Well, the planned post from the National Railway Museum has been postponed, in favor of a little story about how I spent my day today in Tübingen. 

In a nutshell, today’s project was trying to combat moths. We’ve been invaded by little gray moths the past few days.  I’m pretty adept at swatting them as they fly by and perch on the wall, but it’s not exactly a sport I want to continue. They always come two at a time, but I’m not sure if that’s by design or happenstance.

Perhaps “invaded” is too strong to describe what’s happening. The two-at-a-time appearance happens at most a couple of times an hour, and then not even every hour.  It’s annoying as all get out whenever it happens, however. But it’s not nearly as alarming as the march of the legion of ants across our kitchen — going in and out of all our kitchen cabinets and across the floor and counters — one evening years ago when I returned to our house in California. That, my friends, was an invasion.

But I digress. We’re here to talk about the gray moths of Tübingen, which are annoying in their small but steady numbers.  Reading up about them on the Internet has educated me to the fact that there are two types of moths with different eating preferences:  there are the ones that prefer to go “grocery” shopping looking for food (the word for them in German is also used for groceries), and there are other ones that are more stylish and eat clothing. Apparently, it’s rare to find moths that are into both food and fashion, so while you may have both types at one time in your house, you won’t normally have a single moth that will go both ways. Which I guess is good to know, but it doesn’t really reassure me much.

Now, you’re supposed to figure out which ones you have so you know how to get rid of them, since there are different things to do for each type. Oddly, there are no clear instructions on the Internet on how exactly you figure that out. I’ve thought about conducting a little “moth on the street” (moth on the wall?)  kind of interview before I kill one, but it seems unlikely to be helpful. You apparently are supposed to deduce the type from where you find them, but our apartment is small, and the kitchen is near the bedroom, and the bedroom is near the living room. So, is it the case that the ones in the living room took a wrong turn on the way on their way to the kitchen or to the bedroom, and how I am supposed to deduce their real trip itinerary? And are the ones in the bedroom really after the sweaters, or are they just taking a little stroll to walk off the lunch they just had in the kitchen?

So, rather than settle on a decision about the proclivities of my moths, I’ve read many articles on the Internet that give tips on dealing with each kind of moth. I am now trying to apply a blend of all the ideas throughout the apartment. I have also learned the word for moth (actually, the words for the 2 kinds of moths), plus the words for lavender, camphor and cedar in German, all of which are relevant to the tips I have read. I have also spent the past several days cleaning out cabinets, vacuuming drawers and closets, and tossing out every suspect food packages I run across, in an attempt to find the source of our little moth horde.

BTW, tossing out food packages that still have food in them in not a straight forward task here in Tübingen. We have a complex system of sorting for recycling everything: plastics go in the “yellow” bag, paper goes in the blue container, food waste goes in the brown container, the rest goes into the trashcan labelled “the rest”. It’s no end of fun separating and sorting food and trash while looking for moths. Really. My most memorable moment: having read on the Internet that tea bags can be a food source for gray moths, I opened a previously unopened cardboard box of teabags;  the tea bags go in one trash can, the box in another, so I couldn’t just throw out the unopened box.  There is actually debate in town whether the tea should go in the food container, the bag part of the teabag in “the rest” container, but that question has never been answered to my satisfaction, so I put the whole teabag in “the rest” container. Anyway, as I was dumping the teabags into their can, I discovered that the teabags were in fact teeming with moths.

I did mention that the box had been completely sealed and unopened, right? Go figure.

Anyway, as I tossed food, vacuumed and wipe down all surfaces inside and outside of cabinets and drawers with a mix of vinegar and water, and hauled out bags of trash and cardboard, I found myself humming a line from a Broadway show that talks about moths. The song is called Extraordinary from the musical Pippin; here’s the lyric I remembered:

…That’s the reason I’ll never be 
The kind of man who dwells
On how moths got into the tapestry
or why the dungeon smells…

Of course, I was dweliing on how moths got into our apartment, since I’d like to avoid having them return once I figure out how to make them leave. But, another line from that song is that this is “not my idea of a perfect day”. Now, that’s was a perfect description of my day battling the moths.

Note to my 11-year-old nephew: as I told you in August, stick with me kid,  I can come up with a line from a Broadway show for any occasion. 😉

Now, when I went to YouTube to see if I could find a clip of that song to use for this post, the first clip I found, which was from a Canadian version of Pippin that was filmed with professional actors, didn’t have that line in the lyrics.

Odd. Well, it guess it’s been that kind of week with my memory, where things initially don’t seem to fit with what I remembered. I was the musical director/rehearsal pianist for a time for a production of Pippin back when I was a teenager, which is quite a while ago. So, it’s possible I don’t remember all the lyrics to all the songs from that show. But could I really have invented that line about the moths? It even fit with the meter of the song.

Later, though, I found a clip from a high-school performance … and the kid who plays Pippin does sing the whole song, including that line about the moths.  Whew – at least I’m not completely losing my mind. Yet.

Anyway, I’ve put the full text of the song below. I find it a nice anthem for anytime you do things around the house that need to be done, while wishing you could be doing anything else.

But now you’ll have to excuse me … I have a few more extraordinary things to try in the battle with the moths. For example, according to what I’ve read on the Internet, the scent of lavender will discourage moths from hanging around. Think that’s true? I figure I’ll try it, assuming I can find lavender candles somewhere in Tübingen. Even if the scent doesn’t actually chase away the moths as promised, at least it will make the apartment smell nice as I sit here and wait for these moths to turn into nothing more than a distant, if unforgettable, memory.

******

Lyrics to Extraordinary from Pippin, music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz

Patching the roof and pitching the hay
Is not my idea of a perfect day
When you’re extraordinary
You gotta do extraordinary things

I’m not the type who loses sleep
Over the size of the compost heap
When you’re extraordinary
You think about extraordinary things

That’s the reason I’ll never be
The kind of man who dwells
On how moths got into the tapestry
Or why the dungeon smells

Oh, it’s hard to feel special, it’s hard to feel big
Feeding the turtle and walking the pig
It’s so secondary
To someone who is very
Extraordinary like me

If the moat won’t stop leaking
And the goat won’t stop shrieking
And the griffin keeps losing its hair
If the west wing is rotting
And our best wine is clotting
Well, I’m terribly sorry but I don’t care

I’ve got to be someone who lives
All of his life in superlatives
When you’re extraordinary
You gotta do extraordinary things

Every so often a man has a day
He truly can call his
Well, here I am to seize my day
If someone would just tell me when the hell it is

Oh give me my chance, and give me my wings
And don’t make me think about everyday things
They’re unnecessary
To someone who is very
Extraordinary
Like me!