We're moderately prepared but am putting off buying the burial plots. The kids are grown, insurance is paid up, house is paid off, wills are done. So if we go down together the kids are set and lawyers won't steal too much.

My problem is not with death but with dying. Of the 18 members of our parents' generation 16 have passed in last 15 years. Many of them within the walls of hospitals or nursing homes. We're dealing now with my mother's failing years.

I've told my wife and kids is that I'd rather go sit on an ice floe in the Bering Sea than into a home.

Only problem with that plan is the ice floes might all be melted by the time I get to that old...