A cold beginning

Even with the best of pulmonary function, the current weather has been brutal. We were in Sharon this past weekend but we never even left our apartment over Shabbat because it was just too cold for me to be outside long enough to go anywhere (either using my scooter or a wheelchair). This upcoming weekend is supposed to be even colder, so although we had planned to be in Sharon and we are anxious to see our other daughter and her family who returned from Israel a couple of days ago, we have decided to stay put in Riverdale with the hopes that the predictions for somewhat warmer weather to follow are accurate.

Meanwhile, we were able to park our car right outside a Manhattan movie theater on Monday (New Year’s Day) and saw “I, Tonya,” the movie based on the life of figure skater Tonya Harding, the first American woman to complete a triple axel in an Olympic competition. Although we never followed the events religiously, we certainly remember the famous incident a few months before the 1994 Olympics when Ms. Harding’s main competitor, Nancy Kerrigan, was attacked while leaving the rink following practice. [Side note: Ms. Kerrigan did recover sufficiently to compete and won a silver medal, which seemed quite impressive to me but was portrayed in the film as unbearably disappointing to a young woman who likely would have won the gold.] The main focus of the film was on the relationship between Tonya (Margot Robbie), her husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), and Tonya’s mother LaVona Golden (an exquisite performance by Allison Janney).

This was yet another movie in which a character was using full-time supplemental oxygen. LaVona was portrayed from the start as a very heavy smoker, so the need for oxygen in her later years comes as no a surprise. Having said that, search as I have this morning, I was not able to find any mention of this nor any pictures of the real LaVona Golden showing her with supplemental oxygen. This makes me wonder a bit about what the filmmaker was trying to say about the character. What do people think when they see a person dependent on supplemental oxygen? My guess is that they assume that he or she is a long-time heavy smoker who essentially brought this burden on him- or herself. It should come as no surprise that I find this realization extremely troubling, to put it mildly.

(movie trailer)

Meanwhile, stay warm, and have a great 2-0-1-8 (a little jingle there).

Love,

Rebecca