I don’t know if many of you know my feelings on soup. I have a lot of them, almost all negative.
“Try this wonderful chicken soup!” says someone, and I find myself eating a few chunks of chicken and carrots before setting down to the unappetizing (and frankly exhausting) task of sucking down a bowl of chicken juice for dinner.
“A lovely French onion?”
Fantastic. I just seared off the roof of my mouth with a smoldering hunk of lava cheese. And don’t even get me started on lentils. I don’t like soup. Not your soup, not your grandma’s soup, not the panoply of soups at the church soup supper. Sarah is not a souper.
Now, imagine the state of my health when I tell you that in the last three days I have willingly consumed chicken soup, mushroom soup, tomato soup, and (I think, though the memory is hazy) some lentil concoction with ham chunks.
Don, who makes soup by the ten-gallon cauldron and has a chest-freezer full of soup ziplocks has tried to be sympathetic to my sniffly woe, but secretly, I think he’s elated. “See!” he says, “You DO like soup. Everyone can learn to love soup!” When I gaze up pitifully at him, raising my bowl Oliver Twist-style for “more,” he attempts solemnity. “I mean, I’m very sorry you’re sick,” he says. He doesn’t fool me, though. I can see the grin hiding behind that damn ladle.
I have told him this too shall pass, but honestly, I’m not sure anymore. I may stay sick and, consequently, on a diet of various liquified meats and sundry proteins for all eternity. I came down with this horrible not-flu, not-COVID whatever-it-is as soon as I got back from Pittsburgh. Which was a WHOLE INTERMINABLE WEEK ago.
I first dealt with it by ignoring it. I mean, when my body insisted on absolutely collapsing, I allowed the collapse. But mostly, I said, “Look, body. What you need is some normalcy. Maybe, in fact, some exercise!” In retrospect, the deadlifts were not, perhaps, the best idea.
Thursday, I asked plaintively for some chicken soup. Friday, I wanted more. Soup of all kinds. A surfeit of soup. Saturday started well. I got up around 5am. I had some coffee, chatted with Don, wished him well on his prison ministry retreat, and thought I’d lie down for a bit. At 12:45, I woke with a start, rolled myself downstairs and promptly passed out on the couch. Eventually, Don came home and fed me a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. At 7pm, I went back to bed.
Today was oatmeal (the soup of breakfast cereals), some cream of mushroom, and, tonight, at long last, a food designed for people with a full and functioning set of teeth. I ate a turkey burger! Didn’t even put it in the blender first!
But now, honestly, I’m pretty tired from the effort. I’m going to sign off and dream of solid things: Cashews. Crusty sourdough. Apple slices! Anything but…oh, hang on, here comes Don…oh, no! Get that ladle away from me!
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