Bucket Lists and Other Flights of Fancy

I'm a really good planner, but I'm a really bad follow-througher. I love to research, gather, and compile information; clip and collect interesting articles; and lay out long, detailed "to-do/to-see/to-visit before I kick it" lists.

I recently opened my office file cabinet to tuck away an explanation of benefits from my health insurance company. (Why they even send these forms out is a mystery, since there's not a darned thing a person can do about anything explained therein. I have tested this theory, and there is not. Anything.)

In the process, my fingers did some walking through the divider tabs and quickly got lost in a forest of good intentions. So many collected gems, seldom referred back to after they'd been honored with a slot in my Vault of Keepable Stuff. But the thought of merging and purging all those words brings on migraine symptoms. Then again, the thought of failing miserably at the "doing" end of things makes my heart ache.

I recently got a good start on a cure: making accessible my vast collection of recipes by binding them in six colorful polka-dotted notebooks I found at a garage sale. This project has fended off both the above-mentioned headache and the also mentioned heartache, and it gives me a feeling of victory over the masses of paper. Time to tackle the file cabinets.

How better to lighten the load of that labor than to share it, I thought.

No, no, don't leave. I'll spare you the dozen folders of exercise instructions spanning three decades of ever-changing opinions on fitness. That still leaves plenty of appealing topics—everything from history, human behavior, and mental health to vocabulary, travel, entertaining, and craft and gift ideas. This should be an intriguing adventure, guys. Especially fun is file cabinet topic number one: Interesting Names.

I started recording these names while working at the front desk of my local City Hall, where I had first-look at utility bills and personal checks. Some of them could be fictional characters in an imaginative mystery novel; many are downright charming.

Lillina: Oh, how I would have coveted that moniker as a wistful teenager, adrift in romantic imaginings.

Ian Livingood: He must have been tempted to misspell his first name as "Iam," right?

Laurie Loonie: Who was surely strong of character, having endured merciless teasing throughout her lifetime.

Ione (pronounced eye-own-ee) Oney (pronounced own-ee): I've always assumed that this sweet lady chose her husband—at least in part—for the lilt that his last name would lend to her already unique forename.

Charles Pancake: Delicious. Just delicious.

Arden Smutzler: I am seeing a next door neighbor on a sitcom, maybe?

Alfred Wing-Wong: Definitely a future in Hollywood for this chap.

David Schwerdtfeger: Imagine teaching your preschooler that one!

Bradley Wilfahrt: I will leave the comments to any fourth graders in the audience.

Now, wasn't that a stroll worth taking? Which leads me to next week's subject: Quotes. Prepare for a shower of mood-lightening giggles, no umbrella required.