1. I will never, ever fly again. I did it five times in
my life---long before 9/11---when the seats were bigger, the food was real, the
flight attendants actually gave you service and the lines at the airports were
shorter. I did not enjoy the experience all five times, now I’d probably hate
it.
2. I will never, ever pick stuff off the carpet again
without my glasses on. Scared the crap out of me when I did it once and the
“lint” started moving. I dropped that spider and he got away to live another
day.
3. I will never, ever eat sushi, liver, veal, crickets or
any insects even if they’re dipped in chocolate. Actually, except for liver, I've never eaten any of these so I should kick #3 off the list of things I'll never do again or maybe change it to: I will never, ever pass up
a chance to eat Ben and Jerry’s American Dream or mint chocolate ice cream.
4. I will never, ever use Krazy Glue again without
protective eye wear. God, it hurts when you accidentally glue your eye lid to
your eyeball. I was fixing an antique kitchen chair and I put glue in a hole
and shoved the chair rung into the hole, splashing the glue in my eye. At the
emergency room they said it’s such a common accident that they keep drops in
stock that un-glues the glue. The burn the Krazy Glue caused took a couple of
weeks to heal but left no permanent damage.
5. I will never, ever knowingly break a law---well,
except for speeding. I do that way too often. I keep wondering when that old
person gene kicks in that will have me driving fifteen miles an hour in a
fifty-five mile zone. But in general, I’m a rules-following kind of person.
6. I will never, ever text without punctuation and proper
spelling…except for when auto-correct changes things and I can’t fix it. It
took me too long to learn how to do those things correctly or I should say do
them within a reasonable degree of accuracy. And have a complained lately about
how much I hate acronyms? Except for LOL I have to look them all up.
7. I will never, ever make love in a patch of poison ivy
again. Once in a life time is enough. But you’ll have to use your imagination because
I’ll not be sharing more details of that moonlit, summer night.
8. I will never, ever grow old gracefully. I’ve never
done anything gracefully in my life. Why start now? I do hope to grow old,
though…100 would be nice but that’s assuming I won’t be living out of a
shopping cart and sleeping under a bridge. A week of doing that and I’d be
slitting my throat.
9. I will never, ever stop caring about the environment,
the French Impressionists, my family---not necessarily in that
order---civilized society, educational opportunities for all, liberal arts,
libraries and books, wildlife, sea-life and domestic animals.
“I shall be telling this with a sigh
10. I will never, ever quit wondering what my life would
have been like if I knew in my twenties what I know today. I’m pretty sure we
all do this kind road-not-taken mind-game on rare occasions and I’m also guessing that most of us come to the same conclusion---that if we could do it all over again,
we’d take the same path…missteps, mistakes, warts and all. No missteps are ever wasted because they teach us how to recognize and grab onto the good stuff
that comes along. So I keep all my memories tucked away and invite them out to
play on those full moon nights when sleep eludes me. ©
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by….” Robert Frost
These were great! Am I the only one who has not done it in poison ivy? It appears so. :-)
ReplyDeleteI think number 10 is where I am at these days in my mind. I don't think I'd change a thing and then I think, well saying more to my mom or going to school sooner, nah, then I would never have appreciated what I got. So yes, been thinking of that stuff.
I think we have to get older to really appreciate our moms and dads. When we were kids we taken them for granted.
DeleteIt's not too late to do the poison ivy thing. Just put it on your bucket list. LOL
I love liver. I don't make it myself, but I know of a couple of good restaurants who do it well, so I get it a few times a year and enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteI also hope to grow old gracefully. I don't want to be one of those people who bitches about aches and pains constantly; who never stops talking about The Good Old Days; who doesn't dress for her age; who sneers at Young People Today; or, who doggedly refuses to embrace any change at all.
I learned along the way to stop saying Never. I have a few lists like this in the 13-year history of my blog, and it's funny how many of my Nevers are things that I now do as a matter of course. Now I say, "I can't imagine myself ever...". It's safer! ;-)
I can't imagine being a person who constantly complains about aches and pains or never stops talking about the Good Old Days. No one wants to hear that. I love keeping up with what is new in pop culture. I dread the idea of nursing homes that play old time movies and music. I don't like either. But I can't stand old people who try to act like they are 25. To me, they look desperate, trying to hold on to their youth.
DeleteI can say with certainty that at least 8 of the 10 things on my list I will never, ever do.
I've always loved this quote from Ann Landers: "Some people take pleasure in regaling one and all with details of their poor health. They are happy to give an organ recital to anyone who will listen."
DeleteThat's a good one and a quote I hadn't heard before.
DeleteJean, these are fantastic.
ReplyDelete1. I have to fly each year to get to my cruise but yes, flying is a pain in the ass
2 I agree with you there. My eyes aren't the best today and I went to pick something off the floor and it was also a spider which I hate.
3. I hate LIVER.
4. This never happens because I have a special of glasses to put on when I use glue.
5.With my Camero, I have to always be aware of police so I don't speed but I'd like to turn it on once in my life before I die.
6.Forget this one. I don't have a cell phone with all of those gadgets.
7.LOL, Oh my God, ha,ha,ha. I can just think about it. Ouch, itch, scratch. Not me. No way even fir sex.
8.I just want to enjoy growing old hopefully with MaryLou.
9.I'm worried about the environment even with all the things that we together help, I'm worried with idiots like Trump. Putin and the rest of the jerks in the world.
10.My life changed at 27 when the stroke happened. I would like to go back to back to before it occurred but I often wondered what would have happened if I hadn't had the stroke. I'll never know.
Memories are important but it seems that even those go away as time goes on.
Thank you Jean for these 10 ideas that you gave us and also thank you for allowing me the opportunity of during my own.
See ya for now.
Cruisin Paul
You're welcome. I like your list. I didn't realize you were so young when you had your stroke! I can see why that would create a lot of 'what ifs' in your thoughts.
DeleteLOL, I may have to do one of these lists at some point. I would probably fail yours, I regularly use "u" in texts, and I travel out of Colorado with my pot, so that breaking the law thing is a permanent fixture. I have traveled over oceans more times than I can count. These days like Paul I do it over open water or to get to cruise locations, but I general train or car in the country. And I literally eat everything except for grapefruit, coconut and sea urchin, lol.
ReplyDeleteI hope my list inspires other bloggers to do their own list.
DeleteI hear sea urchin are really good but could kill you if you don't know how to clean them right. That would be enough for me to say, "No, thank you."
I've done a short cruise in the Bahamas island hopping and another on Lake Michigan. They were fun.
What a great list. I'm right there with you on flying. I hate it. All of it. Having to remove my shoes, having so much humanity smushed together like sardines, and the wait time. It's not for me.
ReplyDeleteYour Krazy Glue story is a cautionary tale if I ever heard one. You are so lucky you didn't sustain permanent damage. H's regular prescription glasses have saved him a few times over the years.
What a fun exercise this list is. Sorry for the poison ivy.
Krazy Glue in the eye is the most painful thing I've ever done worse that breaking my arm in 3 places and post-surgical knee replacements.
DeleteLists are fun in the blog world. I hope to find more come winter when I'm snowed in.
Great topic! I'm not quite there with the "never ever" but pretty darned close!
ReplyDeleteFor Saturday, how about things you wish you did more??
I file that one for future use. Saturday I'll have something exciting to write about.
DeleteLet's see. I'm with you on flying, most of those foods (except the occasional Sushi roll), law-breaking (with that caveat about speeding), acronyms, punctation and spelling, and caring about the environment. As for that poison ivy... that just made me laugh.
ReplyDeleteI do wish I'd made some different decisions along the way, but there's nothing to be done about that, so I try not to worry about it. I suppose it's more important that we make good decisions moving forward.
Most of my roads not taken turned out to be more along the lines of, "I sure lucked not being on that road!" Not because I made good or bad decisions, it's just the way fate worked its magic.
DeleteTotally agree with most of them, especially #2. That little tuft of cat hair that starts moving in your hand is disgusting.
ReplyDeleteThe Bahama Island trip is what has me not flying today. We blew an engine on the way over. Huge bang and flames. that did it for me.
Wow, that would cure me of flying too.
DeleteI'm glad I'm not the only one with "moving" lint. LOL
I love flying but am mad as H—- that commercial airlines have turned it into such a miserable experience and since it’s a mode of public transportation, government should mandate some basic comfort requirements. My eventual husband took me flying at night on our first date, unknowingly and unintentionally scared the pea soup out of me. We flew privately some after we wed. I would travel more now if flying was more pleasant. I’m told my great grandmother was in her eighties not long after Wright Bros when she chose to go up in what would have been an open cockpit two-seater biplane which, coincidentally, was my first small plane flight, too, before my husband. Do you suppose I inherited a gene?
ReplyDeleteI figure flying could be a good, relative fast way to check out of this life which is why a space flight is appealing for one last look down on earth — how spectacular. I figure aircraft down results likely would be terminal as opposed to being mangled in an auto, bus, train — a boat or ship could offer a drowning option, beating those if I didn’t want to struggle to survive.
I’m curious about how my life might have differed had I made some other choices along the way, but am content with what was and is. I think there’s a tendency to assume different choices would have turned out positively, when, as I once wrote on this subject, they might actually have been a disaster. Perhaps the next lives allow us to try the process again and we can make other choices. Isn’t that an intriguing idea!
Love the reply about flying being a good way to check out if it crashed.
DeleteJoared: I have Amelia Earhart in my family tree. Didn't help me. LOL
DeleteI don't assume different choices would have turned out positively. Just the opposite, in fact. I'm pretty happy with the way my life turned out.
I am laughing to myself about comment #2: twice now, while cleaning up downstairs, I've started to pick up an 'embellishment' I thought I'd dropped while quiltmaking -- and suddenly realized it was a mouse!
ReplyDeleteIn the first case, it was a dried up carcass; in the second, a skull with a pile of fur. I hadn't been working down there for a while. And we'd put out poison several times in the past year. All I can say is... Ewwwwwwwwww.
At least they were dead. LOL That could happen to me, too, as I put poison around my basement this time of the year.
DeleteWhat a fun writing exercise! #1. I've had the good fortune and the decision to splurge on First Class, Business Class and Premium Coach on some recent flights. Sometimes the increase is not so breathtaking as to be unreasonable. AND it makes flying oh so much more pleasant. I still don't like the whole idea of it, but I won't give it up because there are places I want to go that I'd never want to drive to even when traveling in the US. # 6 made me laugh because I can go back and correct and edit texts and FB posts 3-4 times to make sure everything is right, and still autocorrect seems to sneak in and goof it up anyway! #7 OH NO! LOL
ReplyDeleteIf I ever do fly it will be First Class, Business Class and Premium Coach.
DeleteNo poison ivy for you, huh? Don't blame you. LOL