My Jubilee Year

Today is my fiftieth birthday. There's a gorgeous full moon. Ben and I had a wonderful dinner and then a long trike ride to the slide and swings, and back again.

I reach this milestone having done the thing I wanted most: being a parent. But I have decided there must be 50 things I still want to do and which I can do this year.

1. Fall in love like a grown up.
2. See the Grand Canyon.
3. Go to DC without marching in protest.
4. Take Ben on a real steam engine.
5. Write something that gets published.
6. Get close enough to George W. Bush to spit, and do it.
7. Lose 30 pounds.
8. Read all of Shakespeare's Sonnets.
9. Write five decent sonnets.
10. Reconnect with college pals Midge Costin, Annie DeGroot and
Leslie Miller.
11. Take my mom to the Chicago Art Institute and buy her dinner afterward.
12. Learn the names of five native butterflies in Latin.
13. Plant 50 bulbs.
14. Plant 5 rose bushes.
15. Visit Mathei Botanical Gardens.
16. Spend time on Drummond with Ben and my dad.
17. Freeze 5 pounds of stewed tomatoes.
18. Learn Spanish.
19. Spend a weekend with my sister Emily with no kids.
20. Visit my mom in Sanibel.
21. Write 50 letters in long hand.
22. Visit Toronto.
23. Make Ben's lifebook.
24. Visit Phil and Jackie in the Adirondacks.
25. Kayak on the Huron River.
26. Bike to Gallup Park with Ben.
27. Eat at the Common Grill in Chelsea and catch a play at the Purple Rose.
28. March on DC with Ben.
29. Visit Janice and Tim in Baton Rouge.
30. Take Ben to the Battle Creek Zoo.
31. Take Ben to the Hands On Museum.
32. Take Ben to Jazzfest.
33. Go to Jazzfest without Ben.
34. Visit the DIA.
35. Go to a Tiger's game.
36. Go to a Piston's game.
37. See one opera.
38. Buy a case of Raspberry Port.
39. Go Christmas caroling.
40. Go tobogganing.
41. Go to the beach at Point Pelee.
42. Pick blueberries with Ben.
43. Win the lotto and go to Hawaii for a month.
44. Spend a weekend with my nephew Cameron and Ben.
45. Walk along an ocean beach at night with a full moon.
46. Ride a roller coaster.
47. Do the Christmas bird count.
48. Go ice skating more than once.
49. Bake Christmas cookies with Emily.
50. Get a pedicure.