Let’s muse over ice tea

and please have some chocolate covered almonds.

Thursday was Strawberry Sundae Day. I was feeling adventurous, so Cole and I drove downtown to enjoy sundaes at the Ghirardelli Chocolate ice cream shop. I let Cole drive. While his driving is par excellence these days–downtown traffic, pedestrians, messengers on bikes and sightseeing horse and buggies made the $12.00 parking fee a little less painful.

Bistro 110, one of our favorite lunch spots, sits next to Ghirardelli’s and since it was late afternoon and Cole and I were both hungry, I figured we might as well have a late lunch-early dinner…in other words, I found a way out of feeling guilty over not fixing lunch or planning dinner–it is called killing two meals with one fork. We enjoyed artichokes and crepes while we people watched from our Bistro window table.

The American Girl store is just around the corner and little girls clutching their American Girl dolls were parading back and forth in front of our window. They often wore matching outfits and were adorable. I would have considered having another baby if I could have been certain it would have been a baby girl who loved American Girl dolls. I would have spent hours at the American girl doll store instead of in the Hot Wheels section of Toys-R-Us. I would not have encouraged her to play with dump trucks, and race Matchbook cars off ramps–instead, we would have dressed up and gone downtown to have her doll’s hair fixed at the American Girl store and dined in the cafe on $10.00 peanut butter sandwiches. But–back to reality–Cole was pointing out the fat man in the tie-dyed shirt eating a massive ice cream in a waffle cone across the street, and a man with dreadlocks whose pants hung down around his ankles–he kept walking past the restaurant window with two little boys. Cole wondered if he was trying to sell the tots for ice cream money. Speaking of ice cream… check please–it was time for our strawberry sundaes.

Ghirardelli’s was packed. We waited in line to order, and finally reached the order taker, who had no clue of the English language. We would still be standing there, waving our arms and pointing, if we had made any special requests. Remember the guy with the two kids, pants that hung low, and dreadlocked, who kept walking by our restaurant window? He was in front of us in line–with only one kid! When my order totaled $17.95, I was certain Cole was right. The guy had sold one of his kids for ice cream money!

Is it reasonable to think that employees at a pricey ice cream-chocolate shop should be happy? The Ghirardelli’s employees working at the counter were not happy. One employee tossed ice cream with such vigor into dishes and onto cones that she splattered us–I felt like I was at a Blue Man concert. We waited and we waited for our order to arrive, as we watched with amusement as the servers scooped up ice cream with rage. Finally, our order was dumped into sticky to-go glasses and plopped down in front of us on a sticky counter and we tore ourselves away.

Cole wanted to stop at the Bentley Gold Coast Car Dealership that was just a few blocks away.

Not exactly the American Girl Store, but why not? It was impressive: Bentleys, Lamborghinis, Royce Royces, Oh My!

The dealership was open to picture taking and teen boys, as long as they stepped away from the cars to drool. Cole told me that someday he would buy me a Rolls Royce. I asked if I could have a bumper sticker that said–I am proud of my billionaire son. He said no.

We drove home in our Honda Odyssey. I had just spent $12.00 on parking, $35.00 on lunch, and $17.00 on ice cream that wasn’t that good–to celebrate Strawberry Sundae Day. However, I did not have to feel guilty about not cooking dinner and while the dreamy-eyed boy sitting next to me was not clutching an American Girl doll–he was holding tight to the American dream of car ownership, and making lots of money so he could buy his mother a Rolls Royce.

Thanks for musing with me…Odd Loves Company so leave a comment and share your musings!

♥
Kb