The Mother of All Lists
For months now I have been working on a list that I originally christened “The Mother of All Lists,” and then quickly shortened to “The Mother List.” Some people call it a Bucket List, a Life List, or even a Mighty Life List. Some of my list items have been rattling around in my head for awhile or have been intentions for a long time. Others are more recent ideas. The Mother List will expand and contract over time, I am sure. And it’s a given that it will be hard to complete them all, but it sure will be fun trying. Without further ado, The Mother List …
- See a blue whale
- Complete the Swim for Life in Provincetown
- Visit 20 Caribbean islands (done: 4/20)
- See the northern lights
- Go to Skywalker Ranch
- Wear giant angel wings
- Make Basque chicken
- Swim in the largest pool in the world at San Alfonso del Mar, Chile
- Eat fromage, a baguette, and pain au chocolat in Paris and kiss the Mr. at the top of the Eiffel Tower
- Make my own salt from seawater
- Hear Handel’s Messiah performed at Boston Symphony Hall
Complete a 365 photo project(completed 12/31/12)- Visit Mass MoCA
- Own a set of really, really high thread count sheets
- Enjoy a gondola ride in Venice
- Complete the Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk, raising money for cancer research
- Go on an Earthwatch expedition
- Participate in the Night of Writing Dangerously
- Have a traditional New England clambake on the beach
- Take turns reading a book out loud with the Mr. until we finish it together (he is not enamored with this idea and suggested a Dr. Seuss book)
- Live in Provincetown for a year
- Ride a Vespa
- Attend the Winter Music Conference in Miami
- Go ziplining
- Post 1,000 posts on this blog
- Train a companion or therapy animal
- Go whitewater rafting
- Prepare a Feast of Seven Fishes
- See Waterfire in Providence, RI
- Take a pottery class
- Decorate a giant pink artificial Christmas tree for the holidays
- Go skydiving (indoors)
- Have my own project funded on Kickstarter
- Learn to DJ
- See a murmuration in nature
- Take hip-hop dance lessons
- Publish photo books for wedding, honeymoon, and our special trips
- Join a CSA
Float a lantern in the Forest Hills Lantern Festival(completed 7/12/12)- See puffins in Maine
- Do a walking tour of Russian and/or Jewish cuisine in Brookline
- Get a watsu treatment
- Attend the Mummers Parade in Philly on New Year’s Day
- See my original $100 loan on Kiva go to 100 people (currently at 32/100)
- Hardboil an egg (Shut up.)
Start an art collection(completed 12/16/12)- Walk on the pink sand beaches of Bermuda
- Attend ComicCon … in costume (I’m thinking Darth Vader but fear I may end up looking more like Dark Helmet.)
- Go blueberry picking
- Make a documentary about the Ptown Pool
Walk a labyrinth(completed 10/25/12)- Stay at the Boston Yacht Haven
- Finish collecting the mismatched china set for my niece and give it to her when she moves into her first apartment
- Stand in front of Picasso’s Guernica
- Save sea turtles
- Film and submit a Cancer Dancer video in memory of Sarah Sadtler Feather
- Go snowshoeing
- Do some line dancing wearing cowboy boots
Touch one of the sharks at the aquarium(completed 1/26/12)- March (or shimmy) in a Pride parade
- Read Ulysses
- Pet every dog I see for a week
- Go on a silent retreat
- Learn to use a letterpress
- Have fresh flowers in our home continuously for a year
- Learn to scuba dive
- Watch all of Errol Morris’ films (Gates of Heaven; Vernon, Florida;
The Thin Blue Line; The Dark Wind; A Brief History of Time; Fast, Cheap and Out of Control; Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.; First Person;The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara; Standard Operating Procedure;Tabloid; The Unknown Known) Drink a martini at Bemelmans Bar at The Carlyle(completed 4/13/13)- Stay at Castello di Spannocchia in Tuscany
- Attend all 25 hours of the Moby Dick marathon at the New Bedford Whaling Museum
Design tshirts for the 5th Annual Family Barhopping Night(completed 7/13/12)- Dance all night at a club in Ibiza
- Pickle something (cranberries? daikon radishes?)
- Go clamming in my own pair of waders
- Move my blog to my own domain and to a new platform
- Learn to skate backwards
- Celebrate Christmas in a warm place wearing a bathing suit and a Santa hat
- Read 1,000 books (currently at 684/1,000)
- Perform a synchronized swimming routine wearing glittery eye shadow and a fabulous sparkly swimsuit
- Eat a Burmese tea leaf salad
- Go firewalking
- Visit Fallingwater
- Learn to roll a kayak
- Cover my ceiling with tiny lights
- Go dogsledding (bonus: yell “mush!”)
- Work on a film
- Attend the White Party in Provincetown held during Labor Day Weekend
- Hold a koala bear
- Finish a paint-by-numbers painting
- Try kimchi
- Volunteer on the Charles River Cleanup Boat
- Take my dad to dinner at the Harvard Faculty Club
- Spend a weekend at Kripalu
- Attend Figawi
- Write a short story and publish it
- Do a high-speed RIB (rigid inflatable boat) tour of Boston Harbor
- See Metallica in concert
Create a fun, girly Advent grab bag for my niece(completed 11/22/12)- Completely finish a New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle
- Go to the Galapagos
- Attend Friday After Thanksgiving (FAT) Chain Reaction at MIT
Wear a crazy wig in public (and not at Halloween)(completed 11/16/13)- Rewatch every episode of The Love Boat (watched through Season 1, Episode 12)
- Learn to hand roll sushi
- Fly on a trapeze
- Get a fish pedicure
- Swim in the infinity pool atop the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore
Go on the Cape Cod Modern House Tour(completed 8/19/12)- Own a boat
- Meet Peter Sis and have him sign my books
- Go on a reading retreat
Taste conch(completed 3/11/12)- See the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in person
- Knit a chunky wool blanket with giant knitting needles
- Stay at The Summer House on Nantucket
- Work on a political campaign
- Disentangle and properly dispose of 300 balloons from the wrack line on the beach (Stop letting your balloons fly free, people!)
- Attend the US Open (tennis, that is)
- Live in a foreign country for at least 3 months
- Successfully set and fill a champagne tower
- Conquer my fear of sharks
- Stay in a dune shack at the Cape Cod National Seashore
- Ride a camel
- Try 25 different brands of salt and vinegar potato chips and rank them
- Write enough reviews on TripAdvisor to be a Senior Contributor
- See spinner dolphins in Hawaii
- Have my own gallery show filled with work I’ve yet to create
- Explore the ocean in a Scubadoo
- Volunteer at Best Friends in Utah
- See the crab swarm on Christmas Island
- Complete a Fight for Air climb
- Watch every Academy Award-nominated documentary
- Make Baked Alaska
- Have drinks at Floyd’s Pelican Bar in Jamaica
- Finish a One Slow Thing a Week Project
- Walk a Great Dane
- Go fly a kite
- Go shelling on Sanibel
- Spend a day at the spa at the Mandarin Oriental
- Learn to silkscreen Tshirts
- Wear a tutu for one full day
- Go candlepin bowling
- Participate in NaBloPoMo
- Learn to take wildlife photos
- Churn my own butter
- See an orangutan in Borneo
- Change professions
- Go to The Smiths Reunion Concert (It’s my list!)
- Learn needle felting
- Attend Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Tribeca, and Silverdocs or Hotdocs film festivals
Have my aura photo taken(completed 7/19/12)- Sleep in a lighthouse
- See a concert at Tanglewood
- Taste sea urchin
- Run the Tufts 10K and the James Joyce Ramble
- Live on an island
- Read all of Edgar Allen Poe’s Work
- Take a tour of Legal’s fish processing plant
- Maintain a koi pond
- Build a fire on the beach
- Attend a roller derby match
- Visit Plimoth Plantation
- Attend the Westminster Dog Show
- Ride a Carsten Holler slide
- Learn Italian
- Run through an enormous field of sunflowers
- Attend Art Basel
- Participate in the citizen scientist program on the Boston Harbor Islands
- Experience tailgating at a real football game
- Share the hot springs with the snow monkeys of Nagano
- Eat at every restaurant in our restaurant jar
- Make a bottle tree
- Host an exchange student
- Take a SeaDream Yacht Club cruise around the Caribbean
- Swim with a whale shark
Eat lobster at the Office of Nature in Negril, Jamaica(completed 3/13/12)- Have my own fireplace and learn to use it
- Learn to hula dance
- See the gardens of Kyoto
- Tour WGBH
- Wear false eyelashes
- Roast chestnuts over an open fire
- Fold 1,000 paper cranes
- Learn to play bocce
- Relive the romance of Joey Potter and Pacey Whitter (rewatching all of Dawson’s Creek)
- Stand on the Great Wall of China
- Learn to surf
- Volunteer at a wild animal care facility
- Mentor someone
- Care for a bonsai tree
- Fly on a plane that has a bar/cocktail lounge
- Enjoy Summer Shack’s clambake on Spectacle Island
Own a real disco ball and hang it where I can see it every day(completed 12/28/12)- Stay at the Wickainnish Inn
- Participate in a Holi color fight
- Drive the length of 6A from Ptown to Sandwich and back with my mom
- Try waterskiing
- Have a panchakarma treatment
- Finally ride Space Mountain
- Live on the beach
- Complete Red Cross disaster relief training
- Attend a workshop at Salt Water Farm in Maine
- Swim in bioluminescent water
- Take my niece to Italy
Touch a flamingo(completed 11/30/2012)- Complete a month of Naikan
- Stand on the equator
- Catch a marlin or a shark
- Go on a cross-continent train trip
- Visit all of the Boston Harbor Islands (
1. Georges, 2. Peddocks, 3.Bumpkin, 4. World’s End, 5. Spectacle, 6. Lovells, 7. Grape, 8. Thompson,9. Little Brewster, 10. Deer, 11. Webb Memorial, 12. Nut) - Visit Nova Scotia
- Do a year’s worth of 30 day projects
- Participate in an archeaological dig (thus satisfying a goal I made in 4th grade)
- Attend a workshop conducted by Carolyn Myss
- Learn to make preserves
- See Gaudi’s work in Barcelona
- Rent a houseboat
- Make it through a Hell Night meal at the East Coast Grill
- Learn more about jazz music
- Participate in a Relay for Life, raising more money for cancer research
- Climb a rockclimbing wall
- Get a plot of land to garden in the Victory Gardens of the Fens
Witness a cranberry harvest(completed 10/6/2012)- Try fencing
- See the Hasty Pudding Man of the Year ceremony
- Sleep in a monastery (preferably in Italy)
- Volunteer for a research project addressing marine debris issues
- Witness a live performance of Saturday Night Live
- Jump off a high-dive
- Learn to make my mom’s applesauce
Attend Camp Mighty(completed 11/15-17/2012)- Meander through a corn maze
- List “snowbird” as my profession
- See the wild ponies of Chincoteague
- Make a pinata from scratch and fill it with confetti
- Volunteer at the New England Aquarium
- Complete one complex scherenschnitte
- Sail on the Liberty around the Bahamas
- See more of Iceland than just the airport
- Do a walking tour of Boston’s Chinatown
- Own personalized cocktail stirrers
- Cross all the bridges in Prague
- Tap a tree for maple syrup
- Complete a 5,000 piece puzzle
- Attend ROFLCon
- See the whirling dervishes
- Watch all the episodes of Friday Night Lights from beginning to end
- Go tubing
- Sit at the gliding table at Yuerba Buena in San Juan, Puerto Rico (and finally see Old San Juan)
- Make a list of all the great things I did before I made this list ***
- Finish all the cocktails on Clio’s cocktail list
- Stay in the Igloo Village at Hotel Kakslauttannen in Finland
- See the green river in Chicago on St. Patrick’s Day
- Watch a live Sumo wrestling match
- Ride a mechanical bull
- Participate in a Japanese tea ceremony
Take a swimming strokes class(completed 4/1/12) — learn that damn butterfly once and for all- Learn to sail
- Knit my own scarf
- Walk entire length of the Boston Harbor Walk
- Take an ikebana class
- Master dim sum ordering
- Participate in a sake tasting
- Take a self-defense class
- Learn to cook fish
- Learn the salsa
- Go iceskating on Frog Pond
- Have a salt-tasting party
- Visit Mt. Auburn Cemetery
- Have a smoked foods night
- Feed a hummingbird by hand
- Make a meal entirely from items found at the farmer’s market
- Take a glassblowing class
- Tour the Taza Chocolate Factory
- Have a Diane Keaton movie marathon (watched 4 of her movies so far)
- Make coconut shrimp
- Learn to play mah jong (with real tiles)
- Learn the elusive art of origami
- Learn to shuck an oyster (without injury)
- Make 3 different types of bread
- Learn to make paella
- Participate in an Ethiopian coffee ceremony
- Publish this list on Bucket List Productions
- See the pigs swim in the Exumas, Bahamas
- Visit the Corning Museum of Glass
- Be a guest blogger on someone else’s blog
- Visit Croatia
- Do 10 DIY projects: glitter disco balls; galaxy glitter play dough; owl paper figures from a kit; paper flower party headbands; star projector kit; Sparkle Labs solar kit; geometric paper ornaments; crepe paper flower garland; paper hats; giant tissue paper flowers
- Complete the Cape Cod Ragnar Relay Series
- See a performance at the Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport, MA
- Eat at Hartwood in Tulum, Mexico
- Visit City Museum in St. Louis and climb Monstrocity
- Own a working neon sign
Create a gallery wall in our home(completed 9/27/12)- Learn to play the steel drums
- Bend a spoon (see Martha Beck)
- Sing The Girl from Ipanema on Ipanema Beach
- Learn how to open a champagne bottle with a sword
- Visit Hemingway’s house in Key West
- Drink a mojito in Cuba
- Visit all the Shaker round barns in New England
(1. Canterbury Shaker Village) - Learn to make mole sauce
- Live some place where there are palm trees
- Get paid to be creative
- Find a group of like-minded creatives
- Make friends with a drag queen
- Visit the flamingo colony on Inagua island
- Go on a moonwalk during a full moon
- Do the Ultimate Trainer for a Day at Atlantis, Bahamas
- See a shooting star
- Watch the Winterfest Boat Parade in Fort Lauderdale
- Dance with Ellen
- Attend an Ace Camp photography workshop
*** End of original list, created 1/29/12
Mondo Beyondo additions (added 10/24/2012):
- be a National Geographic photographer
- be a documentary filmmaker
- live in the Caribbean — Negril, Jamaica to be specific, the “Capital of Casual”
- learn to snorkel really, really well and do it every day
- never work in an office or wear business attire ever again as long as I live
- be outside most of the time
- meet Jimmy Buffett
- throw out all of my wool except a couple of sweaters for nostalgia sake
- wear flip flops only
- walk on the beach every day
- meet Diane Keaton
- have a pet monkey (a dream from childhood — I had to settle for a stuffed monkey that I named Uncle Jessie. From Dukes of Hazard, people!)
- write my tell-all book
- use my blog as a vehicle to make a living that is not location dependent
- become known as an expert in something
- be healthy and fit
- have a studio space that I share with other creatives
- add a dog or 3 to our family
