A Stork Apology

Just so we are all on the same page to start out, a few words about storks. I suspect that there are a few of you out there already wondering if this blog is meant to be a chronicle of an imminent parenting endeavor, and a few others, who happen to know about my secret pregnancy phobia, guffawing at the irony. To set the record straight, our association with storks has other sources though - it all began soon after our wedding, when we moved in to a lovely apartment on the top floor of a duplex, high above the surrounding city and accessible through a rickety staircase. Before we knew it, or my phobia had time to get activated, the place named itself the Storks' Nest. As it turns out, it had great insight in doing so... Did you know, for instance, that:

• The white stork is the national bird of Poland, my home country. Along with other Slavic nations, Poles believe that storks bring peace and happiness to the family on whose house they nest.
  
• One of the largest stork populations is found in Ukraine, where the two of us first met. There, it is associated with the start of a new family in a new home (!)
• Storks are migrant birds - they spend part of the year in Europe, and travel to more tropical parts in the winter. While Minnesota is in no way a tropical destination, the element of migration is a constant in our world - one of us is and always will be living in a foreign country.
  
• Is it any wonder then that Pithagoras thought that storks impersonate the souls of dead poets??