Tag: ice cream

The Choice

She just wanted a little something. Forty feet by six feet of lit, colorful options faced her, which would be? Her mind didn’t want to address something so trivial as an area problem.

A couple entered the aisle, apparently solving the same problem. They seemed to be approximately her age, that is, mid-fifties to mid-sixties and of similar economic status. They probably were enduring the same paradigm shift as her. It used to be that if you wanted ice cream, limited selections were available. Her mother bought Neapolitan because the three flavor choices satisfied almost everyone, although they would always end up with a carton of strawberry left. Later, they would buy vanilla ice cream and add toppings of nuts, cherries, syrups and whipped cream. Then they learned to make banana splits. All the while, her father would reminiscence about making ice cream with his grandparents, and his favorite, root beer floats. They made their own root beer, too.

She could follow such a simple route and buy vanilla. Even were she to make that choice of flavor, decisions remained about sugar-free, slow-churned, size, price and brand. Gluten-free and dairy-free ice cream was available. Ten variations of vanilla ice cream competed. America, land of the free and home of the ice cream.

This was not just ice cream. She walked down the aisle. The couple shadowed her. All of them stared at the choices like they were fine art in a museum. Frozen yogurt, gelato, sorbets and sherbets were offered. Rice Dream. Soy ice cream. Prices for them were ridiculous. Specials were available – two one-gallon containers were available for six dollars for club members – she was a club member – but she didn’t want a gallon, just a pint.

Her father would have had fits. “Gelato? Sorbet?” Yes, she was channeling her father. He would admonish, “What do you want? Decide what you want, Helena.” She’d thought she’d known what she’d wanted. She’d wanted to be an accountant when she was a young girl and had become a data scientist, even though she had a literature degree. She didn’t know data scientists existed when she was a child.

Straying into frozen fruit and yogurt bars, she smiled at the man — the closest shadow — and swapped places with him, to go the other way. Actually, she knew what she wanted. She either wanted a Stonyfield Merlot Blackberry sorbet or a Haagen Dazs sorbet, flavor to be determined. Neither were present.

Drat. That was the problem. She knew what she wanted but couldn’t attain it, the shortcoming of living in a small town. Safeway was one of three grocery stores. They generally had the same choices, as if they were in collusion.

An imagined scene arose. The three store managers sat in a small, windowless room, making agreements about what ice creams to offer and setting the prices. “Listen,” one said in her scene, “I’m putting the Blue Bunny on sale this week.” He put his pricing gun on the table. “Anyone have a problem with that?”

Did they still utilize pricing guns in this digital age?

She sighed. This was taking too long. Impulse streamed through her. The hell with fat, calories and health. Take one and go. It’s just ice cream. 

Marching to one section, she found mint chocolate chip. The flavor almost always satisfied her. It was a gallon. She didn’t want a gallon but she would buy it for three dollars with her club card. She would eat some tonight and keep the rest or throw it out. The price was such a bargain, she could afford to bin it.

Sure.

Selection in hand, she passed the couple. Holding a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, he complained about the price. The woman was staring at a wall of Breyer’s. There was one advantage to being single: no compromise or consensus was required.

The choice was hers, alone.

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Cheeseburger and Beer Ice Cream

I’m working on the chapter, “Ice Cream Headache”, which is part of the science fiction novel, “Long Summer”. I’ve been writing about the cheeseburger and beer ice cream that Carla once made for Brett.

Unlike many things in their society, her concoction wasn’t compiled, but was handmade. As an expert in Earth culture with an emphasis on the twentieth and twenty-first century in America, she likes sampling ‘the real thing’. The cheeseburgers are one inch in diameter, with real cheddar, bacon, onion, mustard and pickle, as Brett likes them. After freezing them, she made ice cream with Venus Mon IPA, folding the frozen cheeseburgers into it, “Just like they did in state fairs,” she says.

She scoops it into a malt cone ‘that she made herself’. Brett restrains himself from his observations about her use of bots. She’s always using bots but claims she does things herself. In a flash into the future, he knows he eventually tells her this, causing a rift that can’t be mended.

Before letting him sample the ice cream, Carla asks if his taste buds are turned off. See, the sensory input from taste buds in the future can be controlled so you never taste anything foul by your standards. But she wants him to have the real experience, not something filtered by his taste buds and his preferences index. He lies, telling her, “Of course, it’s off,” while checking with his systems to turn it off. Then he samples the ice cream.

The sample is not the one I described, but another one, a moderately dark chocolate flavored with bourbon, with small chips of bittersweet chocolate, nuts, and marshmallows and swirls of salty caramel. This is one of the problems with being shuffled through moments of now. One thing is being experienced and then details change.

For some reason, after writing all of that, I now want a cheeseburger and beer, followed by some ice cream.

Time to go eat.

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Fitbit Thoughts

I enjoy the Fitbit. It’s amusing how it’s conditioned my thinking. Just like cats train us, the Fitbit has me trained.

I’m more congnizant of moving and the need to move. Whereas I used to attempt to be expedite doing things, I now make the most out of activities to get max movement. For example, I used to think, “Okay, I’m going to the master bedroom. What do I need to take back there?” Then I would load up so as to do only one trip. Now, I take one thing at a time and make multiple trips because I want those steps. This is also less stressful to me.

My average miles per day is up to five point seven three miles. Steps have increased to thirteen thousand, one hundred twenty-seven. Active minutes have increased to a seventy-one per day average.

It’s easy to forget to put the Fitbit back on. It needs to be removed for showers or baths, and recharging. My wife and I have both caught ourselves walking briskly around as we clean, accumulating steps, only to discover we don’t have our Fitbit on. So all that stepping you did, and no points! Damn!

My solution to the recharging side of it is to recharge at the end of the day. If I do forget to put it back on, my sleep won’t be tracked. That’s not a terrible loss.

The Fitbit’s sleep function seems iffy. One day it didn’t record my sleep at all. I reported it to Fitbit. We know we have some issues with it, they replied. We’re working on it.

Another night, my wife got up to check on something with the cats. I was also up at the time. It was about one thirty in the morning. According to the Fitbit, she slept uninterrupted for over seven hours.

The Fitbit can be cheated. That keeps me leery of all its numbers. For example, a rocking chair or playing with the cat with a string will increase your numbers. I’m dubious how much benefit either of those activities are to my overall goal of walking more and being more active.

Overall, after almost four months, I’m satisfied. We are more active. We go on walks together. Needing something for a salad or a green vegetable for dinner, we’ll just walk the mile to the store and back, together, to acquire the steps, miles and activities. We’ll walk to our favorite used book store, The Book Wagon. Its less than a mile away. Typically, we’ll combine them. The grocery is one direction and the book store is in the other, so we’ll end up with a three mile circuit.

Or, like yesterday, we’ll take a brisk walk around town and through the park. And sometimes, like yesterday, we’ll stop in a cafe, pub or coffee shop.

Yesterday, we stopped at Zoey’s for ice cream. I had the bourbon fudge gelato.

It was excellent.

 

 

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