.SOMETIMES RAW.

Do you feel that chill in the air? Do you see those leaves gently gliding down from their branches to pile up and decompose together? Do you hear that bubbling sound of some vegetables, meat, and broth simmering together? That’s right, it’s Soup Season, and I won’t let you forget it until the jingling sleigh bells of Christmas forces me to radically alter my personality again.

You may remember me as the person who got really into grilling this past summer, the person who wouldn’t shut up about plants last spring, or the person who hates the Winter Olympics. Now it is time for me to become completely insufferable and into soup, with a brief pause to go into some filthy details about proper “Gansl” roasting in November.

The world seems to be in complete chaos at this point. It is more important to gender and differentiate everybody and everything in the LGTBQ+ community while I cry myself to sleep at night thinking about gas prices and skyrocketing electricity bills. At this point, I think of that as a delightful Parmesan cheese garnish on the butternut squash soup that is my new autumnal lifestyle. When I get home, I leave all this insanity outside and cook myself into my own little food heaven.

Did I hear you sniffle? Don’t deny it, now you are going to get approximately twenty servings of chicken noodle soup, but I replaced the chicken with mushrooms, the noodles with beans, and the chicken broth with a flavourless vegetable stock that I made with veggies that by all rights should have been composted long ago. It is a family recipe. If I say that enough, it becomes true.

Oh, you broke your leg? Well, a hearty stew should help with that. Stew is like soup, only I save money because I can just throw in all that bulk steak I bought last summer during my Grill Phase. It has been in my freezer long enough to earn tenure, but some cultures love to age their beef, so this stew is actually rather exotic if you think about it.

Are you going through a divorce? Now it is a bit bad of me, but I just made a big pot of Italian wedding soup, so why don’t you swing by my house for a glass of wine and a big bowl of soup? I recently managed to imprison the ghost of Joseph Albert Campbell, founder of Campbell’s soup company, in my kitchen so we can get a bit rowdy and chase him around for a bit.

I would love to talk more, but my bulk order of chicken bones is about to come in. If you want some stock, just let me know; I have two chest freezers at work filled with the stuff. You’ll have to move quickly, though. Once the dulcet tones of Mariah Carey fill the supermarket air, I will completely forget everything I know about soup in favour of exceedingly elaborate tree and house decorations, painstakingly crafted gingerbread houses, and presents that you will just love (based entirely on the one piece of information about you that is stored in my brain in a sort of panic room, endlessly attempting to stay alive against the onslaught of seasonal personality shifts). Or like simple parenting is an oxymoron.

*Time flies!!!! Always keep that in mind.

Note to all parents and people trying to get pregnant on this planet: Parenting is NOT easy! EVER! It just slowly changes into more insanity! Many times it is not fun and it is a lot of work. A LOT OF WORK! And kids are expensive! On the other hand, it is also fun to have these rascals around because they come up with the craziest things. This for example:

Joel’s Dinner Suggestions

A French baguette, but only the inside — NO CRUST, unless it is freshly baked. (Is this the French in him?)

Seven slices of cheese

A frozen waffle, cooked

A frozen waffle, raw

The ricotta layer of an entire lasagna

Anything cheese

Half a stick of butter

Four very specific Oreos, separate the chocolate layers and lick the creme first

Pizza

Applesauce through a glass straw

Sushi

Bananas

Muffins

Organic blueberries

A cheese quesadilla dipped in maple syrup

Gum, swallowed

Carrot sticks, not swallowed

Cucumbers

Chicken noodle soup with crackers, minus the soup

The jelly half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

Toast cut into four triangles: one with butter, one with jam, one with mayonnaise, and one with pepperoni

Pizza, just the sauce

Pasta with meat sauce

Around the edges of a cheeseburger without ever actually biting into the meat

Hot Chocolate

Ice cream

Pancakes

Broccoli (still as much as possible)

Count Dracula cereal

Pasta

More Pasta

Parmesan cheese

One bite each of three apples

A grilled cheese sandwich, served with a cup of apple juice so he can soak the sandwich before eating it

Spaghetti bolognese with the sauce rinsed off in the bathroom sink after he pretends he needs to wash his hands

Cheez-bites aged in the car seat for three weeks

Birthday cake even though nobody we know has a birthday coming up

Chocolate

Cupcakes

Small cookies eaten from a bowl on the floor like a dog

The dog’s actual food. Just try it once

Sour cream that he thought was ice cream and continued eating to save face

Those little packets of coffee creamer they have at a café

The poisonous red berries on those bushes outside

Cheerios and milk eaten from the coconut cereal bowl, and if you can’t find the coconut cereal bowl you might as well go kill yourself

Soap and my shampoo

Ketchup licked off a matchbox car because it dripped onto it while eating (who cares about

Ketchup on everything

Chips, but only with salt and pepper

A bite of whatever you’re eating, even if you’re both eating the same thing

The other day I had a chat with a friend about makeup. She suggested that we apply makeup again since we didn’t do so in a long time. Honestly, I am not a huge makeup person. I don’t have the time in the morning for all those lotions and potions but I rock a bright red Chanel lipstick once in a while. Nothing else. Just that lipstick. Since I am not a pro in the makeup department, I looked up easy-to-follow tutorials on YouTube and this is what I learned. Hey Magda! How do you like it?

1. Purchase lots of makeup. However much makeup you think it will take to achieve the drama look, it will take far more makeup than that. Go to any social media site, and find a how-to video on applying makeup. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNmLSc1pb6E

2. Get a lighted mirror with at least 300X magnification. Confronting the brutal truth of your skin at this age will be frightening, but you are a middle-aged woman, and lately, you seem to delight in brutal truth to the degree that it is becoming uncomfortable for those around you.

3. Start with under-eye concealer because you look like a panda if pandas were chronically furious. Be sure to moisturize first; if you don’t moisturize, the concealer will settle into your wrinkles, and you’ll look like a lizard. There are so many animals you must now work to avoid resembling.

4. Apply a “primer.” There are primers for redness, sallowness, and splotchy-ness. You need all three.

5. Oh no. You’re having a hot flash. Now you have to start over. Wash everything off, repeat steps 1—4, and re-join the video.

6. Jimmy from work is calling you. He has already emailed and texted you. In his defence, you’re supposed to be chairing a meeting. Answer your phone and scream, “Jimmy, I AM RECOVERING FROM A HOT FLASH WHILE ATTEMPTING TO APPLY MAKEUP!” and then hang up. Jimmy will leave you alone now, and you can proceed with step 7.

7. Use an eyeliner/shadow duo that’s the same shade as your skin (do not question the logic of this), just like the woman in the video for mature women (who is nowhere near your age; she is 33). “Chubby stick” versions of the product work well and are more accessible for arthritic hands to maneuver (this is not a comment on your weight, so please settle down).

8. Try to figure out what “tubing mascara” is. Give up and apply it anyway, to however many eyelashes you have left.

9. Fill in your eyebrows using some product with a stupid name. Pray to any god you still worship that the bushy-brow trend ends soon. In the meantime, try to stop critiquing the young women with caterpillars on top of their eyes. Do you think you might be bitter because when you were their age, you plucked yours down to nothing and then they never came back?

10. Uh-oh. Your husband just appeared, and he is mocking the makeup video. He will have to be killed. Once he’s dead, move on to step 11.

11. Apply the shimmer stick to whatever part of your face still looks old. You can put it on your cheekbones, eyelids, lips, etc. Some women even use the shimmer stick to highlight the top of their breasts, but we are not recommending this for you. (Your breasts probably sag slightly.)

12. You are done. You have used so much time, energy, money, and makeup to create this perfect look. Your bank account has taken a huge hit, you’re fireable-level late for work, and you’ve murdered your husband. The important thing is that you look like a million dollars. However that is supposed to look. Nice work, my friend.