Fungal gnats -- as gross as the name suggests

Please do not look down upon me, dear readers, but I have fungl gnats.

Well, I don't have them as in "they are on my person", oh no no no! My houseplants have fungal gnats. After repotting my plants in anticipation of the growing season, I noticed what looked like fruit flies in my room. I tried some plant pest spray that we had around the house but it didn't seem to do much good. Of course my search for a solution lead me to the internet, where I very quickly learned that I (or my seven plants) have fungal gnats and that they are the result of contaminated soil.

So first off I'll like to thank Hornbach, which is the German Home Depot (not like it's just another big hardware store; it really is the Home Depot, same signs and store layout), for selling me contaminated soil. The next order of business will be to buy new soil and repot all my good friends again, which I can't really imagine they will like, since I'm sure there were just getting comfy in this soil. Oh yeah, and then there are the potatoes. In my internet search I also found a number of organic methods of pest control, one of which is to put 1/2 inch potato slices around the base of the plant. The gnats will then either lay their eggs in the potatoes or the little larvae will wiggle in there because they are potato-lovers (I'm not sure which). My job is then to throw the potato slices away each day and put new ones out, thus throwing out their eggs and halting their reproduction, at least in my room. It's a strategy similar to the Tübingen pigeon house (we got another one, so there will be another post soon!).

So that was a nice topic for a blog post . . .

Ah the joys of getting screwed over . . .

I'm an Ebay fan. I really am. Love it. Haven't had any experiences to make me want to stop hiting the Ebay. Well, what's going on at the moment could make me hate Ebay if my Ebay love wasn't so strong. (Yes, now is an appropriate time to be creeped out by how I'm talking about Ebay.)

I'm selling my computer on Ebay because it's loud and, I think, in retrospect, I was asking to much for it (Buy it now). Which is precisely why I was so surpised when someone bid on it. Let me digress . . .

If you are an Ebay buyer, have you ever seen a message like "Won't ship to Nigeria" at the end of someone's auction? I have and I thought to myself, how sad that one bad experience is turning everyone against Nigeria. Well, I'm starting to see what they're talking about. Let us return to the story . . .

So I was surpised that someone decided to "Buy it now" especially since there was the option to suggest a price. Shortly after the auction ended I got an e-mail from a "woman" in Canada who bought the computer for her step son in Nigeria. I'll have to admit, she seemed surprisingly well-informed. She knew she needed my BLZ (German bank code) and IBAN and SWIFT numbers and she knew that I should look at deutschepost.de for shipping costs to Nigeria. So I went to the website and the post office. I got the shipping estimates for her. I got all the silly international banking numbers for her. And today her "bank" called me, probably from their cell phone in Nigeria from the sounds of it.

"We sent you an e-mail"

The e-mail was from the woman's address, not a bank's.

"No no, just listen. We have the payment here and just need your shipping receipts in order to transfer your money to you. You will receive your money in three weeks."

I think he meant was "We'll be long gone in three weeks, living it up with your computer."

Also strange was the fact that the "woman's" name had changed in the third e-mail.

Alright, so it's prety obvious now that this is a scam and, because I'm not a moron, nothing will happen to me. I'll even be able to get my listing fees back from Ebay. Pretty much the only thing that will happen is that I may start writing "Won't ship to Nigeria" at the end of my listings.

Obama is rockin' the Reggaeton and other thoughts on candidates

Yes folks, in case you haven't heard, Barack has his own Reggaeton song and you can listen to it at Amigos de Obama, but you do have to register first.

By the way, not that it is at all relevant to his bid for president, but did you know that Barack Obama has a lovely singing voice? While listening to the NPR Day to Day podcast, I heard him trying to sing in Spanish and while his Spanish was pretty pitiful, I was impressed by his ability to project and carry a tune.

Another bit of intereting candidate information regards Ron Paul and this does have to do with his candidacy. Last week I was again listening to the NPR Day to Day podcast and heard an interview with James Kirchick, in which he discussed his most recent article, Angry White Man , in the New Republican. In both his article and the interview, Kirchick discussed the newsletters that Ron Paul distributed monthly starting in 1978. "What they[the articles in the newsletter] reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays."(Kirchick, 2008, Angry White Man). Paul denies that he wrote offensive articles, stating that he didn't actually approve everything that went into the publication. But really, who puts their name on a publication and then doesn't give a hoot what kind of bigotry goes into it? Not really the level of responsibility that most people are looking for in a president. Since publication of the article, Ron Paul has "disavowed moral responsibility" for the newsletters published under his name. That's just ridiculous if you ask me.

So, that's the end of my random thoughts on presidential candidates. Back to work.

Back in the classroom

Last night I started teaching again. I hadn't taught in about six months and was nervous. I'm not even really sure what I was nervous about . . . failing I guess. Isn't that what one normally gets nervous about?

At any rate, last night kind of sucked. For some reason there was another class in our classroom (booking fluke) and we had to hold class in this large lecture hall of sorts. Not everyone had the same book because the institute I work for, for some stupid reason, uses different versions of the same book for different classes, meaning that some people had the 2nd edition and some had the 3rd. This does, believe it or not, make a pretty big difference. So I abandonned my lesson plan (I also had what was eventually deemed the 'wrong' book) and winged it with the 'right' book. This lead to my leason being a little more frantic than usual and I think I overwhelmed my beginners. I think I also didn't realize just how beginner some of them are. At the end of class students started complaining about the book and about the padagogic principles of the book, uuugggghhhh.

Upon leaving, I ran into my friend Monica, another long-time teacher who had just finished an equally trying 1.5 hours "in the pit". We walked part of the way home together and bitched about trials of teaching. It helped.

And this morning I taught my seniors beginner class and, to be honest, I rocked it. This seems to be an ongoing trend in my seniors' classes. I'm not sure what it is, but we have a certain affinity for each other. So I'm going to take my senior confidence back into the classroom with me tomorrow when I teach the group from yesterday again. They will be wowed, oh yes, they will.

Pine Cone-ette: The importance of the state brewery

This is an ordinary bottle of Germany beer. I'd say it's one of the most popular beers to drink around here. It's reasonably priced, has a pleasant, mild flavor, and the label kind of makes me laugh with it's strange, geometrical lady and pine cones. And another thing that is cool is that it's called Pine Cone (Tannen Zäpfle, well it's a regional diminuitve, but that's another story all together). I guess that in reality it's called Pine Cone-ette, which is nothing short of great.

And wait, this beer gets even better! Take a close look at the picture below (I hope that your screen is bigger than mine so that you can see the details. Due to some computer selling and buying, I'm not using my computer right now and don't have photo software.) At the bottom of the bottle you will see the word "Staatsbrauerei" which means "State Brewery". Yes, my friends, this beer is produced at the Baden State Brewery. Baden is the region next to ours', Swabia, and together we make up the state of Baden-Wurttemberg.

What does this say about the importance of beer in Baden?

The tastes of home never tasted so good

On Saturday evening I prepared meatloaf and sweet potatoes. I can, without a doubt, say that I have never tasted anything more like home before. As I slowly and purposefully ate my meal (wouldn't want it to be gone too quickly), I was overwhelmed with the feeling of pure bliss. It was a comfort food experience, the likes of which I have never experienced.

To be honest, I do not know why I have never prepared this meal in Germany before. Meatloaf calls for mixed ground meat (1/2 pork, 1/2 beef) and that is most of what is available at the store here in the ground meat section of the store. Meatloaf calls for onion soup. Well, Knorr, the company that often makes onion soup in America is German and probably invented packaged onion soup. And really, what it comes down to, is that meatloaf is actually just "Fleischküchle" or "Frikadellen" (German version of meatloaf, pretty much the same ingredients, but made in meatball size and cooked in a pan on the stove) prepared in one big mass and done in the oven.

Any-hoo, hoorah for that delicious meal and the great feeling of home that it brought on!

The place where the books live

Today Christian asked me, "Why is it pronounced 'lye-berry' when it's spelled 'library'?"


January 22, 2008 - Post Script:

After reading the comment I got on this post, correcting that pronunciation of "library" I realized that, for those of you who don't know me, this post needs clarification. I thought it would be funnier without clarification, but whatever, you don't get it, I'm not funny, whatever.

Christian is my boyfriend. He's German and his English is excellent, which is what made it so hilarious when he asked me, with all sincerity, about the pronunciation and made this error, which children commonly make.

That's why I posted it.

Top Christmas Card of '07

I got this card from my dearest friend Zosia this Christmas season and I'm still laughing about it. What could be funnier than this alien and/or robot celebrating Christmas in space with mistletoe in hand?

Thank you Zosia for brightening every day since I received this card with your utter comedic genius (I really do look at it every day and laugh).

Hello Kitty takes a turn for the worse. Or was this always a part of her evil master plan?

While glancing at my new, rather snazzy, Google Sidebar, the headline "The Hello Kitty Assault Rifle that actually exists" caught my eye and I, of course, had to click on it. The link took me to a blog by the name of Crave, which explained how, some time back, photophopped photos of such a rifle paraded about the internet. Well, someone took their cue from those original doctored images and actually made one (I didn't actually realize that people actually made their own rifles).


So here it is in all of its totally disturbing pink glory (glory?) This has just gone to show me that gun nuts are even creepier than I had previously believed.

I really hope I don't end up on some sort of Gun Lovers hit list now . . . sorry for that morbid thought . . .

Pretty much the most resilient grandma around

Today is Thursday. Today my grandma was up at 6am, she made herself breakfast, she helped my mom feed the dogs, she put away dishes - aside from not lifting anything over 15 pounds with her left arm, she's living her normal life. Why is this of any interest to me or anyone else? Because my grandma had a modified radical mastectomy* on Tuesday.

Yup, a surgery that I thought would have her down for at least a few days barely phased her. She of course spent the day of the surgery in the hospital bed, but that was the beginning, middle and end of bed rest for her.

Yesterday my mom came into town and I was to pick her up a the airport. Of course it wasn't in the books that grandma would come, but since she was feeling so good, she decided it would be great fun to surprise my mom at the airport. I was going to go into the airport and grandma was going to wait in the car and we were looking forward to the look of surprise on her face. Now, I say that my grandma was feeling good, but I didn't realize how good until we were at the airport. I go into the airport, wait for my mom and we walk out of the airport together. Then I decide to walk to the back of the car, since you wouldn't see grandma as well until you actually got to the car, thus keeping the surprise until the last moment. Well, we walk around the back of the row of cars, look down the row, and see my grandmother - my grandmother who had a breast removed the day before! - crouched over, sneaking behind the back of the car. To clarify the image, she looked a bit like Golum from Lord of the Rings. She had been peeking out in front of the car to see if we were coming and then ran to the back when she saw us. It was pretty much the funniest thing I've seen all week and definitely assured me that grandma is doing pretty damn well.



* A modified radical mastectomy is the removal of an entire breast and the lymph nodes under the arms and is in contrast to a radical mastectomy in which the pectoral muscles under the breast are also removed. In keeping all that muscle, the patient is saved a bunch of time in physical therapy, learning to do things with a whole section of muscles missing. Modified radicals are far more common today and the traditional radical mastectomy is only performed when the cancer has spread to the surrounding area.

Back from the Love Boat, uhhh . . . I mean Peace Boat

So I finally made it back from my 3.5 week journey to Jordan and the Mediteranean region. I'm still working on getting photos together from everyone -- I forgot my camera in the US and am just collecting photos from all my friends and hoping from the best. But, just to give you a taste of what's to come, here is a picture of me with some of my fellow students on board the Peace Boat. By the was, it's harder to breathe in a kimono than you might think.

There will be more soon!

I am the auditor

I love the absurd. My lovely friends in Victoria also love the absurd, the silly, and the utterly offbeat -- that's why we are friends. So while I visited Victoria in August, it was no surprise that while at a cocktail bar, we found a drink called The Auditor. Now don't tell me you don't think this is completely silly, because it just is. It is almost as enjoyable that there is a drink above it on the menu called The Larry. I myself had to go for The Auditor, because what a better prop for posing for pictures could there ever be?

The menu.

Me--the auditor--considering the numbers.

Oh! Something is amiss! I've found some botched numbers!

Nazis suck . . . and I stole these pictures from the newspaper

So way back when in July, some Neo-Nazis decided to come to Tübingen for a rally. Why did they choose the peaceful, left-leaning university town? Because it's a peaceful, left-leaning university town. And because, much to most Tübingen residents surprise, the city is home to a prominent right-wing extremist publishing house. Probably the only intelligent thing this publishing house does it to keep a low profile.

At any rate, I had written to inform you that this rally was happening and at that time promised photos of it all. Well, here they finally are, although they are taken from the local newspaper, as Sarah and I, in the excitement of the moment, both forgot to take cameras.


The rally against the rally, that is the peace rally that was organized in response to the fascist rally, started out in the Main Square of the city, where there were speakers, music, and lots of people handing out sunflowers, probably as a sign of peace and beauty.

We then walked down to the train station and stood around and waited for the Neo-Nazis. I was in this big crowd of people. There was a lot of music and people trying to have fun, but there is only so much fun to be had when you're packed into the bus station parking lot for six hours. Yup, we waited six hours for some people whose point of view we think is insanely uncool.

This is a scene we didn't see: the fascists arriving at the train station. This is actually probably what it looked like for a lot of the day, because the police did a great job of doing what they could: slowing those jerks down. Many people in the crown were calling for the police to stop the rally, but I must remind all citizens of democratic countries that the police don't make decisions, they only carry them out and if they were making decisions on their own about such things, that would be a reason for concern. At any rate, over a thousand police were there that day and they did a fantastic job.

Here are those cute Neo-Nazis again, surrounded by tons and tons of police officers. This was part of the efforts of the police to protect everyone involved in both rallies.

Here we see the police keeping the area in front of our group free. Technically, the Neo-Nazis had the right to march in front of where we were standing but the police thought it would be too dangerous for us to all get that close to each other and we whole-heartedly agreed. In fact, we never even saw the Neo-Nazis. For a few minutes at one point we could see their flags, but in the end they only got to march by the train tracks.

Here they are again. Pretty normal looking folks for the most part, except that they are holding a sign that says, "We can do everything except speak Turkish." This is a take-off on a popular advertisement for the state of Baden-Württemberg which jests that "We can do everything, except speak high German", which is the form of German that all Germans should be able to speak despite having different dialects.

At the end of the day, the Neo-Nazis left Tübingen and had a spontaneous rally in a near by town. The police there let them have their rally, but they weren't allowed to leave the train station parking lot, so I'm sure that was stirring. I think we were all glad about not having let them really enter our city at all, but it remains discouraging to everyone that such movements still exist.

Under Construction!

Please excuse the current strange-looking Claire in Tuba-Town. I'm (slowly) working on improvements and learning how to make it look snazzier.

The Badlands -- Not bad after all

Dear Readers,

I'm back.

Actually, I'm not really back in a physical way, as in being at my home in Germany or my home in Milwaukee. I'm in Cranbrook B.C. in a hotel with Miss Lewis, awaiting the wedding of our dear friend Marnie. On the way here we passed through the Badlands, which didn't live up to their name at all. They were beautiful! And to make the whole thing even more exciting, the Badlands National Park threw in some prairie dogs and buffalo! Just feet away from our car! Yahoooooo!

The Neo-Nazis are coming to Tübingen

The Neo-Nazis are coming to Tübingen and we're fighting back with the P to the A to the R-T-Y, yup, we're fighting back with a big party.

The JN or the Yound National Democrats (aka the Neo-Nazis) are coming to Tübingen, which is a widely accepted "left stronghold", to strut their stuff, win new members, and I'm assuming to give the finger to the well-established anti-fascism movement in Tübingen. Lucky for us that the city was quick to take action, and creative action at that. First they tried to forbid the meeting, but I believe the JN fought the "Verbot" and is allowed to have their march. They won't, however, be able to march when the entire city is covered in a giant party. At that point the police will be obligated (and all to happy) to stop the JN out of concern for an escalation of the conflict. This is, in my opinion, a brilliant way around the JN's freedom to assemble -- assemble more. So, this Saturday there will be a huge "Citizens Festival" in Tübingen to celebrate diversity and have a good time fighting evil. I was perusing the list of activities and groups that are participating and was most tickled by the following entried: "dressed up dwarfs", location: overall in the city; "Dance Away the Nazis"; and "The Chaise Lounge Offinsive", which I believe features everyone in Tübingen who owns a reclining lawnchair in Tübingen bringing it and a beer and plunking down for the afternoon.

I'll be running around having fun and taking photos, so hopefully you'll see what I'm talking about.

Only because Jean rocks, not because I like to talk about myself or anything

My cousin Jean (well, my cousin Alex's wife Jean, who I like to call my cousin) tagged me on her blog, Stimeyland. What? She told the blog-reading world 8 random facts about herself and now I should do the same, because I have been tagged. You know the game. If you know me personally then you probably know that I'm not against talking about myself, so away we go!

But first, the rules:

1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
3. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
4. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

The facts:

1) I love to watch ducks eat. It is one of my simple pleasures in life -- watching their funny feet wave in the air as they peruse the bottom of the pond/river for bits of food.

2) I live in Germany (not random or new information) and I have found that I do not like to try new things (things that are new to me, that is) without some kind of German supervision. For example, I was interested in buttermilk drinks for a long time. I didn't really know what they were but I knew they sounded gross. I waited for months and told several people that I had never tried the buttermilk beverage until someone bought one for me and shared it with me.

3) Another thing about Germany. This one actually just occurred to me the other day. A question that people ask me all the time in Germany (and I do mean several times a week) is why I came here. Until recently I had always started with taking German class in school, which I pretty much remember doing because it seemed easy (good call, Claire). However, I have been thinking about it more and I would now say that I probably started taking German all those years ago and then came to Germany because my cousin Alex did it. And what Alex did was cool. So here I am in Germany.

4) I have really incredibly square feet. In fact my orthapedic specialist took a photo of my feet to use in his lectures.

5) I think that I have a very acute sense of smell.

6) I love nicknames but I suck of thinking of them for other people. For example, I call my friend Kristen "K". Way to be creative. My very favorite nicknames that others thought of for me are Staniel, Clarity, and Princess Poodle-Dee-Poo.

7) My dentist once told me that I had some of the best oral hygein he'd ever seen. That was in the 8th grade and I've felt very proud about it ever since (that's about 12 years of feeling proud about clean teeth and healthy gums).

8) I truly believe that I have the coolest parents ever and feel competetive with others when they try to tell me that they have cool parents.

Woo hoo! I did it. It took me two day, some beer, and a bunch of chocolate, but I did it. Now I shall tag people.

1. My favorite married person, Sarah over at Mysterious Objects at Midnight.

2. My favorite almost librarian, Alli over at tales of a traveling (almost) librarian.

3. My favorite international journalist, malaria expert, and shoe fiend, Katie over at Oogling Uganda.

4. My favorite scrabble partner and knower of so many words, Maria at Brigands and Nabobs.

5. My favorite resident of Toronto, Meghan at Meghan's Tumblelog.

6. My favorite arm-fat-toucher, Joyce at Joyce in Okinawa.

Yeah, those are all the bloggers that I really know, so six will have to do. I think it would be very cool if others answered since random facts are fun and amusing.

I suck at this

You guys have probably already heard the news, but I suck at blogging. Don't know what happened, but I've lost my drive. Well, my computer is also on hiatus (that's a very optimistic way of putting it) making it harder for me to become one with the internet as often as I'd like. And also, it's so incredibly cold and rainy that I just don't feel like writing. But wait, wouldn't cold, rainy weather make you stay inside and blog more? Ummm . . . interesting question, next please!

In light of the lack of interesting stories I have to tell, I'll tell you about the delicious spread I just made. As you may or may not know, Germans love bread and Germans make delicious bread, better than most Americans can even dream of. And for those Atkins folks out there, I'm not talking bread out of a bag made with lots of crap white flour, I'm talking whole wheat and all sorts of crazy grain flours like spelt and such with whole nuts and seeds inside -- I'm talking hearty, healthy, delicious bread here. Both breakfast and dinner are often bread-based meals, which is nowhere near as boring as it might sounds. At breakfast expect some cheese, meat, jam and at dinner an extravaganza of meats, cheeses, spreads, veggies, and the like. Enter delicious spread.

I'll call it Red Lentil Delight. It's healthy, delicious, and easy to make. I think that it should be eaten quickly but I have no idea since the first time my roommate made it I ate the whole jar of it in a day. Here's what you have to do:

ingredients: red lentils, 2 carrots, fresh ginger, some finely chopped cashews (use your best judgement on amount and chopping size), vegetable stock, curry powder

1) don't worry too much about amounts or times or whatever, I think it will turn out regardless of what you do. Just try it and be creative and taste it while it cooks.
2) First I fried some of the ginger with the lentils for a few minutes in the pot
3) Then I added the vegetable stock, enough to cover the lentils
4) Then I finely grated the carrots into the pot and let it boil, then turned the head down a bit
5) At this point I just kind of kept tasting it, adding more veggie stock as necessary
6) After maybe 15 minutes I put in the nuts and added some extra ginger
7) When everything started getting as soft as I wanted (Since it's a spread I wanted most of the lentils to mush together a bit) I added the curry powder
8) Put in jar or tupperware, enjoy

Yup, that's how you too can make delicious spread. I bet no one will do it, but oh well. Actually, I could imagine Maria and my mom doing it . . . we'll see what happens.

Oh, I see, it was all just a big confusion!

My friend Christian cares about the truth. As one of the head mediators in our upcoming mediation simulation, Christian is responsible for clearing up misunderstandings and helping people with differences understand each other. In that light, he sent me this video.

What this terribly informative video has taught me is that what many of us think of as pollution is actually life. Yes, it's really quite simple. Thank you, Christian, for bringing us the truth. Watch and learn.

Solar panel installed on my leg

Yesterday I had this solar panel installed on my leg. It collects energy from the sun and powers a heater that provides my entire body with heat all day long.


It has also transformed my ankle from a collection of muscles, tendons, and bones that can move at will into solid mass. Since last night, I've thought of my foot at "club foot". While cleaning my room yesterday, I realized that I was using my club foot to slide things around on the floor. So, along with heating my body, it's also a useful tool. How cool is that?