Simply Having . . . Trouble with Soup

(This happened a couple of months ago, at the end of November. It took me a while to get it posted.)

I stayed home alone that night. I had already seen the show the rest of my family was attending, and I needed to make a big pot of soup and two cakes for the next day, since my daughter Hannah was speaking in church the next day before leaving for her mission, and we had invited family and friends to join us for lunch after the meeting.

I decided to check my e-mail, and found some things I needed to answer, so I lost a little time, but still, I figured I would have plenty of time to make the soup.

But things didn't seem to be in my favor.

My first task was to make a big pot of minestrone. Simple enough, I thought. It was  mostly chopping some vegetables and opening cans. And I had gadgets to help me with that.

Unfortunately, the electric can opener stopped working at about can number two. A little discouraging, but I could use the hand crank opener, right?

Wrong. The old-fashioned way didn't work well. I was getting behind schedule, and I started doing some things that were perhaps, well, foolish. (Note: hammers and screwdrivers are good tools for some jobs, but don't really have a place in the making of soups.)

At last, I managed to get all the cans open. Thirteen of them.

Time to chop the vegetables and add the seasonings. Let's see, where is that recipe I printed out? And what's that smell? Oh!

After I put out the fire, I stood, holding the wet, charred remains, and began to wonder if I should just quit. The universe seemed to be working against me. What would be the next bad thing?

At that moment, when I was questioning everything I had ever known: guess what happened?

Really, guess. Go ahead.

No, worse than that:


The song Feliz Navidad began to play on the radio.


At this point, I clearly had two choices: laugh or cry. I weighed my options and scientifically calculated that crying would take longer. So I laughed.

The wisdom of my decision to see the situation with humor was confirmed when I reached into the produce bag and pulled out a carrot.

While the carrot stared at me with his beady little eyes, I summoned my courage and went back for a potato. And this is what got:

(I named them Bubba and Beau.)

Obviously, I was supposed to keep my sense of humor, and see the positive side of things. And I found that I really could do that. After all, I had opened the cans with minimal blood loss. I had saved the most important part of the recipe from destruction, and honestly, there are worse Christmas songs than Feliz Navidad. (See Christmas Shoes or Paul McCartney's Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time for further evidence of this truth.)

Things went smoothly from then on. The soup was good, the cakes were yummy, the meeting was wonderful, and everyone enjoyed the lunch.

Well, almost everyone. Beau seemed to be a little tichy. But really, can you blame him?




Update: Bubba and Beau lived side by side in my kitchen for several weeks, but the adventure took its toll on Beau. I'm sorry to report that he returned to the earth from whence he came. (Dust to dust . . .)

But good news, friends: just today, while I was making another pot of soup, I found Beau's older and wiser cousin, Cedric.

As fot Bubba, he's still with us, and is holding up well. Perhaps his new-found freedom has one to his head, though: he's growing a goatee.

Maybe life can get a little weirder. Maybe.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Kidnapped!

It was a quiet Tuesday evening. All our children were out. I was talking to my husband when the phone rang.

The caller was a neighbor of mine, a very sweet and lovely woman. She asked me if I was busy, and when I said I wasn't she asked if she could come by and pick me up. "I have something I want to show you," she said. "At my house."

I said that would be fine and she came right over. I got in her car and was surprised when she did a U-turn. "This isn't the way to your house," I said. "Where are you taking me?"

She wouldn't answer. I pretended to be afraid, pounding on the car window and calling for help. I wasn't really scared, but I was confused. What could she be up to?

She drove me to the church, and we went inside. The Young Women of our ward (girls between the ages of 12 and 18) were in the cultural hall, decorating cookies. I saw my daughter, Elisabeth, and she offered me a cookie she had just frosted. That was nice -- but why was I there?

I found out soon enough.

A few weeks earlier, I had been released from my calling as the Laurel adviser in my ward, where I had served for three years. During that time I had grown to love the young women I had worked with, taught. and learned from.

The new Young Women's president announced that they were grateful for the service that I, and two other women who had been released along with me, had given to the young women. They were going to show their appreciation by making us each a modest dress, to show they understood the principle of dressing modestly.

Someone brought several big black bags in to the room, and I saw that the bags were filled with newspaper. The girls went right to work, cutting, tearing, and taping the newspaper to make me a dress. It was very silly -- and tremendously fun.

I'm being fitted for my dress

The finishing touch -- a crown

What a dress! It even has a train!

Me with two other "hostages"
Lynnie Foster and Del Raye Searle

Newspaper dress queen on parade!