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My, What Big Eyes You Have!

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The latest word from the murky depths of the ocean is that the Colossal Squid has eyeballs the size of banjos. That is a surprise.

First of all, I didn’t know there was such a thing as the Colossal Squid – I assumed “Giant” was the biggest size they came in, but no. The Giant Squid is dainty compared to the Colossal Squid, though they are both larger than the Ample Squid, the Full Figured Squid and the Voluptuous Squid.

And no other creatures on Earth have such generous amounts of eyeball acreage as these Plus Sized Squids. They live in the deepest, darkest part of the sea, so it makes sense that they’d need bigger blinkers to take in more of the sparse supply of light. But a scientist quoted by the Christian Science Monitor says these vast baby blues are unusual – there are diminishing returns once one’s headlights get larger than an orange.

Good to know the mammoth squid contingent has a rebellious nature, but where does That leave us?

We humans have a fondness for big-eyed animals, judging from the number of watery, pleading looks you see on the faces of online kittens, owls, lemurs, tarsiers, and Marty Feldman, of course. And yet something tells me very few people are likely to be charmed by the biggest eyes on earth, those pleading peepers of the not-so-cuddly, but deserving-of-your-love denizens of the deep, the totally misunderstood Colossal Squid.

Too bad. So for St. Patrick’s Day, an eyeball salute to our friends who inhabit the darkest corners of the ocean floor.

When Squiddly eyes are smiling,
They see near a hundred yards.
And when Squiddly eyes are laughing,
‘Tis because they’ve read your cards.
And when Squiddly eyes are happy,
They are far removed from day,
And when Squiddly eyes are squinting,
Sure, ’tis ’cause they froze that way.

How have you adapted to your environment?

45 thoughts on “My, What Big Eyes You Have!”

  1. I’ve adapted to MN winters by using an electrically heated mattress pad to keep my feet from freezing on cold nights. I also wear fingerless gloves during the day in winter when I’m in my home office or anywhere else that’s cooler than about 70 degrees. Poor circulation sucks. But hey, it’s cheaper than moving to Arizona.

    Chris

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      2. Igor: Dr. Frankenstein…
        Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: “Fronkensteen.”
        Igor: You’re putting me on.
        Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: No, it’s pronounced “Fronkensteen.”
        Igor: Do you also say “Froaderick”?
        Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: No… “Frederick.”
        Igor: Well, why isn’t it “Froaderick Fronkensteen”?
        Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: It isn’t; it’s “Frederick Fronkensteen.”
        Igor: I see.
        Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: You must be Igor.
        [He pronounces it ee-gor]
        Igor: No, it’s pronounced “eye-gor.”
        Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: But they told me it was “ee-gor.”
        Igor: Well, they were wrong then, weren’t they?

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  3. Well, today we demonstrated our adaptation to our community environment and butchered another hog and helped our fellow butchers make head cheese, liverwurst, and bloodwurst. Butchering your own meat is pretty common out here, I have found. I have no plans to eat any of the wursts that got made today, but it was very interesting to learn how it is done. Now I am on a quest to find some Berkshire pigs for our friend to raise for us next winter. There are very few pork producers out here, and live pigs are hard to find. I foresee a road trip to Minnesota next fall to get a few pigs.

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      1. Beware who you’re dealing with when you purchase; we have those pig rustlers in Minnesota, dontcha know.

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      2. I have met our local brand inspector, and he actually catches cattle rustlers. I don’t think they go after hog rustlers.

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  5. I don’t think I have successfully adapted to my environment at all. How can you, when it’s a hundred degrees in the summer and thirty below in the winter? I have a few compensatory strategies, most of which require monetary expenditure to employ, but that’s not really the same as adapting. Is it?

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    1. In a way, it’s adapting (a modification according to changing circumstances). We may not be able to physically change our bodies to be able to easily handle such extreme temperatures, we can use other things to help us handle the extremes. My problem is my way of adapting to hot weather is to dial down my physical activity and dial up my intake of ice cream.

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      1. It often seems to me that adapting is more of a mental thing than anything else. If you respond to difficult weather as if it were a personal outrage, you are in for a tough go of it in this climate. One of my favorite songs is John Gorka’s celebration of his former home state: “I’m from New Jersey/I don’t expect too much.”

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        1. I find coffee ice cream irresistible.

          And any decent ice cream in various flavors are good, although I’m not a fan of nuts in ice cream unless they’re nice and big, not little bits that feel like gravel. The flavor for any given day depends on my mood and what’s available.

          I’m a big fan of Izzie’s ice cream and especially enjoy their coconut and bananas foster…as well as any of their coffee ice creams or fruit sorbets.

          The chocolate ice cream at Portland Malt Shop in Duluth is very good and reasonably priced, too. Not much beats eating one of those cones while sitting by Lake Superior.

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  6. Since my environment includes a small child, part of my current adaption is to get by on less sleep, abandon plans to watch adult TV shows for another 5 years or so (at least with any sort of regularity), and become one with my living room looking like a toy box, an art supply store and someone’s book shelf exploded in it. Living with a basset hound means I have adapted to a fair amount of ambient drool (and fur). I have not adapted to the extremes in temperature our fair state is capable of, even though I have lived here all my life. I adapt better to the extreme cold than the high humidity and heat – though maybe if I lived in a home with central air conditioning summers might be easier (not in our budget since we have radiator heat and central air means a lot of extra drilling and running stuff through walls to move the nice cold air around).

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      1. My mom and her radiator-heated house has central air, too (she’s only about a mile away, so when it’s really hot, sometimes we camp there for the day). It’s not that it’s impossible, it’s that there isn’t the room in the household budget for it at present. Someday…

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        1. This is very interesting; we don’t have AC either. And because we have electric heat we don’t have any ductwork. Ah, but our electric heat is in the ceiling… I wonder if a magnet or meter would be able to determine where, exactly, the heating wires are in the double layers of sheetrock?? (And if so, then I’m putting a ceiling fan in the middle of the living room too!)
          My parents, the last few years they lived here, did finally resort to a window AC in the bedroom window. But they didn’t leave it for us. And they didn’t have ceiling fans either. I remember hot nights them moving the bed to be between the two windows and putting the fan in the doorway trying to pull hot air out.

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    2. The key, as Holly suggest, is whether you have an attic. For several years I tried to find an affordable, effective a/c system for my home, which has radiator heat. One day a technician told me, “Too bad you don’t have an attic.” “But I have an attic.” “Oh, hey, you’re golden then!” They put the compressor in the backyard and ran shiny aluminum octopus arms all over my attic, arms that feed chilly air to cute vents in the ceiling. It cost way less than other systems that had been quoted.

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  7. As a single mom of a teeager, I’ve given up finger nail polish. It’s useless since I do about a thousand dishes a week!

    And I’m still fixated on the weather… it’s not supposed to be hot in March, but I adapted by spending the day washing the allergy covers and quilts and hanging the quilts outside to dry. Everything is back together and smells wonderful. But it’s still not supposed to be hot in March.

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      1. They’re like envelopes that completely cover the mattress, box springs and pillows – the go under the sheets. They have a barrier that supposedly dust mites can’t get through. It took years to get my allergy issues uncovered and once I got these covers, it really changed my life for the better! I take them off and wash them twice a year, but I really like to do it on nice days so I was hang the quilts outside to dry, since it’s an intensive washer/dryer day! More than you wanted to know, right? Sorry!

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        1. Not at all, I had the same question but forgot to ask you today at book club. Can you get them locally?

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        3. Yes — my first set I got from a company in NJ, but these days you can get them at Bed, Bath & Beyond and even Target!

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  8. For a complicated series of reasons, I spent 24 years living in the basement of my home . . . or I was there most of the time. The least pleasant of those reasons is that I didn’t want to irritate the woman who was upstairs, my erstwife. For all of her stellar qualities, she was also easily irritated and intimidating when annoyed. When she left I made a grand project of changing everything in the upstairs world, redecorating it extensively, until it felt like a place where I belonged. I’ve recently finished the migration up those stairs so that I now live in a world I have designed. Strange, isn’t it, how thrilling it can be to enjoy small things in life that most people take for granted, like feeling they live where they belong?

    Be well, fellow baboons, and if your aren’t currently well, get well! It is a good day to be alive.

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  9. Oy, Dale! 🙂 Where was it I read that the eyes we humans are born with are as big as they’ll ever get – no growing on that score?

    Depends by how we use the word adapt. I haven’t evolved with a little built in fan or heater on my person, but we did buy a small window A/C for the blistering hot part of the summer. And because we hate the A/C, we’ve decided to add a screen porch on the back this summer, which can also act as a sleeping porch. And it may be time to move the winter clothes out and the summer clothes into the closet, but that may be reacting rather than adapting.

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    1. I’ve heard that about the size of an infant’s eyes… which causes me to wonder what Marty Feldman must have looked like as a baby!

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  11. Renee,
    The Leprecon lighting brand is a respectable company… I’ve used a few of their smaller units. But nothing is worse than a board going out and making up it’s own cues! Good Luck to him. And hopefully he can get a shiny new board!
    Let me know if I can provide long distance support! (bkhain at aol.com)

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  12. I have a hard time adapting to any temperature above 70 degrees at any time of year and in any building. I’m hot at work all the time because the ten men like to have the heat cranked up. I wear light clothes while they huddle in their jackets. My thermostat has been turned down or off for weeks already. I’m just not compatible with hot weather. I like it cool. I have boiler/radiator heat too, and a separate A/C ventilation system. It works really well.

    I’ve failed at adapting to life in Waterville and I’m okay with that failure. At first, it seemed to be a charming and somewhat sleepy little town. Now I know that the sleepiness is chemically-induced and the intake of chemicals occurs between 12 a.m. and 4 a.m. Locals are noisy and rowdy while they’re imbibing, so it’s difficult to sleep. My eyes look a little like that colossal squid’s at about 3:30 a.m. It’s gotten a little better in my neighborhood, but chronic sleep deprivation has taken years off my life.

    The other thing I failed at adapting to in Waterville are the local politics. I will never make that switch. And if I ever start wearing camouflage clothing, please come and rescue me.

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  13. Book Club Update. I completely forgot to mention it this afternoon, but we actually have an excellent Sherlock Holmes collection here in the Twin Cities – as part of the U of M Library system. Unfortunately it’s only open Mon-Fri during the day and they recommend you call before you come. Maybe this summer we can do a field trip!

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  14. my adaptation is an evolving process that is constant in its chameleonlike demands. the winter summer thing is no sweat what else are you gonna do? hot ya… cold ya… for those in florida thats like hot ya really hot ya really really hot and the roof blew off , ya… weather is a piece of cake. it the stuff that i should be able to have a little control over that drives me nuts, where the heck did lactse intolerence come from, gluten free is a good idea these days i hate this. my ability to hit the diet that allows me to not feel like a bloated oaf has me wishing i had never met my first potato chip. high blood pressure out of left field, what the heck did i get out of my chair and come into this room for? for crying out loud. i am losing my mind. no time like the present but what was i gonna do with it again? that little hitch in my getalong has me getting from here to there in time but its not the same time it used to take. you get used to it and thats all there is. learn to live with it and the reality of today
    a shadow of my former self is better than the alternative but still takes a ittle getting used to. i am getting there. .

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