THE BUCKET LIST

A few weeks ago while blog-surfing (it's amazing, the blogs that are out there in cyberspace) I came upon one where the author, a woman, had made one entitled "100 Things I Want To Do Before I Die," or, in essence, a Bucket List.  I wish I could find that blog to read it again; anyway, I filed away in my head the notion that I should make my own Bucket List; it might be inspiring, it might be revealing, and it might be a good post for my own blog when it's been a while since I posted and I feel lazy, at loose ends or not quite myself. 


So I started listing stuff as the idea came to me, not in any order of importance whatsoever.  Hell if I could come up with 100 things though.  I could just about get 50.  (That is kind of why I want to read that girl's blog again.)


So here I sit (for the next 2 weeks) in northern California -- beautiful vineyard country, incredible weather, a lovely house full of good food and wine, a fun neighbor, a big flat-screen TV with On Demand, unlimited use of a Jeep Cherokee, and an old dog and diabetic cat with their own ideas of what I should be doing at any given moment, and I think I am just too surrounded with sensory -- not overload, what's a good word for it? -- stuff, and anyway, I figured this is as good a time as any to do a Bucket List post.  I'll think of more stuff.  Probably.  I hope.  I'm just tryin' to keep it real.  Here goes!

BUCKET LIST (Not Necessarily In Order Of Importance) (yeah, right)

1)     Become a great-aunt (or even a great-great-aunt!)

2)     Visit Norway – cruise through the fjords

3)     Paint with oils

4)     Pierce something besides my ears and nose

5)     See marijuana legalized - one more strike against organized crime

6)     Take lessons from the best pastry chefs in the world

7)      Hang-glide and zip-line

8)     Fix all my teeth and have a beautiful straight white smile

9)    Make jewelry

10)  Climb a mountain

11)  Have my own dog(s)

12)  Go back to Scotland, spend more time & visit more areas, especially the outlying     islands…would love to go north to the Shetland Islands, they fascinate me

13)  Have a quaint old cottage and a cottage garden

14)  Have a log cabin in the woods

15)   Own a horse, a cow, a sheep and a goat

16)   Get a custom-made pair of cowboy boots

17)   Travel to Australia & New Zealand

18)   Finish writing a book

19)    Sit on the (sprayed-for-ticks) grass at Tanglewood and listen to a symphony, while drinking white Zinfandel

20)   Save at least one life

21)   Travel cross-country by RV

22)    Go up in a hot-air balloon

23)   Pilot a small plane

24)   Write poetry

25)   Go back to college and get my B.A. degree

26)  Have someone (who I love too) tell everybody that I am the love of his life

27)   Tour Italy

28)   Go on “safari” in Africa

29)   Work for a vet

30)   Live in a castle -- for awhile at least

31)   Act in a movie

32)   Swim with the dolphins

33)   Go white-water rafting

34)   Explore “big sky country” – Montana, Wyoming, et al

35)   Ramble around South America -- follow the Amazon

36)   See cancer cured

37)   See kittens being born

38)   Go on a T.A.P.S. ghost hunt

39)   Have a hot tub/Jacuzzi and heated pool at my disposal

40)   Get a tattoo of a thistle somewhere on my body 

41)   Visit the Orient 

42)  Spend a little time alone with Viggo Mortensen

43)   Go to Tibet -- see Mount Everest up close and personal

44)   Go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans

45)    See the pyramids 

46)   Fly through the eye of a hurricane

47)   Go see Crosby, Stills & Nash & Johnny Rivers

48)   Learn to play a wailin' electric guitar

49)   Visit Graceland & the Grand Old Opry

50)  Learn to juggle

51)   Hold a lion cub or tiger cub in my arms

52)  Be very, very slim

P.S.  Notice it does not say "Ride on the back of an elephant"  here anywhere.  I already did this a long time ago.  What, you haven't?