THE SATURDAY SOUP #14 -

  

THE SATURDAY SOUP

FOURTEEN

A SPOONFUL OF MY LIFE

MARCH MUSINGS

AND A SOUP RECIPE

Welcome to The Saturday Soup! It's a floating feature I hope to post during the last weekend of every month, but if I can't find the time there's no pressure. I will be giving a life update and sharing a soup recipe.

PREVIOUS SATURDAY SOUP

I'm linking up with THE SUNDAY POST, hosted by The Caffeinated Reviewer.

Can I finally say good-bye to winter here in Upstate New York? It was 23°F (-5°C) last night and now it's 60°F (16° C). The next ten days will be in the mid 50s to high 60s with three nights dipping to 34°. It's not unusual for it to snow here in April, so I'm going to wait before I put my winter clothes away.

Because guacamole is green I was tortured on social media by images of this popular avocado dip from March first until the seventeenth. It was constantly being suggested as a food to serve for St. Patrick's Day parties. I have guacaphobia, a known specific phobia, which has symptoms similar to those of people with trypophobia (an aversion to the sight of clusters of small irregular holes). Those symptoms include nausea, skin crawling, and anxiety. Whole or sliced avocados do not evoke the same negative reactions; only the blended consistency. Most people accept that others can have phobias related to snakes, spiders, heights, birds; and yes, even patterns of small holes, but my guacaphobia is usually not taken seriously. Oh well. Did you know that there are people afraid of butterflies? It's called Lepidopterophobia.

GREG'S BOOK HAVEN

As you can see above it's been nearly a year since Greg has posted to his blog. Karen, from For What It's Worth, mentioned this on her blog a little while ago and it reminded me that Erin (Cracker Crumb Life) had given me his email address after I was discussing his absence with another blogger in November of last year. Liis, from Cover to Cover, had tried to contact him for me through an old Twitter DM group we had for buddy reads; because I had deleted my account when it became X, but there had been no response.

 

I finally remembered to email him a couple of weeks ago... and he responded! He's had some big life events going on and blogging has been put on the back burner for him right now, but he promises to post a catch-up post soon and let everyone know how he is doing.

On March 7th it was time for Parade Day. The official name is "Binghamton St. Patrick's Parade Day", but no one ever uses it. It's held the first Saturday in March every year so we can get pipe bands that would be playing in bigger cities on St. Patrick's Day weekend.

We have two Binghamton based pipe bands. First we have the celebration band: Broome County Celtic Pipes and Drums. They stay in Binghamton for St. Patrick's Day week and pub crawl with the locals. They are also the group to hire for weddings.

Here they are playing in a pub with the Ladies from Hell pipe band.

This is our other pipe band: The Edward P. Maloney Memorial Pipe Band. This is the band that plays for funerals. They march in the New York City parade every year. I tried to find a video from this year, but they have only posted to Facebook so far.

There were four other bands: two pipe bands from Pennsylvania and one from New York City, and a the Avalon Mummers group from Philadelphia.

SOUP RECIPE

RIBOLLITA

Tuscan Bean Soup

HOW WAS YOUR MARCH?