed (correctly) at the spelling, but it was new to me. The host said it twice, but very quickly, so Dom asked him to repeat it more slowly. The guy says "And do you want me to spell it for you, too?" Hah-Hah. Fortunately, it is a Spanish word and Dom recognized it as such, and spelled it without hesitation. His first word was "buffalo" and his second "detonate"; "adobo" was the Round 3 word. After three rounds, only 7 of the 35 contestants had been eliminated; by the time Dom bowed out, he was the 17th to be eliminated. So he made it halfway. Good for him.

Our new passion is "Jeopardy!" - his goal is to make it to the Teen Tournament some day. At least the pursuit of "Jeopardy!" success is one that includes learning useful information that should help him in school and in life, unlike the spelling of everybody's favorite agita-inducing word from the bee: "collywobbles". Not knowing that word or its spelling is hardly going to interfere with his life!