HolyJuan

The Power of Soup (ver1.2)

A very good friend gave me some of her thoughts on "Soup." I removed the name of the woman and I added a brief, new ending. Some other small edits as well.

Please let me know what you think.

The Power of Soup

In a very small house with two very small windows, lived a woman. She lived alone, but she was never lonely.

If you were to look through the very small windows, you would see a very small bed, a very small chair, a very small table, a very small lamp, a very small painting and a very big stove.

The woman loved to cook. She had a very big kettle to sit on the very big stove. She had a very big spoon to stir whatever was in the very big kettle. The woman could cook about anything, but she especially loved to cook soup.

Pea soup, bean soup, potato soup, vegetable soup, rhubarb and turnip soup, dandelion soup, and her very special soup which she called Soup Soup.

People would come from the villages near and far to the woman’s house and bring whatever ingredients they had so that she could make her delicious soup for them.

Miss Dryer came to the woman’s door, “I have carrots.”

“Then we will make carrot soup.”

Mr. Hearty came to the door. “I have potatoes.”

“Then we will make potato soup.”

The Simon twins came to the door, “We have turnips and leeks.”

“Then we will make turnip and leek soup.”

Somehow, though only one or two ingredients were added, the woman was able to stir and stir and stir and stir and soon that one ingredient would taste like many!

Everyone loved the woman’s soup.

One day, a little dark haired girl with sad eyes came to the woman’s door. She wore handmade clothes that were more patches than cloth.

“Can you please make me some soup?”

“What have you brought with you to make the soup?” asked the woman, knowing the answer.

“I have nothing. My mother is sick and father is away in the city. I have nothing to make soup.”

The woman said, “Come inside. I think you have something to add to the soup.”

The woman added water to the very large kettle. She lit the very big stove and began to stir.

“Now, little girl, you have nothing in your hands and you have nothing in your pockets, but you have something in your heart. All you need is to speak to the soup and tell it what your heart is saying.”

The little girl stood on a little chair and was just able to look over the edge of the kettle.

She spoke in but a whisper, “I love you Mommy. Get well soon.”

The woman then began to stir and stir and stir and stir.

And as she stirred and stirred the soup began to churn and bubble. Broth began to form and carrots and peas and beans and leeks and hundreds of herbs and vegetables and flavors mixed and melded in the pot. With a final stir, letters formed of pasta bubbled to the surface.

First…

“I love you Mommy.”

…and they sank. Then…

“Get well soon.”

As the sun began to dip in the afternoon and create its own colorful soup in the sky, shadows of a smaller person and a bigger person together carried a very big kettle towards the village.

The next morning, the woman arrived back to her very small house with two very small windows. She carried with her a much emptier kettle, a simple bouquet of wildflowers and a very big smile.

As she walked in the door she said to herself, "I think I'll make some soup today."

Lighthouses in Old Worthington

It seems that developers are going out of their way to market their apartments in landlocked Old Worthington, OH. They are not mundanely giving away ceiling fans or trying to make their neighborhood fancy by adding an "e" to old and calling it Olde Worthington. Instead, they've built a lighthouse and created a small ocean. At least that what it looks like in this scenic advertisement.

Of course, I could be mistaken. Sorry Jen.

Player bites referee and removes jersey to hide identity.

There was a story the other day out of Delaware concerning an irate soccer player who bit a referee on the chin. A photographer on the scene caught the incident on camera. You can read the story here on CBS3.com. The website has a video of photos.

I have a photo of the video of the photos which I thought was particularly funny:

The guy that bit the referee removed his shirt so that he could conceal the number on his uniform and thus his identity. He almost got away with it!

Ann on the swing

Father's Day Tie Fighter

At pre-school, Greg made me a tie for Father's Day.

He drew some X-Wing Fighters and some Tie-Fighters on it. I guess when his teachers said that they were going to make a tie, he got stuck in Star Wars mode.

I wore it for about six hours.

Dyslexia Ahaed

I highly recommend www.says-it.com for all your sign generator needs. I don't really have any sign generator needs, but I seem to make them up as I go along.

Lilly Jane

Congrats to Mel and Jason!!

In fifteen years, Lilly will look two years older than her father. (That beard ain't foolin' anyone.)

Yo! photo

A few weeks ago I went to the CD release party for The Hot Damn… (My five year old son thinks the name of The Hot Damn is actually the Electric Pickle because I couldn’t rightly say I was going to see a band with the word damn in it and when I asked him to guess the name of the band, he suggested Electric Pickle, a band he heard on Scooby Doo, so it stuck.)

A few weeks ago I went to the CD release party for The Electric Pickle, which was held at a little venue called The House of Crave. The House of Crave is strategically located next to the Lifestyles Communities Pavilion, which you might think would be a swingers club, but is actually an indoor/outdoor concert arena. That night, Rick Ross was doing a show at the LC and in front of the concert hall was “Yo! photo.”

“Yo! Photo” is some guy with a bed sheet, some paint, a 1” brush, a section of a chain link fence, a few clamps, a white board, a digital camera, a color printer, a crocheted lawn chair and a dream.

The dream became a reality when Yo (I think that is his name) painted a royal purple convertible on a bed sheet and thought to himself, “I bet you people would pay $10 to get their photo taken in front of this.”

From my vantage point on the patio of The House of Crave, I could not see that dream coming to fruition. I just couldn’t see people wanting to give up $10 to have their photo taken in front of a large, purple slice of ass.

The Rick Ross show ended and people started to pour out the doors.

And they headed straight for Yo! Photo.

In about thirty minutes, we saw eight groups of people stand in front of the purple turd and smile as Yo took their photo. My rough math says that is about $80, but it also looked like he was printing up multiple photos. The price of additional photos wasn’t on the white board, but I assume it was $5 a print. The guy probably pulled down $150 just in that half hour.

As soon as I can find a length of chain link fence and a bedsheet, I’m going to have a dream too.