My lucky otter socks

I’m not sure why, when or how it actually came about – my mini-obsession with otters.

But it all makes sense to me when I think about it now. They’re adorable. They’re playful and fun. And I seem to remember a nature special on PBS poignantly portraying nurturing otter moms.

In short, they have a lot of traits I admire and even aspire to. Plus they obviously love the water, like me.

I actually always thought I should have a water Zodiac sign because literally any form of water can energize me and brighten my mood – playing in the ocean (where a friend recently said I was an otter and gave me a new nickname), taking a nice hot shower, soaking in a hot tub, swimming in a pool. Swimming in a lake. I love it all and feel like I could spend a good part of my time – happily – going from one to the other.

I guess part of that is my Long Island roots and the fact that I grew up enjoying various beach venues – from a bungalow at Rockaway beach to regular weekend family trips to Jones and Town of Oyster Bay (TOBAY) beaches. We’re surrounded by water, of course – the wild Atlantic on the south and the more placid, but much rockier Long Island Sound we share with Connecticut on the North Shore.

I’ll go in the ocean no matter how cold it is, though a trip to Maine one time definitely tested my limits. A little too late, a relative of ours who used to live there shared that “You can always tell Maine tourists – they’re the ones going in the ocean!” But I can (somewhat fearlessly) run into any ocean, like my dad always used to do, and just get it over with fast.

Getting back to otters, I like both the river and sea varieties but the river ones seem to have the most fun of all, sliding down those muddy river banks.

So I guess I ‘otter’ end this blog now before I go ‘too far off the deep end’ about this. But in closing, I think it’s important (or at least fun) to surround yourself with things that make you happy. When I wear my ‘lucky otter socks’ I pretty much have an added spring in my step (plus I have received some really good news at times on those days, which I attribute to said socks). My otter calendar drove my family a little nuts one year (not to be ‘species-ist’ but they did start to look all the same over 12 months). And, as you can see from the other images in this blog, I have a fair collection of ‘otter swag’ I keep here and there, just as a friendly reminder of my marine mammal friends.

(Don’t get me started on puffins either, whose habitats I gladly support every time I eat Barbara’s Puffins cereal. I also collect the box tops to ‘adopt’ them. Or my Penguin Swatch!)