Book #60...whew...

In the interest of full disclosure I have read this book before.  Not only have I read it perhaps a dozen times, I mark in the little boxes--adding dates and locations etc., so my copy is getting tattered.  And not only have I read it a dozen or so times, marked in the boxes, and messed around with its binding, I have also given away probably 30 copies of it and been responsible for ordering conservatively another 175 which were then purchased by my students. Ms. Kipfer owes me...This is a book of 6,000 things you might want to include in your lifelist, bucketlist--whatever you choose to call it.  I have been doing lifelists with my students for 16 years as a writing assignment and keeping one myself for over 20 years.  Some of the kids get WAAAY into it.  I'm assuming this will all be grocery store talk (assuming I can still put coherent thoughts together) when I run into them in the years to come--already has been.  If you just tuned in, reading 60 books has been part of my Take That-You-Big-Bad-Nasty-60th-Birthday warfare.  Tomorrow I'll recap it all. Don't touch that dial!  I probably filled in at least 45 more of the check-off boxes this time around.  Surprisingly, the items on my list are getting done!  Furthermore, I noted some events I want to accomplish and cross off  very soon--this summer! (she squeals as she practically wets her pants!)

• sleep in a stable surrounded by animals (I don't remember ever having seen this!  I have animals AND a stable-like thingey too!)
• visit the country my spouse's family came from and look for cultural clues (Paco and I ARE going to the Czech Republic in June!  The cow of his relatives was stolen back in the day--Ellis Island time.  They reported it to the local constable who gave a primal shrug, and then the Hadds  said (or the Bohemian equivalent), "We're outta here!" and headed to Minnesota.  There.  Now that's cleared up.  Paco is Czech.)
• bike roads of Alps (check check soon!)
• see Cathedral of Autun (good chance)
• see a Viennese operetta (with some begging!)
• pause for a kiss under  the Arc de Triomphe (did it once but am game for another)
• visit a boulangerie, confiserie, and patisserie to determine differences
• visit Hradcary in Czech Republic--largest castle in the world!
• eat gaufres (hot Belgian waffles) in Belgium
• eat Edam cheese in Edam, Holland
• soak in an Icelandic hot spring
• ride an Icelandic pony across Iceland (a stretch perhaps, but maybe I could pet one)
• eat Limburger cheese in Limburg, Belgium
• smell lavender fields in Provence
• visit Giverny of Monet fame
• eat Suchen torte in Vienna

These may not all get checked off, but I'm going in prepared just in case!  Ya got have a plan!!  And I can always do write-in's on the lines provided if something else crops up.

I also jotted down a few items from the book that I just generally don't want to neglect because they are so ever-loving cool!

• build a backyard gazebo (I would just park my bones there and say gazebo, gazebo, gazebo over and over because it is the snazziest word in the language!  Right?)
• learn to say I Love You in 10 languages
• read the Kristen Lavransdatter trilogy (I picked it up at Strand's a bit ago!)
• learn to make baklava (I have a teacher!!!!)\
• wear white all year (the Year of Living Biblically guy advocates that as well)
• go to clown school (you laugh...you just wait...)
• shed ambition (Oh, I SO have!)
• build a backyard pond
• rid the Western world of body piercing
• diagram the Gettysburg Address, so I can see Lincoln's logic at work
• spend a summer at a writer's colony (ahhh...)
• rollerblade down the spiral ramp of the Guggenheim Museum
• build a getaway treehouse (we'll send pictures!)

And last but not least BECAUSE I WILL Do this tomorrow

• on your birthday eat ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!