Since it’s been so challenging to keep the content coming the last few weeks, I thought I would give my predictions for the 13 things that I will greatly miss from American culture when we leave the country in just (YIKES!)…13 days. They will be listed in totally random order…as I think of them.

1. Free public libraries (this is perhaps the greatest invention of the modern western world…)
2. A society that pretends to have a disdain for a.) smoking cigarettes, and b.) pollution. Sometimes, usually by accident, our culture even practices what they preach regarding these two things.
3. Obviously, people! I know people are not really things, but if they were things I would put my favorite friends in little miniature vials that I would carry with me inside a rucksack. (What? Does that sound a little weird?)
4. Buffalo wings. Medium-hot. This was the first thing I ate when I got back from my last jaunt in the Himalayas. Chili’s…mmmm…good.
5. Orderly lines (you might call them queues if you’re from the UK). I admit that I hate standing in them, but can you imagine the chaos of first come (push) first serve (shove).
6. Enforced traffic laws (and driving a car for that matter.)
7. Starbucks.
8. Funnel cakes, elephant ears, kettle korn, et al. This may seem a bit random, but sometimes you get that hankering and there are typically summer venues that can fulfill such urges.
9. Anonymity. Every yeti desires this, but rarely is it ever achieved.
10. A fractional percentage of the Christmas season. I’ll probably miss the two weeks leading up to December 25th as opposed to the official season– i.e. late August to January 1st.
11. March Madness and Major League Baseball. Ichiro, parting is such sweet sorrow…
12. Pizza (i.e. canadian bacon & pineapple) delivered to my front door.
13. Jesus. (What? Isn’t Jesus the answer to every question in life? I learned that in Sunday School. It’s the most spiritual answer one can give, right?) OK then, if you insist it doesn’t apply here. I’ll have to change my answer to Elvis impersonators eating apple pie on the fourth of July while firing handguns and singing the National Anthem. It just doesn’t get any more American than that.

Honorable mention goes to "Thursday nights at Rory’s" and "movie nights with the Collards". Those two activities rank pretty high, but I must have been really  hungry when I started this list because food items kept popping into my mind.