Sweet Potata #18 – My Executioner…

…But Look…

…I Made the Save!!! Still, it Was…

My Worst Game This Season
(click to enlarge)
(click here to view the game pics)

Then again, as of last week, the Turtles are in last place and the Sweet Potatas (SP) are in first. SP #18 is a phenomenal player: a strong skater, a strong shooter, she could pick and choose where she wanted to shoot the puck. I’m sure her height works for her as does mine! I’m only 5’1″ so my clinic coaches tell me to come out of the crease more, which I did, but I’d either commit and go down too early, in which case she could easily skate around me and shoot it, or pass it to a teammate who’d make the goal.

Though I’ve learned that the other goalie’s skill level doesn’t matter, I was disappointed to play against the SP’s beginning goalie, who, it turns out, isn’t a beginner after all. I was simply awed by her glove saves, which she did particularly well. She’s also tall — when she’s in her ready stance, the top of her head’s still over the crossbar. Mine may be just below it, if not completely below it. During parts of the game, she’d just stand there and rest her arms on top of the net, completely relaxed, which had the opposite effect on me — I was completely unnerved!

I’m not sure, but I don’t think I played that badly. I mean, the score was tied 2 – 2 at the end of the first period, and with maybe less than ten seconds left, SP #18 took a long shot, which I managed to block — I might have even stacked my pads! But I’m not sure — unfortunately Brian didn’t capture the save. According to hockey experts, this is also called the “desperation” move (scroll down). Well, I was desperate! Besides, it was at the very end of the period and I just reacted. I wasn’t going to allow a last-second goal. (photo © NHL.com)

The second period was a different story: my confidence was completely shattered. The goalie coach I went to for instruction six years ago, the one who told me that I don’t deserve to be a goalie, was sitting on the visitors’ side. He comes to every game, and normally his presence doesn’t bother me, but since the other goalie plays on his team during the regular season, albeit as a winger, it’s understandable that he was there to cheer her on. He wasn’t heckling me or anything, but his old words came flooding back, and I couldn’t deflect them from my mind. I know I shouldn’t let it bother me but empower me, instead.

First Period: First goal was passed to the Center, who was in front of the net. She got me top shelf, glove side — I had come out to meet her but went down too early. I may have been screened on the second goal, though Brian wasn’t sure. The shot came from the (my) left face-off circle and may have been deflected in. I may not have even seen the puck.

Second Period: The first goal this period went in top shelf, stick side. Our defense didn’t come to get the SP shooter and she had all day to pick her spot. The next goal was passed to an open shooter (OK, his notes can be hard to read), and it looks like I came out of the crease to block the shot, but I wasn’t sure which side it was going to be coming from. Last goal this period was totally embarrassing: a deflection through my 5-hole. Hopefully, someone else deflected it, and not me!

Third Period: First goal bounced off a teammate’s stick, went over another teammate’s shoulder, and right into the net. I didn’t even have time to react. I thought my teammates were trying to keep the puck from getting near me, but most of them normally play offense and aren’t used to playing D. Well, I guess that’s why they say that making assumptions is a bad thing. Brian isn’t sure how the final goal was scored, but it shouldn’t have counted because the timekeeper forgot to turn the clock back on when the play started, so the time would have run out by the time this goal went in.

Though we lost 7 – 3, I was happy that they didn’t get a shutout, at least!

For stats abbreviation key, see below.

(more…)

We’re at our favorite indie coffee shop, and there’s a group of four pretentious hipsters sitting on the couches near us and they’re annoying the fuck out of me. They’re either grad students, or have just finished. One of them has started teaching, though I don’t know if it’s tenure-track or not.

OK, maybe I’m just jealous because I can no longer teach college. Fuck. I can’t teach, period. Just a few days ago, when I actually went to the gym, I had to run back upstairs three times because I kept forgetting something. I used to teach essay- and research-writing and MLA format. I mean, I had that thing memorized! Now, I doubt I could write a research paper to save my fucking life.

As much as ECT has helped me, sometimes it pisses me the fuck off. Actually, I fell into the TRD and was unable to teach then. I think I had to quit in the middle of whatever semester it was, so it isn’t entirely because of the ECT, but it’s only made it worse. Everything has a price, doesn’t it?

I’m not going to review every single Jedi Apprentice book, but I do recommend this series to anyone who’s a fan of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s. I’m a sucker for backstories, so of course I was sucked in.

The series begins when Obi-Wan’s 13, the age at which most young Jedi have already been chosen to be a Padawan. Although the Jedi Apprentice series is for young readers (ages 9 – 12), Jude Watson well conveys young Obi-Wan’s insecurities: about whether or not he’ll become an apprentice; if Qui-Gon Jinn, who we all know chooses him, approves of him; if he’s doing well enough — emotions most teenagers feel, including teenage crushes(!), which is something all adults can relate to and makes this series worth reading.

This last volume ends with a 17-year-old Obi-Wan about to graduate from “Jedi high school” and to embark on his journey, still with Qui-Gon, to “Jedi college,” where he’ll go through his trials and if successful, become a Jedi Knight.

Hopper is such a princess! She even has a slip-on, rhinestone studded bling bling thing that says “Princess” on her Coach collar. That’s right — she has a Coach collar! They no longer make them for cats, but it does have the elastic so if she’s ever caught on a tree branch (highly unlikely since our cats stay strictly indoors), she’ll be able to slip out of it. She’s more likely to get her collar caught on one of Angelo’s claws. And I don’t know why, but Brian says she’s just like her mommy. I wonder what that’s supposed to mean…?

by Lilian Jackson Braun
…or, “The Author Who Didn’t Write the Ending.” Yeah, yeah — I’m reading “fluff” books because number one, I’m a sucker for books that have cats in them and two, that’s what ECT does to your brain — makes it hard to read literary fiction.

Actually, I’ve been re-reading The Cat Who… series because I have a bunch that I haven’t read yet and because of the ECT, couldn’t remember exactly how Qwill got Koko, etc.

If you aren’t familiar with this series, the first three volumes were written in the 60′s, and let me tell you — they were pretty risqué for their time. For example, a husky female metal sculptor named Butchy Bolton? Braun didn’t publish her fourth volume until the ’80s because: “The rising mystery author disappeared from the publishing scene for 18 years. The blame came from the fact that mystery novels were starting to focus on sex, violence, and foul language, and Braun’s light-hearted books were not welcome in this new territory.” (Lillian Jackson Braun) Personally, I think this series is now written by ghost writers. I mean, the woman was born in 1913, which would make her like, 93 or 94 now and she’s still publishing! More power to her, I guess.

OK, on to this particular book. Qwilleran and his cats leave their country home “400 miles north of everywhere” to sublet an apartment “Down Below,” (the city) in order to save a historic building from being torn down by developers. A preservation committee, on which some old friends of his are members, are the ones who ask him to make the trip. Not only did the plot plod along, we never find out what actually happens to the building at the end of the story! Will it be restored? Will it be torn down and gentrified with the rest of the neighborhood? WTF? Come on, Lillian — you can do better than that!