Jane Gross writes The New Old Age blog for the New York Times. Her piece on December 29, seen courtesy of Susan Dubow, is The Future, Revisited. It focuses on getting your will and associated papers written or rewritten.

’Nuff said, but for one other thing. Ms. Gross writes really, really well, so whether you or don’t have your affairs in order, she’s worth reading.

‘Tis the gift-giving season, marked over the past few days by Black Friday (which starts on Thanksgiving, now), Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday. Early reports say we haven’t spent adequately, at least on Black Friday. Read Black Friday Fizzles with Consumers as Sales Tumble 11% by Lauren Coleman-Lochner for Bloomberg for details.

Cyber Monday sales do continue to grow as a piece of the whole pie, and Ms. Coleman-Lochner’s piece posits that Friday spending has also fallen because consumers are confident enough to wait for better deals, and are no longer revved up by shopping on Friday. The spending/consumer confidence link is often made, though, and here’s this year’s take, in Consumers Flex Their Confidence by

I ran across Justices take the measure of fish case:  In Plain English for SCOTUSblog by Amy Howe, posted on November 5. (I was looking for something to write about, and while you can expect some posts about getting your estate planning in order by 12/31, that would be a snoozer for post #251.) So what’s this fish case aka Grouper-Gate about?

John Yates, a commercial fisherman, got caught with 72 little red groupers, found among 3000 or so other fish. The fish were too small to be legal. (Yes, while there are people who argue that no person is an “illegal,” a caught fish most definitely can be.) Mr. Yates only had 69 little fish when he reached