Random thoughts at 3 AM

   Another middle of the night and I am awake. Been a lot of this lately. I sleep about 4 1/2 to 5 hours and then I am awake. Cannot get back to sleep, then about daylight, when I should be getting up ... I get sleepy. I do not know what caused this drastic change in sleep rhythms. It is disconcerting to say the least. 
   I have not often thought of myself as a member of the clerisy, what with my seemingly constant hebetude. But the more that I am around people these days with their obvious nescience about so many topics, the more I am inclined to believe that I may belong. People tend to amaze me more and more with their thoughts and actions.
   I have spent the last 5-6 days at home with Hilda as she can do little for herself as yet and that has brought on a period of laziness that I must overcome. Coupled with our obvious lack of money ... her unemployment has stopped because the Federal side of the equation has not been extended ... boredom is starting to set in.
   My NFL picks the last few weeks have been abysmal ... I have been tossed from my once glorious perch by point spreads and bad play by good teams. I went 7-9 this week. that drops me to 67-45 or 60% ... I was above 80% at one time. Not thinking and/or planning enough I guess.
   Our weather here has not been to my liking of late ... have to wear a jacket and a long sleeve shirt. I'm a shorts and polo shirt kind of a guy you know.
    I have been actively looking for work, but nothing yet. For every position out there, there are dozens of applicants. And ... most of them are younger than 65.
 

Saturday

 Well, I went on the other day about the things that I was thankful for. Today, I am back to normal, not understanding the world or my fellow humans. Some things really irritate me ... and they shouldn't realistically. I am not well educated, tout de même I am not dumb. Here I sit in the pre-dawn hours, reading and attempting to keep up with happenings locally and in the world at large. I mean ... important, earth-shaking things. LOL ! I mean who doesn't worry that B.H.O., the world's most articulate human and leader (?) of the free world got stitches because of an errant elbow in a basketball game or that 77 year old Willie Nelson got caught with 6 ounces of pot (again) or that Wesley Snipes or Lindsey Lohan may actually get jail time. These are events that shall go down in history ... or not. Sometimes I think that I should give up on the news as it is. But, where was I? Oh yeah, things that irritate me.

Item #1: I cannot, for the life of me, understand why people use YOUR when they mean YOU'RE. I have seen it on all sorts of announcements, both hand printed and computer generated ... "YOUR invited" / "YOUR welcome" ... and no one seems to notice or to care. Well, now I have even seen it in the newspaper ... in our very liberal Arizona Daily (Red) Star. And it was not just lapsus linguae, it appeared once in the news and once on the sports page. These are college educated writers and they have editors. This is not the only language malfunction extant but it is one of the most common. If a redneck hillbilly like me can see the difference, then what is the problem? Are the apostrophe and the E just too much trouble to add? Enough though.

Item #2: Drivers who are distracted or brought to incompetence by their inability to NOT BE ON THE PHONE! I cannot believe that all these conversations are THAT important. People do not talk about important things on their cell phones normally ... they just talk because they have a cell phone and it is a way to keep busy. I saw a car yesterday with three people in it ... all of whom were on their cellphones. Maybe they were talking to each other? Or maybe they didn't like each other? No one under the age of 50 seems to have face-to-face conversations anymore. They text and twitter and whatever that new thing is, all in a code that passes for language these days. OMG,LOL, Gr8, ad nauseam.
    An observation - I have to say that there are very few people that I know or see who have the ability to "Do Nothing". That is a great sorrow to me. Everyone should, at one time or another (I do it regularly) ... just sit/stand/lean and "Do Nothing". I sit on our little porch for a half hour and don't do anything ... it revitalizes the juices and rests our little grey cells (as Hercule Poirot calls them). But folks in this day and time have to stay busy every waking moment, not with anything important, just busy.

Item #3: While we are on the subject of driving / drivers ... my favorite peeve ... are people ignorant of laws and/or common courtesy or just ignorant? They make right hand turns from the left lane and/or left hand turns from the right lane. They cut over three lanes ... a mere 5 car lengths from the intersection. Did they just remember where they were going? Did they just wake up? Or did that person on the phone tell them ... "TURN HERE!"?

   I think that I will leave the news, as it is, alone and make some breakfast. Have a good weekend. Oh, by the way ... my sports update: U of A lost to the #1 team in the nation in football and won in basketball, but they have a real test in roundball today ... Kansas. My three NFL picks for Turkey Day didn't turn out so well I was 1-2. But one game I gave 3 1/2 points and my team only won by 3. I lost by a half point ... that sucks. Oh well! But,again, have a great weekend.

Thanksgiving

 On this Thanksgiving day 2010, Hilda and I are very thankful to be so much in love with each other. It took us many decades of our lives, a few disagreements, and many other relationships before we met.We are also very thankful for our friends around the nation and world (Hi, Barry !), our internet friends and especially grateful to have the friends that we have in the American Legion  family. Although we don't always see eye to eye with them, we are grateful for their friendship and their love. We are also grateful for the family members with whom we are close and ... to our estranged family members and ex-friends ... we love you, forgive you (and ask for your forgiveness) and hope that one day we all shall be close once again. The holiday season from Thanksgiving, through Christmas and Hanukkah reminds us all of the joy of family and friends and the week after Christmas a new year begins. May the upcoming year bring you all much happiness, success and as old friendships continue ... may you be rewarded with new, lasting friendships.
  W. Antonio Rigney and Hilda J. Reiser-Rigney

23 November

  Well, today started out pretty well ... I worked for Perry at ValuPlus and made $65 (could have made $80, with another $80 tomorrow ... which is now off, I needed that $80/$120 a lot) but when I talked to Hilda on the phone, I found out that she had a bad fall and her arm was killing her. I came home, took her to Urgent Care (sort of an Emergency Room) which we could ill afford and found that she had broken her Proximal Humerous ... in English, that is the upper bone in her right arm. Now, we have to get follow ups from an orthopedist (read as ... more $$$) and for the time being (3 months?) she will be in a sling, taking pain meds, icing her arm and she will need me to do certain things (getting her clothes on and off, bathing her, et al) until she is able to do for herself. She is miserable, but I hope that her happiness returns soon. I love her so much and hate to see her in pain.
   Our U of A Wildcats won again tonight. In 5 games this season, we have scored 414 points and given up 273 points. The per game average is 82.5 for us and 54.5 for our opponents ... we have averaged scoring 28 more points per game than our opponents. Now ... I do not expect this to continue, however there seems to be a light at the end of our tunnel. GO CATS !! As the head honcho on the TV show ... The A-Team (great name A-Team, A as in Arizona) used to say ... "I love it when a plan comes together". We play again on Thursday and we play Kansas on Saturday. Rough road, but that's the kind of road we travel.

   My NFL picks need to be in by tomorrow ... Turkey Day games on Thursday you know. But my Thursday picks are:
New England      -6.5        At Detroit     The Patriots and give the points
New Orleans       -3.5        At Dallas        Drew and the Saints, but the Plowboys could surprise 
Cincinnati            +9          At NY Jets     The Bengals and the points, I'm hoping they keep it close

  Hilda wishes her niece Cassie a happy Birthday today, we really love her and miss her. She is very intelligent and very pretty, a deadly combination. But her mom Gerrie (Hilda's youngest sister) is a pretty lady, so Cassie comes by it honestly.

    We both hope that all of you have a great Thanksgiving, we were going to work that day at the Legion serving dinner, but that is off. We'll miss donating our time, but there shall be other opportunities. So long for now.