Solving Problems

Ron DeSantis finally said something I agree with.

It has taken years, but I am on record, on this very blog, saying I do not believe the new gender identity issue is an arena that needs to be injected into the competitive sports world.

Horses don’t let motorcycles be loaded into the paddocks to race them.

Two different things.

Your gender was assigned at birth and nobody can change it.

You can be a girl (assigned female parts at birth) who identifies as something else, hell I don’t care if you are a girl identifying as a male orangutang. The operative phrase is “you are a girl.”

Accept it.

Moving on…

A story caught my eye with the tag: Forty Things You Need to Know About Retirement.

The story warns of people retiring too early and not having enough saved to retire.

THEN DON”T RETIRE!!!

Boom!

I did it again.

It’s like people are in this fog that keeps them from seeing what is right in front of them.

Can they count?

I’m not referring to the few legitimate sad cases that exist.

I’m talking about the masses.

Us.

Perhaps fewer are more detail-oriented, to put it politely, about our money than myself. I am sure my time spent selling financial vehicles for a Wall Street firm helps, but I know money.

Specifically our money.

I can easily forget someone’s name, where they are from, how big their family is, or even what they do for a living.

But don’t think, for one second, that I don’t remember covering you for your last two beers in a golf round we played two weeks ago, whatever-your-name-is.

I also know my debit column.

I knew the exact second when we could retire.

Karen, showing off her old, old-school work ethic, kept working for years after that second.

Not me.

I have never left an unpaid debt in my life.

One big reason is that I am one stubborn fool who would rather die than ask for assistance for anything from anybody.

Although I had access to money, it would entail asking for it, and you don’t see me six feet under, do you?

I always loved the idea of being self-sufficient, and before I met my soulmate Karen, the happiest period of my life were the years I spent on the road, conquering colleens and getting very close to people who actually loved and cared for me for some inexplicable reason.

Thank you for them, God.

I was absolutely blotto at The Chart House restaurant in Santa Barbara where I suddenly took a fall down some poorly-lit stairs, badly twisting my ankle. I was living alone, had no friends other than my cocaine maniac buddies, and I was literally out of options as I sat there in the emergency room.

I had met Karen and we were in the first week of our relationship, but I was out of options.

She came and put me in my condo and I haven’t stopped adoring her for the next 36 years.

Stay well.