"By a sheet of ice..." Jane Eyre

At the moment I am feverish and eating small bites of mint chocolate ice cream. I haven't eaten much for the past two days except for some rice and pretzels, but this evening I had the sudden craving for ice cream and just ran to Baskin Robbins for a single scoop; it may not get my fever down, but it certainly is refreshing. Its not chocolate chip, either. It has chocolate crunchies laced through the mint ice cream; even better, I say.

Lately, my associations with ice cream relate to Jack. He only eats vanilla, and he gets rather excited and shouts out "ice cream" anytime its offered or he knows its coming in a restaurant. I admit that I love indulging him with it. His Aunt Maimy loves nothing more than to take a scoop of Haagen Dazs and plop it into his Le Petite Prince bowl and then proceed to spoon feed him as he watches Curious George before bedtime. Le Petite Prince, indeed.

As you know, when I was a young girl visiting my grandparents' home, my grandmother Anoush never let us leave without eating something. Many times this something was an ice cream come. She always kept cones in the pantry and I remember my favorite flavor being a Dolly Madison orange and vanilla creme that she stacked oh so well. She made sure that she pressed the ice cream into the bottom of the cone. Her freezer always had ice cream in it, and during summers after shish kebab dinner, my sisters and I always enjoyed big bowls of rainbow sherbert that she served in lime green plastic bows as we sat outside on the stoop.

My mother always teased me because I always managed to get chocolate ice cream on my t-shirts in the summertime when I was a child. She said it was a continual pattern. I loved when my chocolate ice cream got almost soupy in the bowl and I would work hard to get it all on the spoon; it never ever quite stayed on the spoon, but my mother was always very understanding. She has to be; my chocoholism is inherited from her.

The first song I ever heard performed by Sarah McLachlan was "Ice Cream." I remember by friend Tea playing it for me and felt an instant allure to her voice and to the lyrics. Though at the time I was a teenager and scoffed them; how could anything be better than my beloved cookie dough? Well, as I have gotten older my views have changed and tonight I especially empathize with her lyrics. I am so feverish and miserable tonight and wish I could give up this ice cream and have him here instead. He is better that ice cream..he is so much better.

View: Ice Cream - Sarah McLachlan

(*Please tell me your favorite ice cream flavor when you comment...*)