North Maple Rag

Earlier today, my Lawyering professor read to my class part of the conclusions from a psychological study regarding people's ability to predict their own happiness and sadness. Basically, the study found that we are, in general, pretty lousy at predicting our feelings. That conclusion makes sense; at least, in my experience, the most joyous and the most devastating events are unexpected.

That said, there are some exceptions, and for me, there's one primary exception: soup. Yup, good soup will always make me happy. Right now, I'm in a cheery mood for the first time all day and that feeling is directly related to the cup of Moroccan Lamb soup I just finished. What's more, I walked to the soup place expressly because I knew soup would cheer me up (take that, psychological study). Even better, the very friendly soup lady*, who speaks with a fun Brazilian accent, gave me an extra cup of soup for free. So, should tomorrow be kind of dreary like today, I'm prepared.

* The soup lady's soup place is located at the corner of Mercer and Prince (I think) in SoHo. Her best soup is Turkey Gumbo, although that's not always available. I also recommend the Beef & Potato and, of course, the Moroccan Lamb.