"I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I write and I understand." - Chinese proverb

Sunday, August 29, 2010

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?

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