I wasn’t allowed to go trick or treating until I was eight years old. Before that, we lived in the city and my parents were absolutely convinced that I would end up with poisoned candy or an apple with a razor blade inside it. Talk about excessively overprotective. By the time I turned eight and my parents were expecting their second child, they bought a house in the suburbs.

I’ll never forget my first time trick or treating. I went with the neighbor boy, Alvin, and I was wearing one of those cheap costumes–you know the kind–the plastic, one-piece type that you step into and tie at the back of the neck, and the mask that comes with a weak piece of elastic that’s stapled to each side of the face. I was Spider-Man! (Yeah, I’ve always been a tomboy. Can you tell?)

It was so cold that I had to wear my winter coat over my costume so unless I had the mask down, you couldn’t even tell who/what I was. On top of that, it was pouring rain, so of course I had to wear my hood. Despite the awful weather, I had the time of my life! I was maybe 13 when I stopped trick or treating, but every year that I went it was always raining.

Today, though it’s a little chilly out there, it’s bright and sunny, and for a Halloween, it’s a gorgeous day. I hope the kids have a great time. I’m also relieved that we live in an apartment, so we don’t get trick-or-treaters. I’m too fucking lazy to get up to answer the door every time it rings. :[

I’m still having a few accidents. Nothing major or anywhere near as bad as before, but it’s fucking annoying, and since I don’t want to take any chances, I’ve opted to continue using Depends instead of sanitary napkins. Besides, Ananke says i look “hawt” in Depends.

Brian bought another package, except guess what? These things come in different types, which we didn’t know! The ones he first bought me, and that I’m sporting in what mamazilla called “Depends porn,” are like Huggies Pull-Ups. Well, this other package contained actual adult-size baby diapers, with the sticky tabs on the sides and everything! No, no, no! “I’m a big kid now!”

Needless to say, Brian went back out and bought me the right kind. (l)

We didn’t lose!!!! We were down by one at the end of the third period, and when there were 13 seconds left, Coach Tim pulled me so we had six skaters out there and immediately tied it up. There were still about five seconds left in the period so I skated back to the net. The buzzer went off and it was 6 – 6. The refs let us play a five-minute OT period, which surprised me. I didn’t think they did that, especially at our level.

We really should have won this game because from what I heard, U of C doesn’t have a goalie–they take turns goaltending. How much must that suck? The goaltender just looked so uncomfortable in the net that I kind of felt bad for her. And she was either my size or just a little bit smaller, because she was the smallest goalie I’ve ever seen! Every other team’s goalie is bigger than me! Actually, our Blue goalie’s about my size, but anyway.

Here’s the other thing–this time around, we had ringers: two players from the Blue team and the Blue team’s head coach who sometimes plays for White, I think. U of C had one ringer: #2, who’s supposedly a Red-level player (see chart below). However, Coach Tim played our “stars” fairly, particularly Coach Anne; he had her covering #2 so that the beginning players on our team would be up against the beginning players on theirs.

Had Anne played at the level of which she’s capable, the score would have been more like 12 – 6 or even more. Anne scored only two goals and created opportunities for our Orange players to play. The rest of our goals were scored by our “real” team members. #2, on the other hand, was a puck hog. Most of her goals were on breakaways and she never passed the puck to her teammates as they skated into our zone. Even though it should have been a 3-on-0, it was a 1-on-0.

According to Henry (Blue team assistant coach), I made some great saves against #2, but Brian was the scorekeeper, so the pictures he was able to take didn’t come out very well, and there aren’t any of me because I was just too far away from where he was. However, Henry has most of the game on video including some of my really good saves. I’m hoping to get a copy of a WAV file or whatever you call it, or even stills. I’ve never seen myself play! Rosie, his wife and one of my teammates, joked that she’d make me a highlight reel. But how cool would that be?

See the game pics on my photo album: Evanston Tigers Orange ’06 – ’07. I know it’s a pain because the photos from all of our games are on there, but the most recent ones are the last ten pictures.

So here’s what I learned today from the Women’s Central Hockey League (WCHL) site in terms of levels of play. Although my team is called Orange (probably because we’re the Tigers?), we’re actually a Green-level team. But all of our games are exhibition; we aren’t playing any league games on the Green level, which is why anyone can play against us, including Red-level players. This is the description that I found on their site:

copyright Women’s Central Hockey League

So I was right about what I said in my last game post:

Since we only play exhibition games, pretty much anyone can play. If they were actual league games, the people on the roster would have to play at their appropriate level.

Well, it’ll make for an interesting season.

Now that I have a case manager (CM) at the SSvcA, he is helping me apply for SSDI. I know that I should have began this process three years ago when I first became disabled because we are in dire financial straits right now, and it’s not like I can go out and get a job.

Currently, I’m compiling the items and documents that I will need that are on this checklist my CM gave me. When I meet with him next week, I promised to have written down all of the doctors, therapists, hospitals, etc. that I’ve seen/been in.

See more progress on: apply for disability

The most recent episode of CSI: Cat Scene Investigation is called “What’s That Smell?” Recently, Brian and I came home one night to an extremely repugnant smell, but one that was not related to any unburied evidence in the litterbox.

Upon entering the kitchen, this is what we witnessed (the cat in the picture is Hopper, taking advantage of the spoils):

We believe the real culprit is the cat pictured below:

Hee Seop has had priors. In fact, that’s how we met. Brian made some really bad shepherd’s pie one night from a recipe that I found in Real Simple (something I don’t recommend). It turned out completely unedible (not Brian’s fault), so we tossed it. Brian set the trash bag on the back porch, but when he went to take it down to the dumpster, a possum had torn into the bag and was eating from it! Several minutes later, the possum disappeared, only to be replaced by Hee Seop.

Yes, the evidence in this case is circumstantial, but none of the other cats have ever knocked the trash can over before. Case closed.