In two days, I will have traveled around the sun 30 times. It's hard to believe I'm turning 30 - I still feel 23. But I firmly believe that my fourth decade will be better than my third - and the third was pretty darn good.

I saw someone post, in honor of their 32nd birthday, 32 things they've had the chance to do. Here is my list of 30 things I've done in (almost) 30 years:

Seen the Northern Lights. Eaten escargot near Le Sacre Coure in Paris. Taught Children's Sunday School. Played A Mighty Fortress with a full orchestra at St. Mary's Cathedral in Krakow, Poland. Ran over a cat. Rode around Owatonna in a limo. Rode the Eurostar (Chunnel Train). Been to Auschwitz. Stayed up all night. Co-captained an intramural wiffleball team. (We were 0-4!) Learned Chinese. (And promptly forgot it!) Stayed at a five-star resort. Canoed and camped in the Boundary Waters. Stood on the Prime Meridian in Greenwich. Been pulled over twice. Been hanggliding. Been to the top of: The Space Needle, The Eiffel Tower and The Gateway Arch. Baptized a girl who was in my Sunday School class. Lived with a total of 15+ different roommates which include a girl from Japan, a divorced man and a high school student from France. Ate duck at a sidewalk cafe in Prague. Biked in the Canadian Rockies. Became an aunt. Stayed with family in Ukraine. Dined with a baron in his castle, Schloss Weitenburg, in Germany. Learned to play guitar. Survived a fall through ice! Been on the front page of the paper. (I was 11.) Seen a grizzly bear and a moose in the wild. Gotten two stitches. Flown over the Atlantic 10 times, but have never seen it close-up. (This will have to wait till I'm 30.)

Grocery Stories and Other Tales No. 1

I love encounters with strangers. I also love to eavesdrop.

The following happened a couple weeks ago:

I was at CashWise picking up a few groceries. I was looking at magazines when a nice, but rough, looking woman, probably in her 40s, started looking at the books.

I had a feeling she was going to say something to me - and she did. She asked about a book. She couldn't remember the author, but it was a biography about the Mamas and the Papas: High on Arrival. I helped her look, but they didn't have it.

I went to check out, and she was ahead of me, getting ready to pay, and already had a cigarette in her mouth. She took it out to ask if it was the 11th or the 12th and the cashier and I both said it was the 10th. She cursed under her breath (I think) and said, "No wonder. I don't get food stamps till the 11th." I offered to pay - her total was $4.08 - but she declined and hurried out.