my bucket list pales

As I positioned this pail to catch rain where it falls off the roof the hardest, I thought about the bucket list. 

It's a game, this list of thrills one makes when contemplating what they'd like to still do or accomplish before they die. 

The bucket list can be light-hearted and rather fun to consider unless illness or aging present challenges and then one begins to take the game more seriously. 

It seems to me, the bigger our challenges, the smaller our bucket list. 

***

It would be grand to walk in the sand along some length of Ipanema Beach.  I'd like to look up and see Corcovado and the statue Cristo Redeator before riding to the top of the mountain to gaze down at Rio de Janeriro spread below. 

("And a window that looks out on Corcovado, oh how lovely." 

Lyrics from Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars; Antonio Carlos Jobim, Gene Lees) 

I would like to hear Diana Krall in a very intimate venue, something on the order of The Carlyle Hotel, accompanied by John Clayton, Jeff Hamilton, and Anthony Wilson. 

I'd like to spend an afternoon, stretched into dinner and beyond, with Pat Conroy and Frank Stitt at either of Stitt's Birmingham restaurants. 

A week to be convinced of the merits of French champagne would be nice. 

I would like to see a matinee at the Met (Aida, La Boheme, La Traviata, Lucia Di Lammermour, Madama Butterfly, Rigoletto or Tosca) followed by cocktails in a great bar, a long, slow dinner in a classic bistro, and late night drinks (with cigarettes!) in another bistro. 

I'd like to finish and publish my book.  If it provides an alternative to the book club as we know it, well, that would also be so very nice. 

I'm imagining a couple of weeks in autumn, maybe between Thanksgiving and Christmas; weeks abundant with Italian white truffles which I would happily share in many meals. 

How often we talk about it but never seem to do it...  I'd throw a party!  I'd unite family and current friends with old friends including those dear to my parents.  There would be a never-ending antipasti table and wine bar and of course, there would be a quartet I know... 

I want to learn to enjoy the raw oyster bar.

***

Is it just a game? 

One day I might be sipping expensive French champagne as I admire the glossy pages of my just published book while a pot of water on the cooktop comes to a soft boil for ravioli which will soon be crowned with Italian white truffles... 

I thought about that as I stepped out to water the herbs and flowers with the rainwater collected in this pail. 

In a happy life already made rich by many things, would these be a game changer?