The Widder Curry’s Last Rant for January: ‘Have You Been to a Large Sports Gathering Lately?’

By Judi Curry

As a new grandmother today (Jan.31) – well, not exactly new as Elliott is my 20th grandchild – I am somewhat mellow.  But only a little bit mellow – because there is a lot bothering me that I will be saying in the next few months. But let’s start with the new garbage collection procedure.

Have you watched any of the football games during the past few weeks?  Have you attended any concert? Ice Hockey game? Wedding? Large gathering activity?

How do you like the latest fad of mask wearing – you know – the one under the chin?

I have watched football for the past few weeks and am amazed that people feel safe yelling and screaming for their teams without mask protection.  Steve, my friend, has season tickets to the Gulls games.  In order to get into the arena you must show proof of vaccination – and if you can’t there is a tent right outside the door where you can have a Covid test on the spot.

So…you show your ID and your vaccination certificates, and walk into the building and take off the mask you had to wear to show your certification.  There are signs flashing on the marquee every few minutes that regardless of vaccination status a mask must be worn by everyone in the arena.

Let me tell you that NO ONE near us – and we are in the second row – wears a mask.  And when the cameraman takes video of the audience NO ONE there is wearing a mask either.

Do you think I feel safe going to the game? Hell no, and I have told Steve that I will not be attending games any more this year. Too bad, because I have enjoyed it, but I have had COVID, and it is not much fun watching an Ice Hockey game from a hospital bed.

And just another aside – the place is not cleaned too well either.  Maybe you don’t care about me and others around you, but I have 20 grandkids that I want to watch grow up – and large gatherings in not the way to fulfill that objective.

Have you received your new SDG&E bill yet?

I spent thousands of dollars on a roof-top solar system.  I replaced my forced air heating system yet my natural gas bill is the highest it has ever been since I bought this house in 1968.  Even when I forgot to turn off the pool heater and had it on for 3 weeks did I not receive a gas bill as high as this one this month.  The electric bill was lower than the gas bill – what an interesting phenomenon!

What do people do that have no income?  (And by the way – my main source of income is Social Security.)  And, of course, that brings me to the last topic I want to mention.

Whoopee! Social Security recipients received a whopping COLA raise of 5.9%.  That is the largest raise in years.  And what did Medicare do? Yep! The raised their rates. Granted, their rate did not wipe out the SS adjustment entirely, but it put a dent in the new total.  And… just to throw out a little more, the consumer price index climbed 7% in 2021, the largest 12 month gain since 1982!  Ah yes… does anyone see a pattern here?

I’m done for January – nothing political this time around.  The scars from all the knife throwing are healing – I think I’ll give it a little longer to heal before I rile you up again.  By the way – Happy New Year!