Who gets the cat if we die before he does? Why am I leaving money in my will to a theater that produces outdated plays for outdated people? Why are the deceased still on my list of inheritors? And would it be a good idea if we gave the executor of our estate a copy of our will and a key to our front door, or should we leave it to him to kick it in?

As we get older, we need to consider these questions or ones like them every few years, as part of what is known euphemistically as “putting your house in order.” The truth is that the literal act of getting your house in order is a lot simpler than updating your personal records, compiling a list of a 150 passwords from the scraps of paper they’re now on, putting together names people to invite to your funeral, and drafting an obituary. The latter belongs in the, “Who wants to think about this stuff now, I’ll get to it later” category of things to do.

My husband and I are talking about it now only because a tour company requested emergency contact information, which to me translates into, What do you want us to do with your bodies if you’re killed overseas?

I tend to overdramatize, but that’s because the first thing that comes to mind when putting ‘traveling’ and ’emergency contacts’ in the same sentence is, There’s nothing anyone here could do if we got sick there – wherever “there” might be – so they must really be asking, How do we handle your remains if you decide to run with the bulls, climb without oxygen, or overindulge on the native cuisine?

My solution was to ask some very well-prepared friends for advice. Regrettably, they gave it and now we have a lot more work to do than we did when we were only occupied with wringing our hands. Anyone want an aging cat?

Ann Oxrieder has lived in Bellevue for 35 years.  She retired after 25 years as an administrator in the Bellevue School District and now blogs about retirement at http://stillalife.wordpress.com/.