introducing this blog

Thank you so much to everyone for sending me your five favorite things. The list is fabulous. It was a great way to welcome in a new decade (and even to make it relatively painless). In fact, I looked forward to turning fifty with the anticipation of five-favourite-things lists from so many friends and family. Perhaps “the fifties” will suddenly hit me in a frightening way but for now it feels much more like a privilege (to live this long!) than a fear (to be this old!).

This list also gives me an excuse to extend my birthday over the entire year. In this blog I’ll record my experiences with your favourite things as well as adding a few of my own along the way. If you want to add more favourite things please feel free. Before turning to the specific things in the next few blog postings here are some general comments on the “favourite things” list over all.

The first, most surprising thing, is that very very few of you sent book suggestions. I thought there would be more books than any other category but possibly there are fewer books. I did get a lot of amazing recipes. I want to make them all instantly. Although I probably should have requested favourite exercise routines as well. Happily, several people sent me recipes and titles of favourite recipe books (and so that is one category of book) which means that the recipes can multiply indefinitely as I explore others not mentioned. There were a handful of favourites that were repeated by more than one person. Here they are: several people noted Mary Oliver as a favourite poet; several people noted the Manx as a favourite brunch place (I haven’t been there in ages but now plan to go soon; before we had kids Joel and I used to go often and have the banana French toast [bananas somehow magically imbedded in the bread] which was easily the best French toast ever but then it was removed from the menu); and several people noted Paris—the streets, the food, the city in general—as a favourite place. The weirdest replication of all (to me, at any rate) was that two people gave favourite yoga poses and, of the millions (thousands?) of yoga poses out there they both chose exactly the same pose! (It was the pigeon, for the record).

I am writing this in a hotel room in Schoharie because so far this semester there has not been even a second of extra time for such frills. Everyone is at breakfast. Ben just came in the room to tell me excitedly that Maddie has PG Tips—which raises another favourite thing. Favourite black tea to drink every day: PG Tips. And so now prompted by the lure of favourite tea I’ll join the others and hopefully post of all of this sometime in the next few days.

Many weeks later. It perhaps does not bode well for my 50th year that it is 20 October and I have not yet started a blog I’d hoped to begin a few days after my birthday over a month ago. But it’s now set up and I’m looking forward to exploring so many of your favourite things. And I’m hoping that many of them will soon become my favourite things as well.