Oarfish are our Friends

1860 illustration of an Oarfish, washed up dead on a beach in Bermuda (copyright free image, from Wikimedia Commons).

I have had a fascination with oarfish (ooh, and coelacanths!) ever since I first saw old b/w photos and illustrations of them when I was in the fabulous Mr Kovach's fifth grade class, circa 1979.

The only reasons I do not have an oarfish are that they are huge, at an average 30 feet long, and they live so deep in the ocean, a bathysphere thingy is needed to find them. Now, I don't have a coelacanth for a host of reasons, bizarre and mindane, which would take too long to get into here. Suffice it to say, it's mainly all the fault of my husband, to whom we in this house affectionately refer as The Pet Hater, and also The Grumple Puss.

While we know far too much about some species such as the Giant Panda, mostly because those are fuzzy and cute, not too much was known about oarfish habits before one was seen and studied swimming alive, in 2001.

The oarfish seems to range all over the world, which is why it's weird to me we know so little about it. It's been found off the coast of England, the Eastern, Southern and Western US, in the waters off most Scandinavian countries, and near Bermuda, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Because it is rarely seen at depths we humans swim or fish regularly, mostly they are studied in all their weirdly glory when they wash ashore dying, or are beached already dead. They've been dissected, poked and prodded in the usual way of scientists getting at the heart of things by killing and tearing them apart, but I suspect we'd know much more about them if they were edible, or their skin could be made into shoes.

They're not, and it can't, so we usually just let the bigger ones, called King of the Herring, go about their deep sea business completely unmolested. The smaller versions sometimes are eaten, being a kind of bonefish similar to herring--thus the moniker for the giant ones--but from what I hear, their gelatinous flesh and bony bodies taste pretty icky.

In the last few years the biggest of these Regalecus glesne seem to be showing up dead all over the place, and in numbers that are starting to scare people like me, who genuinely care for them whether food species be they, or not. We don't know what they are, or do, for the most part, and so all this carnage, origin unknown, disturbs us.

Here's a photo of a dead one, discovered in December, 2010:

Photo credit: Darrell Rae, LA Times

I soooo want to be that kid in the picture. He's pretty cool, too: he was the only person, at 7 years old, on that beach who knew what it was when it washed up in Malibu, California.

As these things, go that one is pretty small, most likely a juvenile. I think a cold water version of one of these, an adult, may be where The Loch Ness Monster story comes from; ancient sailors have thought they were mermaids or sea dragons, which, once you've seen one, makes perfect sense.

Interesting article on sea monsters and their myth-origins, here:

http://www.marinebio.org/oceans/mysteries

My son now has Oarfish Love, or as we say here, oarfishlove, with the letters all bunched up together, really fast. He also has a thing for mud and lungfish, which can breath air on land, or in water, and sleep for a really long time. Some of them "walk" on their fins too, which like the oarfish, freaks and fascinates him equally.

How could you not love these kinds of things? Yes, it's easier to love fluffy things with baby faces--and carry them in bags, dressed in baby-like clothes. But, and I am truly not as arrogant as this next will sound, I do think it takes a more mature person to love what is traditionally thought of as an ugly, or troublesome, thing.

So, people who love hairless cats and dogs, good on you, for being capable of grown-up love. You too, sloth and moray eel lovers! Join my club!

O Come, All Ye Yodas

Alex asked for a real tree this year, and this being our family's only Christmas in any place we've lived or called home since 2006, we got one----and a lot more, besides.

He's always had a tree, real, resin or representative. In Poland, the ficus in the living room was packed full of homemade ornaments, topped with a taped-together Burger King crown. At home, he had a fully loaded, 8-foot fake one. And we visually borrowed our friends' trees when we stayed with them, in the intervening years.

Our plans to go to Brugge took a nosedive due to weather. Not surprising, in a country where airport admins forget to order enough plane de-icer and runway salt, with the result being the airport closes for two days during the holiday rush--and takes 8 days after that to get everybody where they need to go. After they shut down the trains in France and Germany, then closed the tunnels leading to most major Belgian cities, we chose to just give up and stay home.

Staycations aren't all that, and I finally get what the Donner Party and their eating habits were all about. 10 inches of snow + everything closed for days + no one you know for thousands of miles = you would eat other people, especially those who anny you, too.

This Nordic Spruce Alex helped us pick currently leans pretty far to the left. Like us. Not being from Sweden or Alaska, or skilled in the butchering of trees (or moose), we had a little trouble with the axe. Frantic chopping and machine gun-fast cursing took place cautiously with Alex in the room, so I'm surprised it's still standing--especially after that last communique from the husband of "Let go right now, if you don't want to lose that hand."

That tree tried to kill me twice, once with my tree allergy, heretofore unknown, and then when the "sleeping" spider in the wooden log stand that came with the tree, decided to go walk-about and bare its ugly fangs, then hide for three terrifying hours where it couldn't be seen. My arachnophobia went into overdrive, and I almost had a heart attack--until I splattered it with my boot, a book, a TV remote, a broom, and an orange.

We also have a nativity scene since Alex, this family's only Christian, decided that we needed one. His Little People child's set is in storage in PA, and he loves that Mr Bean dinosaur one so much that we watch it on Youtube every year. My baby wants a nativity? All the stores are closed? Can't drive anywhere, anyway? et Voila! The Star Wars Nativity!

I helped him make the manger, and stuck the foil on to make it sparkly, but he did the rest. Go, Boodle! He chose a matryushka keychain doll for Mary and Yoda for the lead wise man. Of course. A Krakow dragon stands in for the camel. There is no cow. I nixed the Chik-fil-A stuffed one, because it kept falling over and knocking the baby Jesus (a plastic alien from a Lego set---oh, the irony) out of his little pretzel-filled bed.

I like his ornaments and his homemade bird feeder, made out of a painted, upturned clay plant pot, and his glittered candle. And, how half the ornaments he puts on end up in one small cluster, down low where he can see. It's all right in your face when you walk in the door, just the way it should be.

I am saddened, and frightened, by orderly, meticulously themed trees in people's family homes, when they have really small kids still into all the magic. Aren't you? It's tragic that their stuff isn't "good enough" to put on display, and has to be hidden away to make the room "look good." All that arranged perfection seems passive-aggressive and a touch psychotic, to me.

I look askance at people who employ present wrappers and professional tree decorators, too. If you do that, you probably also refuse to hang your kids' artwork on your fridge, or let them bake holiday cookies or pastry with you because it's "too messy" and don;t do finger paints of play doh days with them, either. All of which makes you both crazy AND mean.

Merry Christmas! Vrolijk Kerstfeest! Joyeaux Noel!

6 Months and Counting

Been feeling down for a long, long, time, and the first clue that things were going south should have been that I just couldn't face writing. Anything.

We moved here to Brussels, Belgium on August 1 and no one but an idiot could believe it's been all bad. True, I've been shocked silly by the prices, taxes, noise, crime, graffiti and dirt, but I've made my home in far worse places than this. This is paradise to lots of people, but even they complain about everything on my ick list, and more. Yes, the coffee (Douwe Eggberts) and chocolate (Leonidas and Neuhaus) are as good as they say, and yes, there are more Western products here (Thanks, Stone Manor and The American Food Store).

But you need to factor in that the national character is best described as dour and picky, plus I'd add being absolutely unable to use a turn signal while driving, to really understand. And then there's the daily, sometimes THRICE daily, bouts of rain.

Facebook posts don't happen to count as writing, nor do grocery and school reminder lists. My best work, lately, has been on the family's daily calendar, which ought to tell you how far down in the dumps most days have found me. Writing was always my way out of a mess, whether of my own or someone else's making. I'm not sure when I decided that it should stop, if it just happened without my noticing, the sky fell in on my head, or what.

I'm slowly discovering that taking time away from the truth is for me worse than facing it head on, though I've never been a real big fan of either thing.

So. Here's to feeling better, writing as therapy, and getting back into the groove. I'm even hoping to get out and about to get a fabulous Atomium picture to use as my new masthead, when it stops raining. IF it ever stops raining. Oh, how I hope that it would simply stop raining!

I have a feeling, like finally getting closets in this absurdly Hobbit-like place, or not falling down the stairs on a weekly basis, my hope may be one more pipedream, gone.

Magical Thinking

I wouldn't post my London pictures during the official mourning for the Polish dead; I believed that if I did it might bring more bad luck.

I won't cross under a ladder, walk in front of a black cat, and still hold my breath 'til every graveyard, night or day, is passed. Thank you, To Kill a Mockingbird, for that last.

I broke up with a boyfriend who meant a lot to me once, because I believed that if I hurt him right at the beginning, nothing could hurt either one of us as badly again. uh.....whaaaa? Well, it made perfect sense to me at the time. A kind of innoculation against sadness, if you took a bit of the live virus first.

Every brand new car I have ever had was wrecked--one to smithereens and bits--not by me, but by a boyfriend or husband who happened to be driving it. Time for a shout-out to Tony, who wrecked my SUV in Alabama as we were driving away from my sister's place, at Christmas, while still in her driveway for heaven's sake! New rule set in stone for the Pikos Family: NO EATING OF PRINGLES IN A MOVING CAR, EVER, EVER, AGAIN. Long story.

I watched a friend's kitten she just purchased so it would be a surprise for her kids, and while I had it, it got sick and one day before Christmas, it died. It ate an upholstered button off my couch and got some sort of obstruction, apparently. I wasn't home when it did that, to stop it, and no one knew about it until after the children had been presented with said pet, fell in love with it, named it Whiskers, etc.

I used to say stupid things when I took tests, like "I failed," before even sitting down to write, thinking once that was said out loud and was gotten out of the way, a reverse sort of magic would be worked and ensure my grade would be okay. Note: they always were okay, they were always the best, actually, no danger of anything else, and yet...I often find myself wondering if that was ME doing that, or that little wish-curse.

I always thought when it came to this sort of thinking, that if you planned for and imagined the worst, the next thing to happen could only be miles better than that. Talk about your low expectations.

I got out of that habit a long time ago. Okay, just last week. But really have been trying to tell myself I deserve happiness and the good things I earn or that happen, by whatever means, to come my way. Which turns out to be harder, actually, than you might think.

Not sure what this proves about the "Law of Attraction", but Tony is now stuck in the US because of an idiotic Icelandic volcano with an unpronounceable name; my good friend had a miscarriage; another's mom died; a girlfriend is stuck in London having gone there for a surgery consult, instead ending up both with surgery and being stuck there because of that same damned volcano; I broke my cell phone, again, our internet is down and here that is a hugely bug problem; finally, worst of all--my kid and his friend (daughter of said London woman, hanging here with us until mom returns) watched a beautiful, magnificent bird hop into our path, warble sadly and die right in front of our eyes. It took 2 hours to calm them both down plus 1 more for me to stop crying after bravely holding my shit together, for them.

That little black cloud I used to say followed me everywhere? I think it's back.

Tragedy and Tears

We arrived home from our family trip to England on April 10th, at the same hour the tragic deaths of The President and First Lady of The Republic of Poland were announced. Mariusz, a driver from Alex's school, recognized us at the airport taxi stand and he was the one who broke the news.

But we had no idea what had actually happened, as so many wildly exaggerated rumors were floating around. "The Russians finally did it--they killed our President," or "Turkish terrorists blew up the plane, and that's why the EU shouldn't let Turkey in", being most commonly repeated. It became a mockery of the simple tragedy that we eventually learned had occurred:

While headed to the airport nearest Smolensk, Russia, on their way to the Katyn memorial for official ceremonies there, President Jaroslaw Kaczynski's plane clipped some trees at the end of the tarmac, going down on the runway in heavy fog.

Many influential Poles, with important cultural, historical and political roles to fulfill, were presumed lost in an instant. And while fatalities couldn't be calculated at the time that we first heard, eyewitness accounts were pretty clear: no one on that plane could have survived the fireball which ignited after it fell.

People were crying openly in the streets, as was our cabdriver, who was trying to wipe his eyes, blow his nose, talk to us in broken English and valiantly keep his car on the road.

Alex misunderstood the words, "The President is dead." He has a semi-obsessive thing for Obama; he thought that's who we were talking about. He tried hard to listen through his tears, but of course things still weren't ok, even when he finally understood. How could they be? An important person that a lot of people cared about was gone, forever, and he sensed the shock and fear and disbelieving grief all that day, in the faces of friends we would later see and meet.

Poland was hurting, having lost their leader, and despite Kaczynski being hugely unpopular with a large number of them, her people felt alone, and rudderless and sad. The office of the President was being respected and mourned, if not the actual man.

More sorrow, once we arrived at the house: Alex's doggie friend Max back home, a loveably lazy, sweetheart of a Lab, the only dog Alex could be around for any length of time without screaming and running away, was dead. We piled it on by accidentally reminding him during dinner that Tony was leaving the next day, for a 7 day trip to the States.

A Polish friend came over and the story began to unfold; the heads of the Polish national bank, Navy and Army Chiefs of Staff, and several Members of Parliament had been on the flight. The depth of the pain felt by people we knew, and the true scale of the loss, simply grew and grew.

Feeling badly already, for our friends and for Poland, but also for our son, we felt powerless with no way to help. The crash site was too big and complex, it would take time, lots of time, to know what happened and make any sense of it. The wrangling between the Poles and Russians over who was best qualified, or deserved the right to investigate the crash, started up. Anger mounted, and everything came to a halt.

The Katyn tragedy of 1940, so long covered up, was supposed to be fully aired by this memorial visit, and by Russia's public apology and admission of their wrongdoing. Most people know of the rather reserved general apologies made, for the killings of 20,000 Polish miltary officers and enlisted men of the Polish Reserve Corps; they took place in 1990, and again recently, this year. But not all Poles did, and those who did, did not believe those apologies went far enough. Their anger over the delays in investigating the air crash, steadily grew worse and worse. They saw propaganda or cover-up, or deliberate stalling, in each and every thing.

No one seems able to see any of the events surrounding Katyn clearly, to grieve it and the aftermath of the tragedy then, or now, in a way those who died there deserve.

Truly sad was the disbelief and finger pointing which surrounded the news that it was likely that the Polish pilots disregarded orders to fly to a more distant airport, as their first two attempts at landing took place in weather deemed too dangerous. The working theory was that, exacerbated by the President's or their on-board Commander's need to be seen as in charge on this day of all days, the pilots were too inexperienced to recognize that their third attempt would fail.

So much of Polish history is like this, oftentimes preventable, foreseeable, painful and sad, with no real winner in the end. Even when they win, there's no feeling of triumph, or sense that they've come out ahead. I see more pain in Poland's future, I can't help it. As any Pole will tell you, it's just the way it always is.

Learn more about the 1940 tragedy at Katyn:

See the article at www.cia.gov in the CSI Library pages, titled 'The Katyn Controversy: Stalin's Killing Field,' by Benjamin Fischer

Watch the 2007 Andrzej Wajda film, 'Katyn' (in Polish with English subtitles)

Return on Investment

Health care coverage for everyone who needs it SHOULD cost more than banging blindly away at sand and camels in Afghanistan and Iraq.


I'd rather pay to keep our kids healthy and walking upright on US soil, than pay snipers to plant someone else's child in a far-off patch of dirt.


ROI, people. ROI.

Mussels in Brussels, Part II

We're going to Brussels for the next 2 years. The contract's been signed and the ink is dry, so they can't very well take it back now.

Besides the obvious advantages (a bigger expat community and more Volcano Company* employees) they have things I consider equally important: Chinese food! Chocolate chip cookies! Ginger ale!

OH MY GOD. I just thought of something and I can't seem to catch my breath. They have all of this AND normal American electric clothes dryers there?

I love Krakow and I will miss it, but July can't come fast enough.



* a pseudonym-or would that more properly be called an alias or an anonym?