friday chookooloonks life list update

I admit it: I'm a woman possessed with this life list thing. Every day I'm thinking about how I can do something on the list. I think I'm feeling pretty passionate about this for a few reasons:

1. I put it out there that I was going to do this. I feel somewhat obligated.

2. There are so many items on the list, I want to make a dent. I mean, seriously: taste 700 blends of tea? Photograph 1000 faces? What was I thinking?

3. It's just so damned fun.

Anyway, I thought that going forward, I would reserve Fridays for my day of giving you updates on the life list. Not every Friday, you understand -- I'm pretty sure my passion around this will wane somewhat -- but I figure that I need to make sure that the life list doesn't take over every day of Chookooloonks, you know?

Okay. So here are a couple of things I've done so far:

1. A few days ago I was in a local Target store, and I overheard two employees speaking in Spanish. I speak some Spanish -- I used to be fluent -- but as I listened to them talking, I realized that while I know how to say "you are pretty," in Spanish, I didn't exactly know how to say "you are beautiful," to imply not just physical beauty, but also spiritual or soulful beauty, as well. Luckily for me, one of the employees was working the cash register when I was checking out.

"Excuse me," I said in Spanish. "I speak some Spanish, but I was trying to remember -- how do you say 'you are beautiful,' but to mean inner beauty?"

"Inner beauty?" she asked me, somewhat confused.

"Yes, inner beauty." I thought for a minute. "Like, not just physically, but also your soul."

"Ahh," she said, understanding. "Eres linda."

Awesome. So now I can say "you are beautiful" in Spanish. As it happens, Spanish is the fourth language I've learned to say this: you can hear the others by scrolling down on this page.

2. Yesterday I went to my favourite coffee house to meet my friend, Imelda, for lunch. I specifically got there early to do a bit of work beforehand, but also I was hoping that Amanda, one of the baristas who works there (and who has a great face) would let me take a photograph of her for Number 16 on my life list, "photograph 1000 faces." She did.

Isn't her face awesome? She officially makes number 17 of the faces I've photographed. You can see the rest of them here.

3. While I was there, I decided I needed to try a second tea (number 56 on the list). So I did:

This tea was White Nectar Osmanthus Spring by Numi. It's a white tea (I only recently learned that there was such a thing as white tea), and the note I made in my journal while I was sipping it was that it's "light, simple and the kind of tea that would make you feel better if you had an upset stomach on a sunny, lazy day."

I'm sure that somewhere a bona fide tea critic is reading that last sentence and cringing wildly.

But wait! I have additional stuff to cringe over!

4. When I returned home, I decided to practice juggling (number 54 on the list). I've been practicing pretty much every day since I started this life list, but it dawned on me yesterday that if I just show you the final result of my juggling, some people might think, "Wait just a doggone minute -- she probably always could juggle, and just said that she didn't know how." So I thought I'd film myself so you could see that this isn't the case. When you watch the following, keep in mind (a) this is pretty much after a solid week of practice, and (b) my goal is to juggle for 60 uninterrupted seconds. I think it's obvious I still have quite a bit of work to do: