German Word-of-the-Day for Owlet: Day 6

der Tee /te:/ "tea"

Most likely, this was already a part of your vocabulary, as well as names for various types of teas, such as Schwarztee "black tea", Grüntee "green tea", and Kräutertee "herbal tea; tisane". A few grammatical points, though: The first two have variants with independent forms of the adjectives, i.e. schwarzer Tee and grüner Tee. The compounds are probably more common, but I wouldn't swear to it. Also, notice that the combining forms for ingredients are normally plural, e.g. Kräutertee (cf. das Kraut "herb; (regional) cabbage"), Früchtetee (die Frucht "fruit"), Minzentee (die Minze "mint", but cf. Pfefferminztee "peppermint tea"), Zitronentee (die Zitrone "lemon").

What do you stir your tea with? Mit einem Teelöffel, naturally, once you've poured it into eine Teetasse. Die Teekanne holds the rest until you're ready for your nächste Tasse Tee.

Bonus questions:

1. What are the genders of Löffel, Tasse, and Kanne? Give the nominative form of the article for each.
2. If the word for "sweet" is süß, how would you say "sweet tea"?
3. If the word for "ice" is das Eis, how would you say "ice tee"?

Snapshot of a parade

I wasn't sure what to expect at this year's New Year's parade on Argyle. In the past, it's always been very small (in contrast to the South Chinatown parade, which is always so mobbed I don't even think about attending any more--sorry innerdoggie), but I saw flyers advertising floats and dragons, so I wasn't sure what to expect.

Well, it was still small. So small that our neighbour's boyfriend (who I've given the Cantonese nickname "A-Maak") was disappointed. They had five sets of lion dancers, a dragon of gwailou kung fu students, and three almost featureless floats--in other words, a typical neighbourhood parade. At first, I was a bit disappointed not to see the lions going into each shop and leaping for the lettuce leaves--in the past this was all the parade consisted of. But we discovered that, after the parade was over, they came around for a second pass and did just that. Now my only regret is that there didn't seem to be any long strings of red firecrackers hung above any of the shop doors. In the past, the sidewalks would get showered with so many bits of paper it was like walking through red snow.

Best Overheard Line: "...and then the shadow of my erection fell right across the crucifix."

Chicago True Crime Connexion: Filling in the out-of-towners on the local tongs, like On Leong Tong, which eventually lost its grandiose building over a decade ago after being busted for illegal gambling, or the founders of North Chinatown, Hip Sing Tong, which has gone to war with On Leong in the past (although not, AFAIK, in Chicago).

Cross-Cultural Moment/Bearwatch Highlight Watching beyamulked members of Agudas Achim (led by a hot greybeard daddy) wait for an opportune moment to cross the street in order to make it to the shul. (For what, I don't know, since Sabbath services should've been over by then.)

Domestic Geopolitics bunj drew our attention to the large number of PRC flags. Sure enough, we didn't see a single Taiwanese flag all afternoon even though all the South Chinatown celebrations (not just Double Ten) are simply lousy with them. I guess the lines have been drawn!