Bucket List 2026 -- Starting Over

[I guess I didn't recall that I rewrote my bucket list in September -- geez]

What do you do when you are able to do the top thing on your bucket list? The thing that made you start a bucket list in the first place? I think you need to start from scratch.

While my uber boss and I were still costumed and reveling in having participated in the Macy's Parade, he asked me if I wanted to do this again. I said I didn't think I needed to, but I have ideas for something to add to the list. So I'm starting over.

1. Learn to operate a forklift.

2. Milk a cow.

3. Work on a float for the Rose Parade (who did they get rained out this year!)

4. Blow glass.

5. Go to the town where my ancestors lived in Ireland.

6. Make shaped pasta. I got a thinger from Buy Nothing (or maybe the free table?) and I need to use it.

7. Participate in an archaeological dig

8. See Night of the Radishes, or at least learn to carve radishes

9. Eat a Miroir au Cassis again (added 11/02/2025 -- what was I thinking?)

10.

That's what I have so far. Facebook threw me a glasswork class just now, so I added it to the list. From now on, every time I think about a thing, big or small, it will go on the list.

Bucket List 2025

My bucket list is so out of date. I am going to start afresh

1. Meet distant family in Ireland

2. Be a balloon wrangler in the Thanksgiving Day Parade

3. Participate in an archaeological dig

4. Milk a cow

5. Learn to drive a forklift

6. Blow glass

7. Eat a Miroir au Cassis again (added 11/02/2025)

1. This is closer than ever. I have applied myself to my research and I now know who our next generation of rellies is on one side of my family. It feels great to accomplish that step.

2. This is also closer than ever. More in these pages soon

3. Just came to me that I have always wanted to do that

4. I finished listening to an audiobook about a woman who lived on a farm in Norway, and was reminded that I want to do this. How hard could it be to get the opportunity?

5. I have always regretted not taking that .25 unit class at school, but it was early on Saturday mornings

6. I can do this easily. I always assumed that my 30 years of smoking would make this impossible, but I haven't smoked for almost 18, so I am thinking this would be possible.

7. I just got a hankerin'. I worked in a French restaurant where they made this once. I don't recall that it was my favorite cake ever, but it was impossibly glamorous.

Bucket List 2024

Remember the bucket list?

I love how the list changes over time. I think that the only thing that has been on the original bucket list that I've actually done is to sing the national anthem at a baseball game, and I have to say that that no longer feels fashionable. But I did it. And a lot of other things that were never part of the list

13. Perform in a pantomime horse costume

One more item departed the list this year: perform in a pantomime horse costume. This was going to be the year. But being jolly really took some effort, and I work at a place that is so high-functioning in "doing bits" that I realized it would not be as fun as first imagined. But I got so much fun thinking about it. 

8. Volunteer in the Bishop Museum archives

This hasn't happened yet, and I'm not working on it. But I keep it on the list because I think that some sort of thing *like* this will come my way and feel satisfying to do. I still transcribe the Freedman's Bureau records from time to time.

5. Meet distant family in Ireland

I gave up on this, but I feel it's still pertinent to the list. This year I tracked down a genetic relative who has similar research goals. It is possible that my great grandmother and her great great grandmother were siblings. Both died of insanity.

Also, I've really enjoyed being part of a local Irish genealogy group. I feel hopeful that some day this goal of going to met rellies will come to pass.

7. Be a balloon wrangler in the Thanksgiving Day Parade

If an opportunity comes up in the future, I will ask.

NEW TO THE LIST

Participate in an archaeological dig. 

Bucket List 2021

A number of years ago I started a bucket list. And here I am looking at that list and rethinking it. Bucket lists are things that you work towards. Here's where I stand:

1. Take an exercise class with Richard Simmons

No longer in biz    

2. Ride a camel (not a location-specific goal)

A dear friend did this once and I was so impressed. But she's dainty and I'm a big fat hog and I don't want to hurt camels. I will strike this off the list.

3. Sit in the booth with Doreen Simmons while she comments on a sumo basho for NHK
Passed away. But perhaps I would like to sit in with Ross Mihara? Developing.

4. Write a book

I had a *specific* book I was writing, but downsizing makes me want to prioritize other things.

5. Meet distant family in Ireland

This turned into wanting citizenship. I tried so hard, spent so much money, hired an expert to assist, but was ultimately rejected by Ireland due to inconsistencies in the facts on paper. Thanks, Irish Grandfather. I can still try to pursue the original goal.

6. Play Carnegie Hall or Royal Albert Hall

Why did I want this to happen?

7. Be a balloon wrangler in the Thanksgiving Day Parade

If an opportunity comes up in the future, I will ask.

8. Volunteer in the Bishop Museum archives

This hasn't happened yet, and I'm not working on it, either. But I am transcribing Freedmen's Bureau records and that feels very satisfying.

9. Have our Hawaiian band sponsor a match in a sumo tournament in Japan

Too expensive. Band not together.

10. Play music at a retirement home
Done.

11. Learn to tie knots (as added in 2015)
I will give up on this because I clearly don't want to do it.

12. Sing the National Anthem at a baseball game
Done.

13. Perform in a pantomime horse costume

I still want this. 

Bucket List 2018

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
13. Perform in a pantomime horse costume

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.

2020: Added pantomime horse

Bucket List Addition

The other day in the ancestral manse, I found a pamphlet on knot-tying and put it aside. And it came to me that I have done this dozens of times. I'm obsessed with my inability to tie a knot that holds. My left-handed mom taught me to tie my shoelaces, and I don't think I ever got it quite right. I remember the stress of tying knots in Brownies. I compensated by deciding I didn't care about knots and asking the more knot-gifted, like mrguy, to tie knots where needed. I have to say that I find mrguy's ability to tie a knot a very attractive attribute. He'll tie some bizarre knot that totally holds, and he tells me the story of how he and the Big Guy tied various knots on Big Guy's trimaran. He was kind of a hippie back then (he built the boat himself), but the man knew how to tie a knot and so, now, does his son.

Speaking of which, this morning I was on the phone with mrguy, who is still on vacation with my family at the Big Round River, and I was going to ask him where I could go for coffee. I have either been packing up the mama or on vacation or unpacking the mama for a while now and although I slept at home last night, I'd completely forgotten that I know where the coffee is in this place because I've been, in effect, camping for a while. Weird.

So I made coffee and grabbed my favorite mug, the one from Hamburg, the one with the knots on it. The one I bought three days before I danced in a cage in a gay bar in St. Pauli in my 50th year.

 I guess I need to do something about my knot literacy and knot-tying ability. I have officially amended my bucket list.