My daughter-in-law laughed as she gave me a $2 scratch-off for my 73rd birthday. Ten months later, my own son shoved a senior living brochure in front of me and said, “We already picked your room.” They thought I was too old to fight back. They had no idea what I had been hiding.

Delia, my friend from water aerobics, helped me choose herbs and insisted I needed a birdbath even though I had never owned one.

“You have already had seventy-four birthdays,” she said.

“A person should have a birdbath by then.”

I pretended this was established law and bought one.

The lottery money remained mostly where my advisers and I had agreed it should stay.

I had learned to resist the small intoxicating thought that every problem could be solved simply by spending more.

The portfolio rose and fell with markets.

Taxes arrived on schedule.