There's More to See than Can Ever Be Seen

Back on a roll with the 30 Day Non-Facebook Prose-Instead-of-Pictures Challenge.  The 20th Challenge is today:

20.A picture of somewhere you'd love to travel

This challenge was already done a while back with my non-bucket-list list of sensory experiences to be had before I die.  They covered sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound.  But I'll still play along with today's challenge.

This may shock a lot of people, but I'd love to travel to Tanzania.  Just think!  A photo safari, the Maasai, and Mount Kilimanjaro all in one place!  How thrilling is that?  Seeing the great migration, interacting with the nomadic people, climbing the highest peak in Africa.  The problem would be finding enough resources to do a trip like that.  Resources of both time and money. 

But today's challenge isn't about where I want to travel next month, or next year.  It's simply where I would love to travel.  One day.  Hopefully. 

[Title taken from this.]

Long Time Coming

Lazy usually doesn't describe me.  Laziness didn't keep me from continuing my daily installments of the 30 Day Non-Facebook Prose-Instead-of-Pictures Challenge. Terror did.

Before the explanation of how terror paralyzed my blog posts, here are the past and future (daily) challenges.

The past:
1.A picture of yourself with 10 facts
2.A picture of you and the person you have been closest with the longest
3.A picture of the cast from your favorite show
4.A picture of your favorite night
5.A picture of your favorite memory
6.A picture of a person you'd love to trade places with for a day
7.A picture of your most treasured item
8.A picture that makes you laugh
9.A picture of the person who has gotten you through the most
10.A picture of the person you do the most ****** up things with
11.A picture of something you hate
12.A picture of something you love
13.A picture of your favorite band or artist
14.A picture of someone you could never imagine your life without

Today:
15.A picture of something you want to do before you die

The future:
16.A picture of someone who inspires you
17.A picture of something that has made a huge impact on your life recently
18.A picture of your biggest insecurity
19.A picture and a letter
20.A picture of somewhere you'd love to travel
21.A picture of something you wish you could forget
22.A picture of something you wish you were better at
23.A picture of your favorite book
24.A picture of something you wish you could change
25.A picture of your favorite day
26.A picture of something that means a lot to you
27.A picture of yourself and a family member
28.A picture of something you're afraid of
29.A picture that can always make you smile
30.A picture of someone you miss

The timing of Day Fifteen's request was poignant in that I'm still not completely cleared of suspicious cancer cells.  Skin cancer.  So "what do I want to do before I die?" has become a very real question. 

Bucket Lists are fun to think about.  But when the shit hits the fan, they're not all that realistic.  Seriously?  Sailing around the world?  If it's really that important, make it happen now.  When it can be enjoyed.  Even when I posed the Bucket List question on Facebook with a caveat of only one thing, people's suggestions were too broad or grand for the immediate. 

My "List" has been revamped.  If you know me in real life, you've heard me say that if I were ever diagnosed with some terminal disease, I would climb Mount Everest.  Because if I'm going to die, at least do something fun.  But no more.  I'm a wimp.  I'm not an Alpinist; I have only recently rejoined the world of exercisers; and to top it off, I'd have some disease that could be a lethal burden to my fellow climbers.  No, I would want to surround myself with all the love and comfort I could for as long as I could.

My "List" is quite simple.  To be with the people I love in a place I love.  My family, at home.  No grand adventures, no thrill seeking, no fastest or highest anything.  Just Mr. Gaelic, Finola, Deirdre, Maeve, Baby, Thing 1 and Thing 2.

And no regret that I never summitted Mount Everest.

[Title taken from this.]

The Touch, The Feel of Gaelic

There are five senses.  Yet there are only four here so far in my non-Bucket List list.  There have been sight, sound, smell, and taste.  Have you ever realised that most of your senses are located in the head region?  The only one that covers more than just the head region is touch. 

What is on my want-to-feel-before-I-die list?  This:

• The Dead Sea keeping me afloat
• My grandbaby's soft skin
• The wind from a tornado as I chase the storm (with a professional, of course)
• Spray from the ocean on my face while sailing in the Greek Isles
• The silkiness of my daughters' wedding dresses
• Sheets made of silk
• Weightlessness
• Cool dirt while digging for truffles
• Spongy trails as the elevation increases on Denali
• My wedding rings on my left ring finger (they were cut off when I shattered the bone in my finger and won't be repaired until there is no more swelling in my finger)

That's also an update on my finger.  The pins are beginning to hurt under the skin.  They'll need to come out at some point.  When I make a fist, my finger still sticks out at an odd angle.  But physical therapy is continuing and small progress is made each week.  As the professionals tell me, it may take a year before my finger is stabilized.  And it may never be back to normal -- in size or in how straight it is.

Perhaps Number 11 on the list should be "a day without pain in the finger."  But whining doesn't feel so good either.  So we'll stop at Ten.

Smells and Bells

Third in my series of lists of the senses is smell.  Mostly in memory of that sense which our family lost last week when we all developed head colds of varying degrees.  (Cue the Dies Irae.)  My first list was sight; the second list, sound.

Without further ado, I give you scents I want to experience before I die:

• That baby-smell on the top of a grandbaby's head
• Sweet-shrub wafting through my open bedroom window on a warm spring morning
• White Shoulders as I nuzzle in for a hug (my grandmother's signature)
• Chanel No. 5 as I nuzzle in for a hug (my mother's signature)
• Mrouzia in Marrakesh
• Rogan josh outside Lakshmana temple in Khajuraho
• Spruce and firs giving way to glaciers in Denali
• Varnish remover while refinishing an antique [fill in the blank] by myself
• Lavender fields in Provence
• Body oil with patchouli being massaged onto me while at a beach-front spa in the Caribbean

Coming up with scents to experience is quite difficult.  Knowing what I want to do or see is easy; but how does one describe a new scent?  Today's list was very challenging.  That will be your challenge now -- what scents do you want to experience?

Here Kitty Kitty

I hiked part of the Appalachian Trail a few weekends ago with a group of outdoorsy-types. Fabulously beautiful scenery. Spectacular stillness. Warm camaraderie. It was a rare weekend without any family members around.

If you've never backpacked a through-trail, there are some things you need to know before you head out.

• You have to carry everything out that you carry in. Everything. Take a minute for that to sink in. Everything. Bingo! Even your toilet paper.
• You can only carry so much water with you; which means you have to collect and purify water along the trail.
• If water is such a scarce resource, and you have to carry out everything you carry in, washing dishes is elevated to an art form.

We had some of the best meals on the trail. Two ladies had Pad Thai. My tent buddy, another woman, and I shared lasagna and a berry crumble for dessert. Dehydrated meals are not what they used to be. But they leave your mess kit covered with the sauces.

What to do? Wipe your plate/bowl down with a paper towel that you have to pack out? Or find out how Yours Truly got her trail name?

Remember when you were little and would lick the bowl of ice cream or, if you were really lucky and your mother wasn't concerned about salmonella, cake batter? Ever watched your pet lick the bowl for the very last morsel? Getting the picture yet?

I didn't realize that I was creating such a spectacle of myself by plopping down on a rock and licking my plate clean. But I didn't have much washing to do afterwards. And no traces of food particles that would attract visitors during the night.

So my trail name? If you haven't guessed it already... Kitty.