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What: #23 Buy front row tickets to an event

Where: New York City
When: December 21st
Why: As one settles into their career and manages to work out a budget to pay bills and buy food and still save for retirement, it can sometimes feel very uncomfortable to splurge, even if there is a very good rationale behind it. For me, most of my splurges are related to travel; it's rare that I buy a new clothing item or some decorative accessory for my home. I'm much more of an "experiences" person than a "things" person. With that in mind, I found myself planning a trip to New York City to visit some friends over a long weekend, and decided that as an adult, I finally wanted to see a show on Broadway. Not just any show, but a show currently starring one of my favorite singers - Sara Bareilles. Therein lies the rationale for splurging on front row tickets; it's not only a Broadway show, but also basically a concert to see and hear one of my favorite singers!

The show - "Waitress" - is based on a movie starring two actors I really like, Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion. Yet, somehow, I did not like the movie. Perhaps it wasn't something I could relate to or appreciate at the stage of life when I watched it ten years ago. I plan on watching it again in the next few weeks to revisit the story and characters and hopefully connect to it. Either way, I'm still really excited for my first Broadway show, and my front row tickets to see Sara Bareilles!

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What: #18 Take Amtrak somewhere new

When: October 23, 2017
Where: Milwaukee to Chicago
Why: In other countries, travel by train is so much easier, and it is always frustrating how inconvenient it is to get between cities here in the US. Even to hop between Detroit and Chicago, the scheduled trains are few and far between, the prices aren't low enough to consider it, and the timeliness is, well, lacking. When talking to friends in other countries, they are appalled to hear about our trains running 30-40 minutes late, and flabbergasted when we talk about them running hours late. This is simply unheard of when train travel is considered abroad. Still, the idea of train travel is so appealing to me. It's a way to see the world go by outside your window, but without the stress of being in the driver's seat, to see countrysides and small towns from the luxury of a vehicle that allows for freedom of movement and snacks and comfortable seats.

So it was that when determining the logistics for visiting friends in both Chicago and Milwaukee over a long weekend, train travel entered the conversation. It felt odd, like being a backpacker in my own country, but really it was not as inconvenient as I had feared. In Milwaukee, the hotel where I stayed was a short 15-minute walk to the train station, and even on a somewhat rainy and blustery afternoon, it wasn't too bad. No security lines, so corralling of passengers, I just walked right into the station and boarded my train. It was actually easier than in Europe, in a way, because there is only one train at a time in most American rail stations, so I didn't need to find the correct platform or be certain to be in the right car.

The ride back to Chicago was pleasant, watching the autumnal colors out the window, passing farm fields and woods and sections of the upper midwest that I hadn't before seen. For my money, this was a great option to driving or flying, and I'll consider it again in the future!

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What: #78 Watch an Elvis movie

When: November 18th
Where: My living room
Why: Both Elvis and myself were on this planet for exactly two months together, which always fascinates me. He seems like someone from another time entirely different from my own, and yet, we overlapped for a short while. He's obviously known for his music career  - there is a great exhibit on him in Cleveland - and of course for his dancing, which if you haven't really watched him, you must, and this video is one of my faves! His movies, however, seemed to be less talked about in connection to Elvis, and yet I know he starred in quite a few at the height of his career, so I felt like I wanted to see him in action, as an actor, apart from just singing and dancing. So, one night my friend and I rented "Blue Hawaii" from Amazon and settled in to be dazzled by this icon. The movie is meant to be a romance, was filmed on Hawaii, and also featured Angela Lansbury, so it seemed like a winner. And ooooooo boy, it was entertaining! First of all, he seems like he's just playing himself, which was fine because he's charismatic. The plot of the story was thin at best, just setting after setting to highlight his singing and the scenery, which again was ok. The dialogue, however, was definitely from another time when political correctness had not been absorbed by Hollywood! So much of what was said would make us cringe, and so many other things had us busting out with laughter when I don't suspect it was meant to be funny at the time. However, if you decide to enjoy this film and go in to it knowing it's from a very different era, and that the cheese factor is super high, then I think you'll have a great evening of entertainment ahead of you! For a small sample of his crooning and the gist of the movie, here's a short clip. Enjoy!

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What: #32 Visit the Gerald Ford Presidential Library

When: November 8th

Where: Ann Arbor, MI
Why: This year, I was given the day off on Election Day, and felt that as a way of embracing the day, I should visit the branch of the National Archives in my city that houses President Ford's truckloads (nine, actually) of documents, photographs, recordings, and other paraphernalia from his short presidency. In this location, they are no longer stored in trucks, but in temperature-controlled stacks. These stacks take up enormous warehouse-sized areas, four floors of them, all accessible to researchers and archivists and, on this particular day, me.

When I arrived, I chatted with the security guard, as he was the only other person in the entire room. I think he was a bit suspicious of me, having remarked on my Bernie bumper sticker on my car, and my "I Voted" sticker proudly displayed on my jacket. President Ford was, after all, a Republican, and I'm waltzing into this space with a seemingly odd errand of wanting to see and learn all I can today. Still, he warmed up to me and even offered to introduce me to an archivist named John.

Ford's retired Michigan Football jersey

Prior to meeting John, I looked around the ground floor of the building. Uniquely, the Ford Presidential Museum isn't connected to the library as it is for the other 10 or so presidents with libraries; it's actually in Grand Rapids, but his library is here because of his deep connections to the University of Michigan. This means that the exhibits here are quite sparse, mostly timelines of his presidency with small artifacts, and a rotating exhibit on loan from the museum on the bicentennial. There is also Ford's office that he used when he was in town visiting!

A few facts I learned about Gerald Ford, which may or may not make me seem ignorant for not already knowing them:
* His birth name is Leslie Lynch King, Jr.! He parents were divorced before he was a year old, and he was renamed after his step-father, legally taking his name when he was older.
* Ford's cabinet included Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, and Kissinger...wow!
* He was made Vice President under the 25th Amendment (when Spiro Agnew resigned), then became President when Nixon resigned
* He basically committed political suicide by pardoning Nixon, but later won the Profiles in Courage Award from the John F. Kennedy Foundation for putting the country's best interest ahead of his own gain

Random assortment of documents they let me view!

Having exhausted what I could glean from the exhibits on my own, John met up with me and took me INTO the room that was Ford's office. This is normally locked and off limits, but I got to go in and see his desk, chairs, many leather-bound books (for real), and a few of the gifts he had received from foreign dignitaries, including an amazing jade elephant from China! From there, we went upstairs to see the stacks and learn how they are digitizing all of the files. There are rows and rows and rows of archival boxes with every piece in every file cross-referenced based on person, topic, date, action, etc. It's actually mind-boggling to imagine, and as a library nerd, I was thinking how cool it would be to work there! I mentioned it, and John told me that they have a small staff of contracted employees that are there to keep processing the 25 million or so items in their collection. Sign me up!

The visit to the library is free and the staff was extremely kind and knowledgeable and eager to showcase their space. Stop by! 

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What : #80 Watch "The Philadelphia Story" 

When: November 7th
Where: Living Room
Why: Again, as I'm cramming in my final new things from this list, I find that checking off movies is a quick way to finish. This movie was another - like "Lawrence of Arabia" - that I thought was a part of popular culture and I hadn't experienced. I've seen many movies with Cary Grant (including my favorite, The Awful Truth), only one with Katherine Hepburn (The African Queen) and didn't like it very much, and am not a fan of James Stewart because of It's A Wonderful Life. Still, I wanted to see this movie. Or, so I thought...

It turns out that I had the wrong movie in mind! I thought this was "An Affair To Remember" with Cary Grant and the meeting at the Empire State Building and the female lead in a wheelchair (I guess it's a lot like "Sleepless in Seattle"?), but I was quite wrong. This lead me to be wondering throughout this movie how she ends  up in a wheelchair...does she fall off a horse? Break a leg diving into the pool? Get in a car accident while drunk driving? And why is this taking place in Philadelphia instead of NYC?

In fact, this movie was a ton of good fun and not depressing AT ALL! It was hilarious and quick-witted and clever and I actually found myself liking both James Stewart and Katherine Hepburn much more than I expected. Perhaps it is because they are younger in this movie, both in their early 30s, and I find that easier to relate to than in their later films. Also, the high-society bit was predictable, and in fact her performance in this role was really unexpected and a breath of fresh air, much like Irene Dunne in The Awful Truth. If you're looking for an old classic movie to watch one of these nights, I recommend this one for sure!