In the 53rd Year…

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When I was younger, maybe until a few years ago, I loved lists. As I’m typing this, I’m getting the feeling that I still do. And quizzes – “which Sex & the City character are you?” “Adam and the Ants or Culture Club?” (depends, were you gay or straight?). My friend Nancy and I used to play this word game, like Boggle, I think, where one of us would cycle through the alphabet in our head until the other said STOP and whatever letter you landed on was what each word would start with.

BUT before you start, you agree on the categories, and they were mostly all the same: Girl’s name, boy’s name, animal, country, city, song, singer, furniture, clothing, vehicle, fruit, vegetable, movie and so on. As you can see, a complete lack of curiosity on our part. Where’s the rebellion? I think sometimes we add a “Beatles song” category.

Oh, and it was all paper and pen. We didn’t buy this game, we wrote the category headings ourselves. I wish I had a copy of one!

And that leads me to today. I really love those start of the year challenges. You know, recipe a day, short story a week, photo a day, affirmation of the–

And much like annual diaries, I give up these challenges by the end of January. But this year, I’m breaking through all that. It’s May 29, so I won’t be remembered as the person who starts annual challenges and never goes all the way through with them.

THIS IS NOT A CHALLENGE! But it is something I would like to do. So….

Monday Tarot

(Is it a fail already, or do I just admit that I started this list on a Sunday?)

Photo of the week

This is the nicest I could find. It’s just a perfect pic.

Favourite experience/s of the week

A distinct feeling that I have entered Phase 2 of life. I can’t place the moment, but there have been moments leading to it, I’m sure. And the outcome?

The decision to let my hair go grey. This is 3 months post my last colour.

The realisation that I can wake up and change up some things if I want to;
That, sometimes, it’s not quitting or giving up, it’s actually realising when something has come to an end;
Bucket List Cooking – Trinidadian Dobles. Similar spices to Indian dahl. The bread is wonderful. Puffy fried clouds. (pic below)
Botanical Garden tour. Meeting a man from NYC, around my age, and asking him about his experience of the city of my dreams. We talked about The Deuce and how it’s okay for a city like New York to change. That it was built on people coming through and changing it up.

Reading/read this week

Reading about poisons, the mafia, Artemisia Gentilesci, radical feminism.

Listening to

Not much, tragically, neither in the music nor podcast front…

Eating

Dobles are a street food from Trinidad, and I was suggested them when I put a call-out for Bucket List Recipes. The fluffy fried turmeric bread is worth the effort!

And a lovely lunch at the restaurant at the Botanical Gardens. Fried chicken, kingfish ceviche, papaya salad and sneaky daytime cocktails.

Watching

Masterchef and that’s it. Survivor US just ended, Ozark is done, so is Peaky Blinders. I did watch a few terrific movies:

Salvatore Giuliano – the original movie about the legendary Sicilian bandit
When Harry Met Sally. It had to happen. It took around 30 years, but I watched it, and it was really sweet.