Getting Over It

Soup.  I love soup!  It's a comfort food.  It's warm goodness in a bowl.  It isn't fancy or pretentious.  But soup is not an everyday food.  Soup is a cold weather food.  Normally, in Mid September, I'd make sure the pantry was stocked with everything necessary to make taco soup and chili.  Then, on the first day I could see my breath, I'd plan to make a batch.  (I'd also email my sister and announce that I'd seen my breath.  I used to mark it on my calendar.  It's one of my favorite days of the year; it signals sweaters and snow and holidays and fires and all sorts of greatness.)

I couldn't eat soup last fall.  It was too hot, too sticky (Singapore. Not soup).   I hoped that I would get over it if we were here long enough, but I had my doubts.  Surprisingly, it didn't take as long as I thought it might.  I think it was after Christmas last year that I finally decided that I could eat - and even cook- soup. 

Last week, B3 and I shared a miserable cold.   So, the weekend found me in the kitchen cooking up a pot of taco soup and a lot of chicken and dumplings.  I think I was subliminally channeling a Fall that will not arrive. There will be no nip in the air;  I won't see my breath.  The sweaters and boots and jackets are all packed away in hopes of a trip to somewhere wonderful, but we won't need them in Singapore.  Even our Halloween plans must be calculated.  No costume that covers more than Summer play clothes is practical. 

But I can eat - and enjoy - soup!  I'm over the "It's a cold weather food" thing.  I've gotten over some other things, too.  Like:

• The price of Dr. Pepper
• White sandals and sundresses after Labor Day
• The fact that my daughter prefers to wear the same outfit every time we go anywhere.  So all of our photos look like they were taken on the same day.
• People taking pictures of my kids
• The smell of taxis
• Pushy old women on the train
• Geckos in my house
• No power outlets in the bathroom (another post for another day.  I could go on and on about the bathroom.  And I probably will sometime).
• Not having our meals arrive anywhere near the same time at a restaurant
• Not having a car
• Cute shoes. Don't get me wrong; I still appreciate cute shoes.  But if I can't walk a kilometer in them, they're not going on my feet. 

Somethings, I simply NOT get accustomed to.

• Jeans and scarves.  It's the Tropics, people!  Fashion trends are irrelevant if you have a heat stroke.
• Shoes 2 sizes too small.  I declare - most women have their toes dripping off the front and their heels hanging off the back.  It simply can't be comfortable.
• Pushy old women on the train (yeah, it's on both lists.  I've learned to stand my ground, but it still annoys me).
• Having no Air Con in the kitchen.  Whew. It's hot in there when we're cooking! 
• Turkey bacon/chicken ham.  They should name it something different. Bacon=Pig.   Ask Ben; A Baconator isn't a Baconator if the bacon isn't from a pig.
• The grocery store.

Even after a year, the grocery store is still a place of amusement.   I never fail to find something that makes me laugh.  For instance, Octopus. Right there next to the good ole Tomato Soup.

Even when I'm stuck in my routines of buying most of the same things I'd be buying on the other side of the globe, I can't avoid the not so subtle reminders that I'm Over Here.

I can't help but wonder...does my favorite Charlotte Harris Teeter stock Octopus in Garlic Sauce?  And if they do, is it by the tomato soup?