Saturday, January 5, 2013

The Giraffes, the Christmas Display and the Soup Lady

I don't know how I became a Soup Lady, but it seems to have creeped up on me, like someone who starts collecting giraffe figurines and then has an entire house full of them, or those people up the street who have a one-million watt Christmas display that snarls neighorhood traffic for the month of December.  It started with one giraffe, with one lighted reindeer, and now look at it.

I've been hosting twice-yearly soup swaps for a while now, and I have written a couple feature stories that mention them, but something happened this past week that made me realize that I had, metaphorically, acquired a houseful of giraffes.

Fifteen months ago, I submitted an essay to This I Believe, a project whose essays and broadcasts are just, as my kids used to say about six months ago, the bomb. And then this past Wednesday, the first day back to work and school after the winter holiday, when everyone in this house woke up with a sour attitude and a face to match (me included), I found something nice in my email inbox:  This I Believe had published my silly soup essay on their site.

Was this honor accompanied by a hefty fee, or an all-expenses-paid vacation to sunny clime? Not at all, but it would be hard to tell that by the level of giddiness I was experiencing. I told everyone, really everyone, and now here I am, writing about it again. 

Here is the essay, in case you have any interest in reading even more about my views on soup, which I totally understand if you do not.  I feel that way about giraffe figurines, myself.

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