Otter Love

I have a bucket list.

There are really only two things on that bucket list.

When I was in middle school, one of the substitute teachers said we should write goals. So I wrote down three goals. One was to save $25 a month and the other was to see the aurora borealis, ie the northern lights. I don't remember what the third one was, lol.

So, imagine my surprise when I graduated college and got my first paycheck - I set up an automatic transfer of $25 into a savings account! Item number one already accomplished!

Of course throughout the years I've increased that amount (and also increased the number of savings accounts money goes to, lol), so I have far exceeded that initial goal.

The second one, to see the northern lights, I have not done yet. I hope someday to maybe take an Alaskan cruise in honor of my Mom, and at the same time fill one of her bucket list items (to see whales) and also mine (to see the aurora borealis). How cool would that be?

I would say the other thing I added to my bucket in the last 5 years or so was to swim with otters.

I found a place in Oklahoma that you could do that, but I was never able to get there. Last year I found a spot in Galveston, Texas, but didn't get there either. And then one day in January I saw an ad on Facebook that they had an "otter experience" at an aquarium-type place - that was literally about 10 miles from my house.

While the aquarium-type place was literally in a mall, I was still excited.

However, there was no swimming. there was no holding the otter in my arms like I imagined, etc. I was disappointed in the "experience," and I still some day hope to actually somehow swim with otters, but my great friend Janet and I did get to hang out in a large caged-in area with an otter for about an hour! We watched it play with rocks, it roll colored rocks on my boots, and it played with its friend, Ernie.

xxxx

I had imagined there would be more otters and more interactive, but it turns out this was a rescue otter and he wasn't yet acclimated for humans to even pick him up. But it was still cool to know I completed an item I had been thinking about for years from my bucket list. And the otter really took a liking to me, like he knew just how important our meeting was!

Here is a video of him rolling a rock on my boots!

If I was to ever be able to come back as an animal, it would be an otter. They get to swim all day, are very curious, are very smart, they're very loving to their families, and they seem to have fun all day long! And I see myself as enjoying that kind of life. Who wouldn't want to float on their backs and swim all day long with loved ones?

It's actually very weird to fulfill a bucket list item, I guess because it was on there for so long, so therefore it meant the world to me! And I was lucky that my friend Janet was able to join me and share the memory.

There are other things in the last few years I have wanted to do/experience (maybe yearned to do). So, I have added them to my bucket list.  (smile)