List-ing slightly to starboard -- AND -- a wedding [not mine!] -- AND -- a marriage [ditto!]

Firstborn had this on her blog recently. What have you done on the list? I have saved some of her comments, deleted others, and added some of my own.

1. Started your own blog [duh]
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band [does banging pot lids with other kids in the neighborhood to approximately the tune of “Henry the Eighth” when I was 14 and had a crush on the boy across the street, count?
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity Every payday. You don’t tithe because you have money; you tithe because you have faith
7. Been to Disneyland [no, Firstborn, Disney World does not count]
8. Climbed a mountain (Firstborn deems Enchanted Rock to count as we live in TX and there aren’t really any mountains. I climbed Enchanted Rock on what would have been my twenty-first wedding anniversary after my divorce from her dad. But I have also hiked the hills above Boise.)
9. Held a praying mantis garter snake. Snakes are cool. I was the only girl in the neighborhood who didn’t run screaming.
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch [Tatting. Scrapbooking. Spinning. Weaving. Driving a stick shift. Milking a goat. Quilting. (How long do you have?)]
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning [not serious enough to be hospitalized]
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb kid [4-legged as opposed to two]
26. Gone skinny dipping [suit always fits, though these days it bags around the ankles]
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen an eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors [do Colorado and Oklahoma count?]
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language [resurrected my high school French via the Le Livre du Mormon et Cantiques (the hymnal) and picked up a smattering of German, plus I speak Texan as well as standard English, and I sign (badly, these days)]
37. Had enough money to be satisfied [that’s not what gives me satisfaction].
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant Often, if you count drive-ins and the people who stand at corners and beg.
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted [non-caricature at the Western Idaho State Fair, and another commissioned by a friend about ten years ago; we didn’t like it, and the artist has probably long since painted over it]
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater [necked at a drive-in theater; more than once]
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class belly-dancing class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen [almost; helped make sandwiches at church for the Night Shelter]
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies [bought some yesterday]
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got [myself] flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone skydiving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy [left behind in one of many moves]
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar [you can have my share; ditto, calamari]
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle [dirt bike up in the hills, over the crest, through a bush full of Monarch butterflies. They taste bad.]
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book [three self-published (poetry) chapbooks; Great American Novel in a notebook in one of my drawers]
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible [yea, verily, and more than once]
86. Visited the White House [and the Smithsonian]
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life [maybe; not that I know of; does all the time I didn’t strangle my teenagers count?]
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous [Orson Scott Card, at a book signing]
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby [been there, done that, have the stretch marks]
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit [two, count ’em, two divorces]
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Milked a cow goat
101. Never had a cavity
102. Had a dream come true [5 kids!]
103. Had surgery in the hospital
104. Drove a stick shift car
105. Shoed and rode a horse
106. Capsized a sail-boat
107. Recorded a CD
108. Burped the Alphabet [eww, no!]
109. Sang in an Opera
110. Gotten a piercing [ears only, but multiple] or a tattoo.
111. Eaten an entire meal from the Costco sample tables. [now Central Market? that’s another story]

About a year ago, I got a call from the boyfriend I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the one I dated for a year and a half, beginning about two and a half years after my divorce was final. He was good to me and good for me, and we remained friends even after I stopped dating him, at least until First Hubby came back into the picture.

I was pretty sure that I didn’t want to rekindle anything with First Hubby. And I was definitely sure that the ex-boyfriend was not The One; but I had been so content dating him that there was no room in my heart or my life for somebody who could become a permanent part of my life. And I wanted no distractions while I sorted out what was what with First Hubby.

That was the only break-up I have truly managed well, in that it was bilateral. Or bicameral. Or something. [I did an excellent job on my end, breaking up with Brother Abacus, other than the fact that he wasn’t there to tell face to face, so I had to call him on his behavior via letter.]

Anyway. I was afraid when I got the call last year from the former boyfriend, that he wanted to get back together, and I did not want to do that for numerous excellent reasons. So I asked him to call me after LittleBit graduated and I had completed my move to new digs. He’s older than I; I figured he might have a senior moment [not statistically likely; he was one sharp cookie, but you never know] and forget that he had called me.

He called again yesterday afternoon; I recognized the number on my cell phone. He’s getting married on Valentine’s Day, to the woman who was [ahem] his bed buddy while we were dating. [Hey, I didn’t resent her in the slightest; she took all the pressure off me! And since I was (A) not going to be intimate with him and (B) free to date anybody else I chose, I was perfectly safe, and it was entirely his moral dilemma. And hers.]

Sometimes they really do marry the cow. Let the record show that once in a blue moon, my mother was wrong!

So as not to end on that cynical note, I’ll share my newest brainstorm. One of the attorneys in my office sat down with his wife and made a list of 25 things to do to celebrate their 25th anniversary. I’m thinking of a shorter list for this year, one item for each year of my life. Not necessarily something I haven’t done; maybe just something I haven’t done in awhile. [Yes, kissing would be somewhere in that list, maybe even in the top 10. You had to ask?]

Oye. To the veh. On the drive to the dance last night, with a sister in my ward and a sister in the stake riding along, I commented that next time we should drag the Silver Fox [that is not how I referred to him; I do occasionally know how to be discreet]. And the sister in my ward said, “Him? He’s married. His wife lives in Houston. She was up here the Sunday before Christmas, and he was sitting there with his arm around her shoulder.” That would be the Sunday that I went to church in Firstborn’s ward.

It was a good thing it was after sundown, so she could not see how deeply I was blushing. I told Brother Sushi at the dance last night. After he picked his jaw up off the table, all he could manage was “OOPS!” So the incident of the hand on the knee must have been an entirely avuncular gesture, and I will make sure that I sit on the other side of the classroom from here on out, and in a couple of days I will stop blushing and feeling like an idjit.

And life will go on, and as Brother Sushi said, that’s one more I can cross off the list [of bad dates and/or misreadings and/or miscommunications before Brother Right drags his sorry self into my life].

On the other hand, the dance was good, very good, and there is still a chance that I will be able to climb out of bed later this morning without radioing for backup. Though following “Suavemente” with “Achy Breaky Heart” and then “The Cotton-Eyed Joe”, just about did me in.

I think I will just open up that convent I’ve been talking about for ten years or so. I think it would be simpler, and way easier on my heart. And in the meantime, I will need to take the Marriagometer in for a tune-up, because while it clearly registered “he’s not flirting with you, honey”, it blipped right over the important fact that the only way he would be more unavailable, would be if he were gay.

I’m going to bed, where I will arm-wrestle with the Sandman and probably punch him in the schnozz in a fit of pique.