Murderball

I finally saw Murderball, about the US quad rugby team. Which isn't related to non-quad rugby at all; it's closer to tackle baskeball, really. It's indoors, no scrum, the ball has to be dribbled or passed every 10 seconds, and the chairs can slam into each other. Not surprisingly, the chairs are designed somewhat differently than ones for daily use, with more tilted wheels with aluminum hubcaps, additional little wheels front and back, and seatbelts and straps to hold the user in, to avoid being tipped out of the chair when it gets knocked over. Oh, and teams have to balance the players' abilities; there's a system for rating how much function a player has, and a team can have only so much functionality on the court at a time (OK, this feels like a kludgy explanation.).

Anyway. The movie is about the team, but it's more using the progress of the team to frame a movie about successful quadraplegics in general. There are lots of different ways people ended up as they did (car accidents, fist fights, polio, blood disease, etc), but that hasn't stopped them from making a life they're happy with. Not what they would've chosen, but a good life, with work, family (for a 'sports movie,' there's a lot of talk about girlfriends and sex...), and Paralympic medals.

The description of play includes this sentence: "Both male and females are encouraged to play, and because of the classification process gender advantages don't exist." Which is great, except that all the players shown in competition play were male. And almost all the quads included in the movie were male. I don't know whether the rates of quadraplegia is greater for males, but it seems likely that there are some. I wonder how different things are for women quads.

Cool movie. Very recommended.

I just realized: Zupan reminded me a bit of FJ. Weird.
Oh, and I now know why I can never coach sports: I can't yell enough :-)

Skirt

In October, I finally found a new long 'good' skirt for Shabbat and such. It was black, lined, microsuede, and looked pretty. I've been low on skirts for a while; it's been hard finding ones I like this year. So. I didn't change after Shabbat the week I was going to a community theater production, and ended up sitting on a chair full of glue (How, I don't know. It was just there in the row with the rest.). I've had it dry cleaned, and while most of the glue (or whatever it was) is out, there's still the pattern of the chair slats remaining, and that can't be gotten out without stripping the fabric. So. New skirt ruined. I have the email of the producer, but I'm debating whether to bother to get reimbursed; community theater doesn't have money floating around, so I suspect it's easier for me to absorb the cost than them. And it's not the money, but the skirt I want. Of course, that skirt isn't being sold any more (it was at their outlet store as it was; I checked online, and it's not there). So I'm debating what to do.

(Total tangent: seeing it as jjill(.com) rather than J. Jill emphasizes how easy it is to write the name so it has point symmetry.)

Boston Organics delivery

With the local farm season over, I've switched to an every other week large box, two-thirds vegetables. I'm not sure whether this is the right balance; I might be better off with a smaller box every week. I'll see how it goes.

• two paper bags of crimini mushrooms (half a pound total?)*
  
• two bunches of spinach
  
• two medium zucchinis
  
• four five potatoes
  
• three sweet potatoes
  
• two pears
  
• three oranges
  
• a medium eggplant
  
• two large artichokes
  
• eight apples*
  
• ten bananas

* local (read: New England) produce