A few quick things

Posted on November 19, 2014 by luckyotter

For those of you who care, my screen/browser problem is fixed! I didn’t do anything to fix it, but it just fixed itself!

2 articles on the agenda for tonight (if I have time after my RCIA class):

Sam Vaknin, self-identified narcissist and author of the book “Malignant Self-Love” and subject of the film “I, Psychopath” is a fascinating character and my blog wouldn’t be complete without an article about him. He is mentioned in the Info and Support tab, however. Narcissist or not, his book about people like himself has been helpful to many people.

I promised a “family album” of my son’s photos, since I did one for my daughter. Uploading pictures takes more time, so that might have to wait until tomorrow.

Have a great day!

I have a confession!

Posted on November 17, 2014 by luckyotter

Maybe this sounds, um, narcissistic, but I want to see one of my articles on Freshly Pressed. I wonder if and when that will ever happen. If it ever happens, I’ll be over the moon!

Restaurant Service Opinions

Posted on November 17, 2014 by luckyotter

The blogger who wrote this article (it’s the only article in their blog) has made some incendiary remarks to commenters in my article “Restaurant Customers who Don’t Tip” and has even resorted to namecalling and insulting my readers. This blogger evidently has issues with restaurant servers and really shouldn’t be eating out, since someone like this is unlikely to ever leave a restaurant happy, and probably makes both wait staff and management miserable with their nitpicky demands.

Although I welcome dissenting opinions on my blog, trollish behavior is never acceptable, and I have warned this user that any further trollish comments will be edited or removed. I want to keep a peaceful website.

Out of curiosity, I clicked on Spring1’s profile and found their blog with its single article. I was shocked at the venom spewed toward restaurant servers and thought it should be called out, so I’m reblogging it. I find it interesting that it’s their first article and has 112 comments but not one Like.

I hope I’m not opening a can of worms here. Until I published my article about customers who don’t tip, I had no idea this was such a controversial issue.

Springs1's Blog

http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/one-hundred-things-restaurant-staffers-should-never-do-part-one/

I have some comments about this blog and since on that blog they are no longer excepting comments, I would like to see if anyone agrees or disagrees with the comments I have for it

I agree with these:

“24. Never use the same glass for a second drink.”

YET, servers all the time pour tea from the pitchers when they can get you a fresh glass with FRESH ICE(not watered down) and not some tea in the glass sweetened already. The servers should get you a new slice of lemon(if you want lemon with your tea that is), served ONLY on the rim of the glass NOT EVER in the glass as the seeds can come loose in the tea, and a new glass of tea. NEVER should the server pour at your table, especially risking spilling it on the table.

Also, even for soft drinks, sometimes some…

View original post 1,047 more words

Can I do it? Can I do it?

Posted on November 16, 2014 by luckyotter

“I think I can. I think I can.”
–The Little Engine who Could

Although my blog has been definitely picking up (a couple of my articles even have been appearing on PAGE ONE of Google!!!), September 21st is still my “Best Day Ever”–the day my “I’m Frustrated” rant was reblogged by OM at Harsh Reality and I was swarmed with new viewers and followers (354 views that day to be exact). It was a heady day, especially because I was new at this and had only been blogging for 11 days. Prior to that I had a pitiful 12 followers and almost no comments or views (and that’s why I was so frustrated and wrote that rant).

This month, I’ve noticed my views have been increasing a lot. If I knew how to “screencap” the graph on my stats page, I would. But now I’m getting views and comments even on days I haven’t posted anything new, and I’m getting more views every day. So far today I have a whopping 244 views, which is the most I’ve had since September 21. That’s exciting!

I’m hoping to beat my “best day ever.” I still have a few hours left. I wonder if I can do it?

Woohoo! 200 followers!

Posted on November 16, 2014 by luckyotter

WordPress Classic Editor vs. the “new, improved” Editor

Posted on November 14, 2014 by luckyotter

Yeah. I made this. It sucks. That thing that looks like a dandelion drawn by a 5 year old is supposed to be a ninja star weapon. Oh, well.

For some reason, WordPress keeps switching me over to the new editor (the beep beep boop one) and I have to manually switch it back to classic, which I like much better.

First of all, I think the classic editor is more readable. Second, my photos automatically resize themselves to the size I specified in my settings. The new editor doesn’t do that (maybe there’s a glitch), and I wind up having to upload my photos to Photobucket, and then resize them there, and that is time consuming. But the worst thing I noticed is the new editor doesn’t always save my changes. If I go in to edit a post again (I usually edit a post anywhere between 5 and 10 times, sometimes even more for longer posts), all my previous changes are lost. I finally figured out if I use the classic editor, my photos default to the correct size and I don’t have to worry about my changes being lost. Easy peasy!

I just wish I knew how to keep the classic editor from switching to the new one. I really don’t know what’s better about it. I really don’t need juvenile prompts like “Your post is lookin’ great!” and “Beep Beep Boop.” I’m not in kindergarten. And I will be the judge of whether my post looks great or not.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Remember New Coke? It was an epic fail. Everyone still wanted “Classic Coke.”

What do other bloggers prefer? The new editor or the classic mode?

Who is the real “Lucky Otter” and why you should care

Posted on November 13, 2014 by luckyotter

Last Christmas, I sent my son, who loves otters, one of these little critters I found online.

I thought he was so cute I ordered another one for myself. My son named his “Alfonso” and he has actually dressed him in little clothes and then tweets the photos from different locations. Yeah, he’s a total dork. Here’s “Alfonso” protecting a smartphone.

Touch this phone and I’ll rip your face off.

Yeah, I know. It sort of reminds me of the guy who kidnapped someone’s garden gnomes, took them on a trip around the world, and sent the owners photos of the stolen gnomes in exotic settings such as the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, London’s Big Ben, The Great Wall of China, and under the arches at the Mickey D’s in Podunk, Iowa.

Don’t step any closer. It might be possessed.

So anyway. I couldn’t think of a name for my guy, but there’s a restaurant in town named “Lucky Otter.” Otters are not on the menu, but Cali-style burritos are. The logo, inexplicably, is two conjoined dachsunds that look vaguely reminiscent of “CatDog,” of the ’90s era Nickelodeon cartoon.

The important thing is, my fuzzy little guy is otterly delighted not only with his name, but to have an entire blog named after him.

Holy shirt!

Posted on November 11, 2014 by luckyotter

Be honest. Do any of you women suffer from holy shirt syndrome? I have a lot of thin cotton tee shirts, and every last one of them has an array of tiny little holes right in the front at the bottom, over the belly button area.

This is a huge mystery to me. My first thought was clothes moths, but that couldn’t be it, because why would the clothes moths only attack the same area of every tee shirt? Besides, I haven’t seen any clothes moths and none of my other clothes suffer. Belts? No, that couldn’t be it either. I never wore belts until very recently after I lost a bunch of weight because that was the only way I could get my old pants from falling off. I have had my holy shirt problem far longer than that. Someone suggested seat belts might be the culprit, but it happens even in cold weather when I’m wearing a coat and the seatbelt is not touching my tee shirt. Tucking my shirt into my pants can’t be it either because I never tuck my shirt into my pants.

Today I Googled “tiny holes at bottoms of tee shirts” and was shocked to find out this is actually a common problem and everyone else seems as mystified by it as me! For some reason I thought no one else had this problem. Anyway I found this article saying it’s caused by leaning over kitchen counters. Hmmm, I guess it’s time to start wearing an apron. Somehow I don’t believe it though. I’ve had brand new tee shirts I hung in the closet and never wore to cook anything, and somehow the holes still appear.

I don’t get it. Does anyone have a better theory of what causes this? And what can be done about it?

High anxiety

Posted on November 10, 2014 by luckyotter

I’m having one of those days again. You know, those days where you feel like all your nerves are beeping and buzzing and flashing the red DANGER sign. I deliberately stayed home from work today because I felt like sleeping in (and honestly, I wasn’t feeling well–I think I’m coming down with a cold, the flu, or maybe Ebola). But once I got over the anxiety-inducing hurdle of actually calling work, I curled back into my nice warm bed, expecting to drift into pleasant dreams, but instead I couldn’t go back to sleep! This happens A LOT when I try to relax: my mind starts racing and my heart begins to palpitate, while all my morbid, negative thoughts of unnamed disaster start to overtake my brain. This always happens, especially when I’m trying to relax.

When I was young I never had this problem. The 20-something version of myself could languish in bed until 2 PM or even later, with nary a sense of guilt or anxiety. I would drift into the most incredible, lucid-like dreams like someone on a mushroom high. I woke up ready to take on the world. But things have changed. As I’ve grown older, my attempts to sleep in just make me feel like I deserve to be punished and my body responds in kind. What’s up with that?

So I finally gave up trying to get back to sleep. I untangled my legs from under the covers, stood on the cold floor and walked to the kitchen where I made a strong pot of my favorite hazelnut coffee (I’m weird–coffee sometimes makes me sleepy) with cream and no sugar, put on some socks and opened my laptop. I read some blogs and blogged a little myself, but the nervousness was still there.

Around 11:30, I could no longer stand laying around in the clothes I sleep in (last night it was a tee shirt with threadbare drawstring pajama pants with Lucky Charms logos and leprechauns all over them) and got dressed in real clothes. But I still feel that unnamed sense of dread. My palms feel sweaty and my heart is in my throat. Should I go for a drive? Mow the grass (which is still overgrown and weedy looking even though it’s been cold)? Read a good novel? Cook something scrumptious that involves plenty of chocolate and butter? Arrange all my books in order by color to make my bookshelves look like a rainbow? I just don’t know. Now I wish I went to work today. I don’t know why I take these “mental health days” when I always wind up feeling guilty for doing so and crazier than if I’d just gone to my crummy job.

The crazy outfit I slept in last night. Maybe going to dreamland with kittens and leprechauns is the stuff of nightmares.

Am I the only one? Do any of you suffer anxiety and guilt when you take a day off from work when you’re not really sick? What do you do to combat your nerves?

Post #100: my surviving book collection.

Posted on November 10, 2014 by luckyotter

Books and reading have always been my passion. As long as I can remember I always had my nose stuck in a book. I actually used to “cut class” in third grade to go to the school library (I hated 3rd grade the most because I was not only bullied by the other kids but was also bullied by my teacher Mrs. Morse, who had it in for me through the whole year and actually encouraged the other kids to gang up on me.) Reading was my escape, my middle childhood version of creating my own imaginary friends and worlds, and I read on a 7th-8th grade level in the third grade.

My two favorite books as a child were (1) Louise Fitzhugh’s classic “Harriet the Spy” (read the book but skip the movie –Harriet is not your usual female heroine–she’s feisty, neurotic and isn’t even all that nice–she is part villain, part hero, and that makes her have so many dimensions for a kids’ book) and (2) Scott O’Dell’s breathtaking survival story, “The Island of the Blue Dolphins”. How I longed, like the young heroine in that beautiful story, to be stranded for 18 years on a desert island, swim with the dolphins, commune with nature and wildlife, fashion my own hut and raft for fishing, and most of all, spend almost two decades not having to deal with people at all. .

These two bookshelves pictured below contain almost all my remaining books. I keep a few others in the ~~reading room~~ bathroom and a few more on a smaller shelf next to my bed. I used to read an average of 3 books a week but lately I haven’t been reading nearly so much, because I do so much reading on line now.

Yes, that is a Salvador Dali inspired melting clock dripping off one of the shelves on the left hand side. It was given to me as a gag gift last Christmas, but it was the perfect gift for a person like me who loves the random and unexpected when it comes to gifts. The clock works too! (Click photo to enlarge).

I used to own more than 3,000 titles (hell, I could have opened my own little bookstore!) but lack of space and financial necessity obliged me to sell most of the books or give them away to charity. There’s a few books I regret giving up; here are most of the remaining titles that either didn’t sell, or I refused to sell.

And now….(drum roll please!)…I have reached 100 posts. 🙂