6:30 am. The alarm goes off and I start. Is it time already?

I stumble to the shower. Luxuriate in very hot water. Begin the pain-staking interview preperation. I eat breakfast in my robe so as not to spill on my "professional" black suit. I stand in my "foundations" as I put on make-up and blowdry my hair. I force myself into nylons and clip my pump to the elastic before finally putting on the suit.

7:30 am. I leave the house, more worried about spilling on my suit, getting chalk on my suit, getting blood on my suit than anything else.

8:30 am-11:30 am. Rolling right along. No suit disasters, nor have I scuffed up my "comfortable but professional leather pumps". My blood sugar is 76 at 10:30, and I sip half a coke. I would rather be on the high end than on the low end when 12:30 rolls around.

11:30 am. My morning's work is done, and panic hits. I have an interview in one hour. And I need to eat. But if I eat, I will spill on my suit and have to dry clean it, again. (Yes, obsessive, I know.) But now the panic is less about my suit than the interview itself. For calm, I eat. But the menu at the coffee shop poses a challenge: grilled cheese--greesy, out. Tuna--er, tuna breath, bad idea. A wrap with onion? I don't think so. I settle on the soup, deciding that chicken noodle is a fairly safe choice. Certainly better than the chili. I burn my tongue. Badly. But then I settle into the rhythms of dipping the spoon, cradling the broth, savoring its flavor. Chicken soup is good for the soul.

I corner a noodle with my spoon, noting that broth won't do me much good if my blood sugar nosedives during the "tell us about your dissertation" questions.

The noodle...
falls off the spoon...
plops into the soup...
and the soup...
jumps out the bowl...
onto my suit!

I set the soup aside.

Buy a Hershey's with almonds to solace my quaking soul.

And gum, just in case.

Arrive at my interview at a steady 136 and my mind and nerves in tact, and chicken noodle soup that has dried invisibly--bless that chicken's heart.

The interview goes just fine.