Day: April 21, 2024

Sunday Poser — Don’t Ask Me

Fandango8 Comments

For today’s Sunday Poser, Sadje wants to know…

Are you comfortable giving free professional advice?

Let’s break this question down into its two fundamental components: professional advice and free advice.

I tend to believe that you get what you pay for. If I needed the advice of an expert in a particular field, I would expect to pay for the expertise.

My area of expertise was health benefits administration and systems. It’s not like I’m a doctor or a lawyer or have ever had played one on television. In my younger days, people often asked for advice about submitting health insurance claims or to compare their employer-sponsored health plans and advise them which is best for them and their families.

To be able to give them advice, I would have to read all of their health benefits plan provisions, especially the fine print, and I’d have to ask about their families, their goals, and their objectives. For example, all other things being equal, my advice for a single person would be different from that of a married person. And different from that of a couple with kids.

I did go though that process for a few close friends, but it was just too time-consuming so I started to say no to giving free advice.

Of course, now I’m retired and whatever specific knowledge I once had that people might seek me out for is out-of-date. So I do not feel comfortable giving out free advice, professional or not.

WDP — Unwinding

Fandango9 Comments
Daily writing prompt
How do you unwind after a demanding day?
View all responses

As a retiree, I don’t really have very many “demanding” days anymore. Therefore, I don’t need to unwind. Still, that doesn’t stop me from falling asleep in my recliner in the late afternoon or evening while watching TV, reading a book, or even, at times, while blogging.

Before I fell asleep yesterday afternoon I read something interesting on my iPhone’s newsfeed. Apparently, Americans’ “magic number” for living a comfortable retirement surged to an all-time high of $1.46 million — rising much faster than the rate of inflation while swelling more than 50% since the onset of the pandemic.

These are the latest findings from Northwestern Mutual’s 2024 Planning & Progress Study, the company’s proprietary research series that explores Americans’ attitudes, behaviors, and perspectives across a broad set of issues impacting their long-term financial security.

Both Gen Z and Millennials are expected to need more than $1.6 million to retire comfortably. Meanwhile, the average amount that U.S. adults have saved for retirement dropped modestly from $89,300 in 2023 to $88,400 today, but is more than $10,000 off its five-year peak of $98,800 in 2021.

If someone told me that I’d need almost $1.5 million to live comfortably in retirement and I actually had less than $90,000 saved for retirement, I would need some strong drugs to unwind from that ugly reality.

Cellpic Sunday — Sunbathing Critters

Fandango8 Comments

John Steiner, the blogger behind Journeys With Johnbo, has this prompt he calls Cellpic Sunday in which he asks us to post a photo that was taken with a cellphone, tablet, or another mobile device. He invites us to participate in this cellphone photo prompt by creating our own CellPic Sunday post and linking it back to his.

The weather around my area on the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area has turned almost summer-like. Today it’s supposed to reach 82°F and for the past three or four days it’s been hovering around the 80° mark.

Last week I posted a photo of a Tarantula spider in its spidey hole in my backyard. I had to sneak up to the hole so as not to spook the spider, causing it to disappear into the depths of its spidey hole. I used my iPhone’s 10x zoom lens and got a photo that showed the tarantula maybe about 2-3 inches deep in its hole.

But yesterday, in the 80° heat, I caught the tarantula unusually close to the surface and snapped this shot. I assume the spider was sunbathing.

And speaking about sunbathing, this fellow below was taking in the rays this morning, lounging around on the playset in our backyard that we have for when our grandkids come to visit.

The good news for the tarantulas is that our dog can’t get to them while they stay inside their spidey holes. Of course, come tarantula mating season, which runs from mid-August through mid-October, the males of the species come out of their spidey holes in search of a female. Once they’re out of their holes, all bets are off that some of them won’t succumb to our dog’s natural curiosity.

But when it comes to lizards, she is obsessed. We call her the lizard hunter and there seem to be dozens, if not hundreds, of lizards in our backyard. Most of them are so quick on their feet that they can scurry away from her before she pounces on them. But she has managed to catch a few this year. She doesn’t eat them but plays with them in a manner that those she does catch don’t survive. My wife and I feel bad for those poor little lizards.

Song Lyric Sunday — Breaking My Heart

Fandango16 Comments

For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday, Jim Adams has asked us to find a song that is performed as a duet with two prominent performers, suggested yet again by Nancy aka The Sicilian Storyteller.  The song I’m going with this week is “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” by Elton John and Kiki Dee

“Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” was a 1976 duet by English musician Elton John and English singer Kiki Dee. It was written by John with Bernie Taupin under the pseudonyms “Ann Orson” and “Carte Blanche,” respectively, and was intended as an homage to the Motown style, notably the various duets recorded by Marvin Gaye and singers such as Tammi Terrell and Kim Weston.

The song was the first number 1 single in the UK for both John and Kiki Dee, topping the chart for six weeks in mid 1976. It also became his sixth number 1 single in the U.S., topping the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks. Billboard ranked it as the number 2 song for 1976.

Elton recorded his part in Toronto, then the tape was sent to London where Kiki Dee recorded her vocal. When Kiki got the tape, she remembered, “Elton had recorded the song abroad and also did my vocals in a high-pitched voice which was quite funny, so I knew which lines to sing.”

Here are the lyrics to “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.”

Don't go breaking my heart
I couldn't if I tried
Honey if I get restless
Baby you're not that kind

Don't go breaking my heart
You take the weight off me
Honey when you knock on my door
I gave you my key

Nobody knows it
When I was down
I was your clown
Nobody knows it
Right from the start
I gave you my heart
I gave you my heart

So don't go breaking my heart
I won't go breaking your heart
Don't go breaking my heart

And nobody told us
`Cause nobody showed us
And now it's up to us babe
I think we can make it

So don't misunderstand me
You put the light in my life
You put the spark to the flame
I've got your heart in my sights

FOWC with Fandango — Wingspan

Fandango13 Comments
FOWC

Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “wingspan.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, ÿplease manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.