Of Ice Cream and Summer Walks

A friend of mine recently emailed me one of those messages intended to be forwarded to everyone you care about. I usually read and delete these emails because I frankly can't be bothered forwarding the multitude of emails of this nature that I receive. This message, however, struck a chord with me. For the sake of brevity, I will only include the first and last paragraphs of the original email. This will be sufficient.

Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.

When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift...Thrown away.... Life is not a race. Take it slower. Hear the music before the song is over.

How appropriate. I do make the time to enjoy life whenever possible. Life, however, doesn't always want to cooperate.

Take the other night for example. My husband and I were alone in the house and I told him to put on his shoes and walk with me. He looked at me as if I had just stepped off the mother ship from Mars.

"Walk?", he says. "Where to?"
I said, "To Utica Avenue."
"Why?"
"To get some ice cream."
"But we have ice cream in the freezer."
"Then we'll get some italian ices."
"You wanna walk?"
"Yes. You know, walk, as in put one foot in front of the over and move from point A to point B. You walk to the bus every day, don't you?"
"Yeah, but that's only on the corner."
"Then you can use the exercise."
"But I'm constantly climbing up and down stairs at work and..."

Well, he went on and on, trying to convince me to either stay home and eat ice cream or take the car to Utica Avenue which, by the way, is only about five blocks away from us. I would have none of it. I said I wanted to take a walk on a beautiful summer night with my husband and asked if he had a problem with it. That seemed to shut him up and he grudingly walked with me. You would have thought we were climbing Mt. Fuji the way he was snivelling. Finally, after all that haranguing to convince him to go with me, we get to Ices Queen only to find that the freezers were malfunctioning and all the goods were slushy.

I wouldn't be deterred. We kept on walking until we got to the local bodega and there I bought us some Haagen Dazs ice cream bars. (For those of you who don't know what a bodega is, think of it as a neighborhood grocery store with a spanish accent.) We walked back home, eating ice cream and enjoying the night air in spite of the Universe's attempts to rain on my parade. Sometimes ya just gotta MAKE your moments where you can.

Ballo ergo sum
Always and All Ways,
- Gitana