The Bucket List

I watched The Bucket List today on TV. I've seen it many times before. I'm a sucker for a Jack Nicholson movie and this one in particular is one of his best.

I saw it for the first time just after it was released on video (I don't go to movies often - too expensive) and I cried at the end. How could you not.

The thing is, this movie took on a whole new and difficult meaning in 2009. See, I've always thought my Dad has a pretty striking resemblance to Jack Nicholson. Not the eye brows, mind you but the shape of his face, the hair (or lack thereof) and some of his mannerisms (at least on screen) 

So to watch this movie now, about a man with terminal cancer and to see my Dad in him....it's hard to watch.

I got to thinking. What would I put on my bucket list. You know what? I got nothing. Is that good or bad? I'm not sure. I mean, there are some things I'd like to do. I'd like to see the world....but the the thing is, if I died tomorrow (God forbid!) I don't think I'd regret not having seen the world.
I've been given the gift of motherhood, so no regrets there - though I suppose my bucket list would include seeing my kids grow up and becoming a great grandmother (notice I say great grandmother) I was lucky enough to know my own great grandmother (maternal) and my kids are lucky enough to know their own great grandmother (my paternal grandmother) so the longevity genes are there.
I'm not a daring type person, I don't long to skydive or scuba dive or climb Mount Everest. Hell, I don't anticipate getting on a plane in the foreseeable future.

I suppose I would add 'a family adventure' on my list. Some of my fondest memories are of our family road trips. Our family summer trips to Sault Ste. Marie.  My train trip with my mom to New Brunswick. Our drive to North Carolina (in which my Great Uncle said to my Dad, quite loudly, as we approached the border, "Did you put all the cocaine in the golf bags Mike?"  A few days later in the trip the same uncle lost his teeth - we found them 40 minutes later in his suitcase.
Of course, there is the epic trip to Vegas. 5 adults in a sedan for 5 days straight. Come to think of it, that is worthy of it's own post.

We do our drive to Newfoundland every few years and I'm hoping one day, many years from now the kids will look back on those trips with the same fondness I look back at mine. We'll smile and chuckle at Mary asking how she'd get into Nan's house when she saw the Newfie door. (for the uniformed...Newfoundland is a rock. In many of the rural areas the houses were built by the people living in them, hence no basements, just built up from the rocks. The house then has a porch (aka a 'bridge' in Newfinese) with steps that lead up to the door. Often times though only one door on the house will have steps that lead up to it, the other door will just be there....sometimes as high as 6 ft off the ground, with no steps leading up to it. It's just an emergency exit. I dubbed these doors Newfie Doors (Newfie jokes are the Canadian equivalent to dumb blond jokes - though truth be known, I've only ever met one dumb Newfie and it wasn't the Newfie in her that made her dumb)  Anyhow, when Mary saw my Mother In Law's house for the first time in 2007 and her Newfie door on the front she wondered out loud "How am I going to get in?"

Anyhow, I'm getting off track.

The point was - I'd love to say I have something clear and defined....my own Bucket List but I just don't think it's that easy. 

And watching the movie made me miss my Dad.

On a related note - I got a new like on the Papa's Pride FB page today. It was the first "like" by a stranger. It's silly, but I was so excited because it means it's getting noticed. Yay.

On another related note - I bought a showcase spot on Etsy. It's basically a day in which your shop is put in a showcase - which is supposed to drum up traffic. I bought a spot before and it did get me a lot of hits.
But - when I went to book the day the first available day was November 25th. My Dad's birthday.
I'm taking that as a sign.

A sign of good things to come.