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Today I'm updating the bucket list.
1. Take an exercise class with Richard Simmons
2. Ride a camel (not a location-specific goal)
3. Sit in the booth with Doreen Simmons while she comments on a sumo basho for NHK
4. Write a book
5. Meet distant family in Ireland
6. Play Carnegie Hall or Royal Albert Hall
7. Be a balloon wrangler in the Thanksgiving Day Parade
8. Volunteer in the Bishop Museum archives
9. Have our Hawaiian band sponsor a match in a sumo tournament in Japan
10. Play music at a retirement home
11. Learn to tie knots (as added in 2015)
12. Sing the National Anthem at a baseball game
At the time I started the list for realsies, Richard Simmons was still teaching. Now he's a hermit, so that's not going to happen.
It leaves the list.
A few months ago Doreen Simmons passed away.
Can't have that wish fulfilled.
#5 has been supplanted by something else: obtaining Irish citizenship. I have been working on that for several years, and my application is on its way. I'll update here later.
#9 seemed doable until Paul McCartney did it, which made me look further into the price. $150,000 or so. Bucket list items should require more effort than money, in my opinion.
It leaves the list.
While I'm thinking about it, who really cares about #6? I guess you can change your mind about these things.
#10 we did a number of years ago with the wacky halau we worked for.
And today I added #12, which is probably unfair. Can you add something the day you strike it? I feel that this was just a silly omission previously.
This leaves me with:
2. Ride a camel (not a location-specific goal)
4. Write a book
7. Be a balloon wrangler in the Thanksgiving Day Parade
8. Volunteer in the Bishop Museum archives
11. Learn to tie knots (as added in 2015)
I'm working on #2, but very slowly and things at the factory make me wonder, sometimes, whether the book's audience is myself. The publisher wants it, but work keeps getting in the way of the book. Crazy times.
Back to the list, though. If you don't have enough on the list, do you die? One item that should have been on the bucket list is going back to Norway to see relatives. That's happening in a couple of weeks. Headed to Stockholm to give a short presentation, and then taking that opportunity to see my cousin who I haven't seen since 1974.
But right now I have to head to the ballpark to sing the anthem.
We're 4 days in, now, but Tahoedad 2018 got off to a rolicking start.
Nose, the 22-year-old cat, had a seizure at the vet as mrguy was checking him in to board. We learned that he has hypertension, needs his subcutaneous fluid intake increased, and that he has anemia. Most of those are also problems mrguy's mom has, so that's a little trippy. Nose has many fans at the clinic, so everybody came running to see him and make sure he was ok as the doctor was treating him. The founder of the practice came by. "Is that Nose? He must be 23 by now!" Pretty close, doc! They think that he will recover.
A few minutes after I got the initial phone call about the cat, my sister-in-law called to say that his bro-liness is in the hospital. Blood clots in the lungs, but he has been treated, is out of the hospital and is supposed to join us tomorrow.
Then the mama's fave caregiver's sister died in New Zealand, so we're figuring out scheduling around that. Poo. So sorry for her. Of course it's remarkable that her sister passed away when the mama was on vacation and didn't need her.
Here we are at Day Four. The mama, the frenchman and D were playing gin rummy. I was in the kitchen making sandwiches for mrguy and I. He was upstairs busying himself with fancy book learning. D, who missed Bear Night last year, looks up from his hand and says "Bear!" Yup, the door to the porch was open and there was an adolescent bear on the porch, lumbering toward the dining room. Really, Dude? The boys closed the door to the porch and siblings shouted for the caretaker, who was away from the house. His friend apparently heard us and called him to let him know there was a bear on the property. The bear went down the hill the same way Brutus did last year, and the caretaker walked around with his rubber bullet-filled rifle.
Family vacation begins soon, and I believe we may be happy to see one another after a really rough Spring. In the last few days I've figured out sleeping arrangements, made the schedule for cooking, kitchen cleanup and the mama's day concierge and night care, and now I just have to pack and shop. And pack for Mom. She and I are carpool buddies.
During our vacation the youngest nephew is having a birthday. I made several passes by the free table at work yesterday, and at the end of the day saw some funny stuff on the bottom shelf -- elements for a Star Wars-themed birthday. Not enough wookie and white guy masks for all of us, however, so I've asked one the other nephs to bring his British Royal Family masks. I think the birthday boy will appreciate it, and his girlfriend will either love it or run away and hide.
