Sunday, November 30, 2008

Let's play the 100 things list

FranIAm, Caminante, and Padre Mickey made me do it. Through the power of example. Also, I am procrastinating from reading the Elizabethan Homilies. (Don't ask.)

The things I have done are in bold.

1. Started my own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than I can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sung a solo
11. Bungee jumped (and I hope I never do, thank you very much.)
12. Visited Paris (Visited, nothing. I lived there.)
13. Watched lightning at sea
14. Taught myself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning (Only once, way back when I was in college, from a bad hamburger in New York. I can't remember the last time I ate a hamburger.)
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty (At age 5 and I'll never forget it! Neither will my mother since apparently I bitched and moaned once we got halfway up there, but we couldn't go back down since we were single file on those narrow stairs and all my cousins were there!)
18. Grown my own vegetables (Do herbs and strawberries count?)
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitchhiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill (Interesting how we've all done this one!)
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb (No, but I held a baby goat two years ago; you haven't lived till you've held a baby goat. They are waaaay cute.)
26. Gone skinny dipping (You betcha, and not just once. Small Vermont lakes are good for that.)
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice (I can't remember. My major visit to Venice was when I was four and I remember the canal beneath the window and the song my brother made up about all the floating garbage on the water, but I don't remember a gondola. Probably our parents didn't have the money for it. OCICBW.)
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset (All the time. Mostly sunset these days.)
31. Hit a home run (In your dreams!)
32. Been on a cruise (No, but when I was little I crossed the Atlantic on a big ship; it was before taking airplanes was common; ships were cheaper and we were going to the States to visit family.)
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of my ancestors (That would be birthplaces, in the plural, like most Estadoünidenses. I hope to go to one of them. I don't know all the places. Lots of Jews whose records are lost.)
35. Seen an Amish community (Not yet, but I'm going later this year, perhaps in spring, with my colleague who knows the folks from one of the communities not too far from us.)
36. Taught myself a new language.
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied (Briefly. On the other extreme, I was two or three years under the Federal poverty level when I was in Ph.D. studies. Which is not to say one has to have lots of money to be truly satisfied.)
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke (No, but I've sung on stage with piano and bands and guitar et al.)
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant (No, though I've bought strangers food and takeout.)
44. Visited Africa (Expect I'll go someday.)
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance (Once. Thought I might be having a heart attack or some other physical problem; I was dizzy and had what felt like palpitations. It turned out to be a big honking panic attack, though the EMTs and the ER did not diagnose it that night.)
47. Had my portrait painted (Does a sketch artist at Montmartre when I was a kid count?)
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling (Snorkeling. Eilat, Israel, 1970 or 1971. Too chicken to scuba dive. Would love to snorkel again. Fishies and corals! If there are any left after we've messed up the planet as we have.)
52. Kissed in the rain (Of course! See above under "lived in Paris.")
53. Played in the mud (I was a kid once, wasn't I?)
54. Gone to a drive-in theater (In Vermont, as I recall.)
55. Been in a movie (No, but I'm available. Oh, wait, I was in a documentary in a big group. It was some kind of anti-war movie in the 1980s.)
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business (Does my own consulting business for a while count? It wasn't really a business, it was just me being a consultant.)
58. Taken a martial arts class (Once. Just for one session! But it was memorable.)
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies (Ugh, no. French Girl Scouts don't sell cookies. They don't even make cookies.)
62. Gone whale watching (No -- shame on me, after all those years living in Massachusetts.)
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving (Much too chicken.)
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp (I will some day.)
67. Bounced a check (Ouch. More than once.)
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy (Brother's panda bear, passed on to me, in the family since my brother was one year old, i.e. 1943! Survived the Great Tree Crash of 2008. Needs a little vacuuming or dusting off. I also have a few of my favorite storybooks.)
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job (1. Yes, if you count the part-time job in a bakery where the owners kept changing my schedule and then finally announced to me they thought I wasn't happy with the schedule and things weren't working out. 2. No, but I once quit in a timely manner because I saw the handwriting on the wall.)
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London (When I was a little girl.)
77. Broken a bone (Thank Godde, knock wood, etc.)
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle (See above under "too chicken.")
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person (I sure hope I do someday.)
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car (Only once in my life, and it died in a freak fire. I wasn't in it.)
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had my picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible (No, I'm an Episcopalian. ;-) But I have read most of it, and I read it a lot.)
86. Visited the White House (Waiting for an invitation from the Obamas, like everybody else.)
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (No, but my cat did.)
88. Had chickenpox (Terrible case, when I was three. Had to be sent to the country for several weeks to convalesce.)
89. Saved someone’s life (Depends what you mean. No, not literally i.e. physically. I have a friend who claims I saved his life in another way, and another whom I drove to detox; she's been clean and sober ever since, and alive and happy too. But that really was her decision, with, I'm sure, help from her Higher Power.)
90. Sat on a jury (No, I didn't get chosen.)
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club (Nah, too many years in school. Perpetual book club and you had to pay for it. But I love to read and to discuss books with friends.)
93. Lost a loved one (Many more than one...)
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a lawsuit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Ridden an elephant (Sounds like fun, assuming the elephant isn't drunk or angry.)

2 comments:

Fran said...

This is no way is a question about Elizabethan Homilies!!

Sending love - glad to see you do this. I thought of you when I got to Paris. I only dreamed of living there, although I have visited 5 times.

Ken said...

If you read Elizabethan theology, will that make the spirit of Richard into The Happy Hooker?

Couldn't resist. Forgive me.

If I listed my top 100, I'd embarrass myself. Well, no. I am largely beyond that now, and I'll have to try it on The Unnamrable Blog to find out.

Heh. Heh. Heh....