The list

While I was home, nearly a month ago—hard to believe—my mother was working on a list of 100 things to do before she dies. It was part of a mentoring program that she is involved in at her church—both her and her young mentee wrote these lists & compared & borrowed items from one another. I thought it would be a good project & so I started my own list. I don’t know if it is good or bad sign that it took me over a month to complete it. Much of the list-making occurred while I was making dinner, hence the large number of food-related items. Without further ado, here are 100 things that I hope to do before I die:

1. learn to pronounce French
2. have a baby (or 2)
3. learn to make good saag paneer
4. write a book
5. learn to sing
6. get a graduate degree
7. learn to read Cyrillic cursive
8. Forgive BC
9. read the whole Bible
10. meet Johnny Depp
11. make one new good friend every year
12. go to India
13. go to Angkor Wat
14. learn to salsa dance
15. speak Serbian well
16. go to a high school or college reunion
17. go curling
18. learn to play the guitar
19. have a job I love
20. age gracefully
21. learn to make good baba ghanoush
22. have an occasion for wearing a ball gown
23. vote for the winner in a presidential election
24. visit all 50 states (only 7 left)
25. switch between Serbian, Spanish and English without mixing them up
26. learn to use a sewing machine
27. learn basic car maintenance
28. never own a car
29. learn to write legible cursive
30. be an aunt
31. be on This American Life
32. see a music diva’s ridiculous stage show (with many costume changes, backup dancers, and preferably live animals) live
33. read a book by an author from every country in the world
34. learn to whistle
35. learn to wink
36. travel the whole of the Mediterranean Coast
37. learn how marshmallows are made
38. go to Toronto
39. own my own home
40. do an extreme sport
41. find my one true love
42. go to Budapest
43. go to a strip club
44. watch every episode of Gilmore Girls
45. own a Vespa
46. be someone’s muse
47. win a costume contest
48. figure out what the European Parliament does
49. retire comfortably
50. handpiece and handquilt five quilts
51. attend a taping of The Daily Show
52. Read the Koran
53. figure out what italics have to do with Italians
54. make a quilt with other people
55. attend the proposed FIM reunion
56. watch a movie every day for a month
57. take a belly dancing class
58. understand cricket
59. visit the family farm in Norway
60. live in one place for ten years
61. read the complete works of Jane Austen
62. plan an excellent BVS retreat
63. learn physics
64. live in Portland again
65. go to Ireland
66. go to Kosov@
67. make an Omnivore’s Dilemma-style gathered and grown meal
68. learn about investing
69. make my own yogurt
70. fly first class
71. go wine tasting
72. be a raw foodist for a week
73. be acupunctured
74. get a manicure
75. get a pedicure
76. write a credo
77. win a shopping spree
78. learn to make ajvar
79. learn to make cheesecake
80. learn basic plumbing
81. read On Food and Cooking
82. be a grandma
83. go back to Dahab
84. understand how the internet works
85. go on a trip just with my mother
86. go on a trip just with my father
87. go on a trip just with my brother
88. go to Albania
89. learn the butterfly stroke
90. travel across the US by train
91. be in a long-term relationship
92. learn about linguistics
93. climb three more mountains
94. have a meet-cute
95. attend Eurovision
96. SCUBA again
97. go to sub-Saharan Africa
98. be the object of an ‘I Saw You’ ad
99. build something
100. As the Hungarians say, ‘live happily ever after until I die.’