soup.

Recently, our friend Aubrey moved in with us for a bit. He sleeps on the luxurious couch. And judging from the food he brought from his old house, Aubrey loves soup. A lot.

Aubrey loves soup.

He likes all kinds of soup, but mostly chicken noodle soup. Also, tomato soup and canned tomatoes. And Natty Light, the classiest of beers. Don't get me wrong, soup is great. I eat it every weekday. At work, my office is right below this big cafeteria that has lots of places to get food, like Subway, Burger King, Dunkin' Donuts (the most intimidating of coffee shops), this little stir fry place, and a little store that has fast things, like soup. 


Miriam, my coworker, and I eat soup every day, and here is why: 
1) It is the cheapest lunch available. You can get a big bowl of soup for only $2.50. The best. 
2) You get as many free crackers as you want! 
3) The soups are from Au Bon Pain, which makes us feel fancier.
4) We're basically best friends with the soup lady. At least on the days she is happy. Some days she is not happy, and it's scary.


The best soup is the broccoli cheddar. Miriam and I used to get that one and eat it together in our office, until Miriam read the ingredients and she discovered she can't eat it because she is Jewish and it is not kosher. That was one of the saddest days of the semester. Now, she just stares at me from her desk while I eat it. She also can't eat the Chicken Florentine, Beef and Barley, Italian Wedding, White Bean and Ham or Chicken Noodle. Oddly, she cannot eat the Vegetarian Minestrone either because we found chunks of bacon in it. She said she kept wondering why the soup tasted so good, but then we realized it was because she has never eaten bacon before and bacon is amazing. One would think that "vegetarian" means "consisting solely of vegetables," but not according to the soups at the little store at St. John's. Luckily, it's not one of the best soups anyway, so we don't care.


Miriam can't eat a lot of things, like pepperoni pizza, fish without scales and fins, and Sour Patch Kids. I'm not sure if she can eat reptiles. Wait, does anyone eat reptiles? People eat snakes, don't they? I remember watching an Indiana Jones movie or something adventury like that and they ate a huge anaconda. There might be a rule that you can't eat something without feet, though. The other day I was at preschool watching one of my teams, and they were singing a song called Down By the Bay in Circle Time. One little boy got up and went to the bathroom, but when the Team Leader got to the line "Have you ever seen a snake baking a cake?" the little boy ran out of the bathroom, pants around his ankles, and yelled "Snakes don't have feet!" and then ran back in. So, if you only eat kosher foods, you probably shouldn't eat anacondas. They don't have feet.

brunners take manhattan.

Something big happened this year. Something epic. Something loud. The Brunners came to NYC. The Brunners did a lot of normal things, and some weird, Brunnery things.


The Brunners went to see them blow up the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons! The Brunners also made a human train and sang Christmas songs at the top of their lungs amongst the crowd.

It's a monster Smurf!

The Brunners went to see the windows at Macy's. Then the Brunners hung out in Macy's for 3 hours and ate mall pizza and ice cream for dinner. Logan wishes we could have gone to Macy's every day. He just loved it!


The Brunners ate amazing bagels and drank hazelnut coffee from Brooklyn Bagel Shop. Then the Brunners went back every morning and ate more bagels. Mom went back a few times a day to get their hazelnut coffee, which, in her defense, is the best. All Brunners love carbs and two Brunners love coffee.


The Brunners cooked a 22 pound turkey that Julie Brunner had to carry 4 short blocks and a long block from the butcher at 7 in the morning. Julie is really strong now. And there were only five of us on actual Thanksgiving day. Scott and I have a lot of leftover Thanksgiving dinners. 


The Brunners looked through their newspaper and saw that Best Buy was selling huge TV's for only $200, so they decided to go to the Black Friday sale at midnight. This is a big step for Brunners. We generally don't like shopping. We got there at 10:30pm, and apparently should have gotten there at 2pm because the line was 4 long blocks long. So we came home and ate pie.

Little Logan loves pie.

The Brunners went to see Mary Poppins on Broadway. It was incredible! Mary looked just like the real Mary. The set was amazing. I'm still in love with Bert. And we got to take flying pictures. It's a jolly holiday with Mary.

I believe in the magic!

The Brunners decided they just couldn't get enough acting, so they went to see Relatively Speaking right after Mary Poppins. And Rachel got us really cheap student rush tickets. 'Twas the best.


The Brunners multiplied on Saturday because Andy and his fiance Katy arrived. The Brunner's ate soup and then went to see "nature," aka Central Park. Then the Brunners went to the Guggenheim and saw the Maurizio Cattelan exhibit with Katy's dad. It was well worth seeing. We recommend it.

My mom always makes us order the Happy Family dish at Chinese restaurants. Because that's what we are. The dish is kind of gross, but we are not.

The Brunners did some things on Sunday, too. Logan had to leave us in the morning, so we ate waffles to drown our tears. Then the Brunners went to Astoria Park to look at the Manhattan Skyline. We came back and ate tapas and paninis. Then Andy and Katy had to leave us, so the remaining Brunners did laundry and crosswords.

Hello parents! Hello Manhattan!

The Brunners also came to see Julie at work. They ate in the cafeteria. Just like real college students. Then the Brunners had to go home. 


Thanksgiving was the greatest!