In honor of all my British friends, today’s exercise calls for me to list “Fifteen of Your Favourite Things”. Well one of my favorite things is alternating between British and American spellings so that it freaks out the spell-check and makes me seem mentally unstable. Yes, I am going to blame the instability on the spelling. Might as well. And since I am going to do that, it only makes sense to start my list of favorite things with …
1) British cars. I have been a devotee of British cars since I was a teenager. My first car was an MG. There has barely been a year since then when I didn’t own at least one British car, and often many more. The cars do not have to be convertibles, but they are usually old. And in various states of disrepair. I love the way they drive, the way the smell, and the way they feel. I do believe Castrol runs in my blood.
2) British television. Since we are already in the Enchanted Isle for the cars, we might as well stay for the telly. I don’t know why other than the shows are better! I started out early watching Monty Python and Doctor Who (Tom Baker was my Doctor), and I am still watching them. Oh, and Top Gear. And lets not forget Sherlock.
3) Trains and Trolleys. Again, one of those loves I have had since I was a kid. Things on rails. Big and small. Real and model. If you are really board you can check some out at Michael’s Trains.
4) Soccer. I never have been a fan of baseball, basketball, hockey, American football, or any other sport. I like soccer. And by the way, Man U rules!
5) Apple products. “Finally!” you are saying. “Something closer to home,” you are saying. And you would be right. I prefer the Mac operating system. Just cleaner and more stable. I make my living, or a good portion of it, supporting Windows. That tells you something. It needs a lot of support.
6) Cats. I am a cat person. I like dogs, and we have two of them. Dogs are loyal and loving and great companions. Other than their noisy barking, there isn’t much not to like about dogs. Maybe that is why I like cats.
7) Cigars. Smelly nasty bad habit that it is, I smoke cigars occasionally. And you know what? I don’t believe that it is a bad habit. An occasional, maybe one or two per week maximum, cigar is not going to hurt me and does my mood a hell of a lot of good. They relax me. And according to my wife they also keep away the mosquitoes.
8) Rum. Rum goes very well with the cigars. Rum goes very well with the trains, trolleys, British cars, and cats too. Not to excess of course, I am not college kid any more and I don’t like feeling sick. These days in my rum, and other pursuits, I aim for quality over quantity.
9. Mexican food. That is a logical progression from cigar to rum to Latin American food. I said Mexican food to start with, but I am really fond of most foods from Latin America and Cuba and the Caribbean. All good.
10. Good music. OK, that is a bit of a cop-out. I didn’t give a specific band or even a genre. But the problem is that I like everything from classical to country, opera to techno. I have equal amounts of Jimmy Buffett, Bach, Nine Inch Nails, and Genesis in my collection. For more on this, check out my list of most listened to music recently.
11. Toys. I love toys. I wish I owned a toyshop. As a tie in again, this goes along well with the love of cars and trains, but it goes beyond that. I think toys of all sorts are great – and are essential for the development of minds both young and old.
12. Books. Wow, how could I have left my beloved books for so late in the list? Looking back and forward over everything I have written here, I see that this list really isn’t in order, but everything ties together. The same is true of the books I collect since I have them on all the subjects mentioned in this favourites list. Books are true treasures.
13. Pens. I have a small collection of pens. My most recent acquisition was a very nice one my wife got me for our anniversary. It is a beautiful heavy black pen with inscriptions on it as well as being engraved with my name and our 27th anniversary. It is fantastic, and now has a treasured spot in my collection.
14. Travelling. I am an explorer at heart. I explore people, ideas and actions. Well, sometimes I just wander. But I also enjoy exploring places. I haven’t gotten to do near the amount of traveling I would like, but the passport is now up-to-date and my goal is to put it to use.
15. Driving. Not the same as travelling. Driving is my thinking time and my meditation time. Not much better than driving at night with the top down and hearing the sound of the engine swirl around you. Or driving down a two lane road in the Fall with the leaves making a wake around the car.
Done. Enough. Fini!! That was a long list. It didn’t seem so long when I first started it, but by the end it was really getting rough. Rough because I had to reason out what to put in and what to cut out, and rough because unlike yesterday’s post where it was hard for me to figure out even one thing to really like about my appearance, today I had an over abundance of things in this world I like. No matter how grumpy and curmudgeonly I can be, I really do enjoy life and people and all that is around me. (Other than Wal-Mart. I truly hate Wal-Mart.) So only fifteen favorite things? I really don’t think so.
