Karamellgewitter

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Goodbye, Miami Beach, hello, Germany! (And how about them commas anyway?)

before

after

Somehow I lost 30 degrees centigrade on my way from Miami Beach to Germany. How could that happen? It was summer yesterday!

Monday, December 29, 2008

Caught red-pawed: neighbor identifies mysterious car burglar in Stuart, FL.

A resident of NE Ocean Blvd provided Stuart Police with the description of a person that broke into a car parked at the beach fleeing the scene of the burglary on Saturday 27th at 3:17 p.m. That description led to the suspect's arrest at 5:12 p.m. the same day when the suspect was seen at a Pink Peanut Restaurant at 384 Oak Street by Officer John Mueller. Officer Mueller placed the suspect at the crime scene and recovered personal property belonging to the victim from the suspect.

Officer Mueller arrested Furry Jim Nibbler (DOB 8-15-2008) of Jupiter, Florida. Nibbler was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia and nuts, burglary and possession of stolen property. He is being held in the Martin County Jail on $ 16,980 bond.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Fröhliche Weihnachten, family!

Last night I had a really hard time writing my "merry christmas" post. We had been to the James Island Holiday Festival of Lights the day before yesterday and I had edited a little video with all those crazy, colorful lights and the good old Jefferson Airplane song "White Rabbit" - which matched the psychedelic experience of driving through the enchanted county park pretty well. What a cool video! I was so proud of myself. Then I got doubts about the copyright of the song, my server didn't let me upload any videos at all, my laptop ran out of power, my camera did the same, I tried to write something witty and ironic like "wish you all have a white christmas" with a picture of myself under a palm tree, but it didn't feel right - so at the end of the evening I was pretty upset. I sat down and thought about what I really felt and wanted to write about. And there it was: It is Christmas day, I am here on a beautiful sailboat with the captain I love - and I miss my family. I wish I could pack them all in a big old suitcase and ship them here. Because they are cool. They are funny and loving and wonderful, just look at the pictures. So - no intelligent, witty, ironic stuff tonight, just the truth: I wish you were here.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

"Beating around the bush" or: The linguistics of menstruation.

As a copywriter who oftentimes has to squeeze the most complex information in a three word headline, I'm always curious about how other people deal with limited space. One of the most interesting subjects to me are the signs in public ladies' restrooms (or "women's toilets"?). Most of them favor political correctness over clarity and thus really beat around the bush. "All feminine products" – does that include lipstick, high heels and hair ties? The term "foreign materials" makes me think of biohazard and sounds as martial as "feminine protection". Please send in the special forces to take care of those alien subjects. I wonder if sign writers are all male and find using the expressions "tampon" or "sanitary napkin" embarrassing. Let's be crazy. Let's break a taboo! TAMPON, TAMPON, TAMPON! Isn't that amazingly accurate? I say: There is no such thing as a bad word. Period.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

All that jazz! A French night out in Charleston.

And I thought I had escaped Europe! Our taxi cab dropped us off right in front of Mistral restaurant on 99 S. Market Street and it looked just too inviting to not go in. The food was French and great (it's been a long time since I last had goat's cheese), as were the wines and cocktails and the espresso... After dinner we were too stuffed to move, so we wandered over to the bar and listened to the Dixieland band. A perfect night out in Charleston and still so much more to see and do! Sigh. Oh, did I mention we had a spectacular lunch at The Palmetto Café the other day? (This is a rhetorical question, of course I know I have NOT mentioned it yet.) Just read what they say about themselves: "The Palmetto Café epitomizes the wonderful Charleston juxtaposition of lazy tranquility with cosmopolitan glamour" - as wonderfully as they construct their sentences they craft their dishes. I had the most entertaining and delicious deconstruction of a salade nicoise: frisee lettuce on the right, olive tapenade in the middle, quail eggs on tuna tartar on the left - spectacular.

Friday, December 19, 2008

I think you were wrong, xyz camera store on xyz street in Charleston!

"I'm sorry, this is an OLD CAMERA. They don't make chips that size anymore. I would really upgrade to a new camera", the lady behind the counter told me. Could that be true? Did she actually manage to make me feel bad for working with totally outdated equipment? Yes, she did. Embarrassed I put my old friend Digital Ixus 500 back in my day pack and left the store with one of their catalogues. I didn't want to buy a new camera. I like my "old" camera. It works just fine. Only the 256KB chip had died yesterday. Humm. Crestfallen I walked through the beautiful city of Charleston and looked in grief at all the great photo opportunities I was missing: rocking chairs on sunny porches, lemonade stands and fire trucks, white fences and lazy cats, people at street corners, christmas ornaments in palm trees, and... and... and... and then I found a 1 GB memory card at Walgreens. Perfect size. I knew it! I was so happy and so upset that I couldn't take any good pictures anymore. Just look at the one above: a house, a palm tree - and a giant lamp/phone/power cable post? Incredibly bad. I dedicate this picture to you, xyz camera store on yxz street in downtown Charleston! Enjoy!

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Barnacles of death - when seafood strikes back

I don't quite know how it happened but when we left Georgetown at 7 am, we suddenly ended up in a little flotilla of five boats. Awfully nice to be part of the herd and have someone you can follow without even looking at the charts... But after a couple of hours the fleet dispersed and we took a turn off the ICW at mile 448 into Price Creek - and found the loveliest anchorage ever. Since the currents were pretty strong (we were right at the inlet), we picked one of the deserted mooring balls close to the beach. It was quite obvious they hadn't been used in a while: the lines were totally covered with seaweed and barnacles. Of course I found out about the barnacles only when I pulled in the line and they bit my fingers. Cirripedic assholes. That hurt! I was really thinking about cutting the line of the cleat, boiling it and turning the little suckers into a nice juicy clam chowder. Look at this:

Ouch! Probably those crustacea are just sick of being eating and are waiting for an opportunity to pay us back. I don't care. I wanted them to suffer. So I humiliated them by strictly ignoring the pain, making faces at them - and showing them the finger. Haha, I win! Marine lowlives.