I Scream, You Scream, We All Want The Same Ice Cream

Confession: I hate taking my kid out for ice cream.

I'll do just about anything to avoid it. Ice cream? Who wants ice cream? LET'S GO TO BUILD-A-BEAR INSTEAD!

Yes, it's that bad.

The thing about taking Alexis for ice cream is that it always ends with me eating the only disgusting flavor known to humankind. ALWAYS.

If we go to the place with a ton of different flavors, I end up reading the menu board to her. The flavors change daily, so it's not all that hard for me to pull a little voodoo magic. "They have chocolate, strawberry, black forest, black raspberry chocolate chunk, heavenly hash . . . " conveniently skipping all of the flavors I don't want to eat . . . "mint chocolate chip, Oreo cheesecake, dutch apple crunch," etc. I only read what I might order. Simple.

Except that the damn kid can read just enough to find the horrendous grape ice cream. It's like her superpower or something. At the very moment I don't want her to be able to read, she'll find the one word that I fear the most and she'll sound that sucker out.

"I want purple dinosaur!" she'll proclaim.

"No, you don't," I tell her. Always.

"Yes, I do! Purple dinosaur!" she'll insist.

I always tell her that I know how that story ends and NO NO NO. Inevitably, though, I wind up letting her order what she wants and a few minutes later, I find it in my hands. She is a pro at turning, "Can I try a little bit of yours?" into "How about I just keep this and you keep mine? KTHXBAI."

I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT. I swear she must put some sort of spell on me. There is no other explanation for how she manages to get me to play along with her shenanigans. It happens every single time.

Same deal if we go to Dairy Queen. We always get Blizzards and no matter what I do, I end up eating her Blizzard while she eats mine. I once tried ordering the same thing for both of us and that little attempt at trickery made her head explode into a million pieces. Let's just say I won't do that again.

I really need to dig out our ice cream maker. It's time to make what I want at home and tell the kid to back away from my happiness.

Dale a tu cuerpo alegria Macarena

You should probably go French kiss an electrical outlet right now.

Go ahead. I'll wait until you get back.

Ready?

Did you make your electrical outlet happy? Because, seriously, you owe electricity a little love. It saved you from something horrifying yesterday.

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When Mr. Husband called me at 5:00 to report that the power was out at our house, I wasn't worried. Sure, power outages mess up the pond (gravity defiance requires electricity, you know), but the food in the fridge would be find just as long as nobody opened the door.

When I got home at 6:00 and the power was STILL out, I started to worry a little. Just a tiny bit. We already had plans to eat out and run some errands, so it wasn't like we *needed* electricity at home, but I was starting to think about what might happen if I didn't have internet access for the rest of the night.

People, I haven't missed a day of posting here in over four years. It's sort of A Thing for me now. Must. Post. Daily.

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We pulled into our neighborhood at 8:30 and were greeted with many, many smiling faces. Neighbors everywhere, standing in their yards and chatting. As wonderful as it is to live in a place where neighbors talk to one another, I knew it was a sign that I should start to worry for real.

The power was still out.

My perfect posting streak was in jeopardy, and I wasn't happy. At all. I started to consider some options and realized there was an easy answer--I could just post from my phone!

There is a fancy little Squarespace app for iPhone that is super crashy with iPhone 3 (which I have), but it would still get the job done. There was only one minor issue--my phone and I don't speak the same language. That's to say, my phone loves to "autocorrect" me and make me look like an idiot. "Autocorrect," of course, should always be said in quotes because there's nothing auto-ish or correct-ish about changing "Pens tickets" to "Penis toxic."

Whatever. I would just post a photo and be done with it.

Except that I deleted most of the photos off of my phone about a week ago because I needed to clear some space. WHOOPS.

But wait! I had a video!

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When I lived in Spain in 1994, there was a song that haunted me. It followed me everywhere, which was really very unfortunate considering that it made me want to punch people in the mommy/daddy buttons. I loathed that song. LOATHED. But sadly it was a chart topper, so I had to endure it for months and months. If there was one good thing about having to leave the beautiful Mediterranean Coast at the end of the school year, it was that I was finally getting away from that song.

Then two years later, the same damn song found its way across the ocean. The torture started all over again. It was played over and over and over for months and months on end. Each and every time I heard it, I considered using porcupine as a soccer ball and kicking it at the band member's faces. THEIR STUPID FACES. Ahem.

Now, nearly 20 years later, Alexis has discovered that same damn song. It's on Just Dance for Kids for the Wii and Alexis dances and dances and dances to it.

The Macarena.

It makes me violent.

But I still have video of Alexis dancing to it on my phone.

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That video was just about to be posted, meaning that ALL OF YOU would have had that damn ear worm, but the power returned. It was like a sign from the electricity gods that I shouldn't torment you with such a horrible song. The cute booty shaking really can't make up for the atrocity that is those lyrics.

So I quickly wrote a post recommending that you make out with your electrical outlet to show your gratitude for not being subjected to the Macarena, but then my blogging software and my browser got into a fist fight and were both knocked unconscious. Crash City, yo, and I lost every single word I had written before I could push the post live.

I don't know if the universe was trying to force y'all into the torture that is the Macarena or was trying to protect you from getting it stuck in your head, but I'll be nice and not post the video.

Considering I've mentioned the word "Macarena" about fifteen times by now, you probably have the song stuck in your head anyway. Mwahahaha! MACARENA!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go French kiss an electrical outlet. Those eight hours when our power was out were PAINFUL, and I wasn't even home for six of them.

Eventually You Have To Give Up And Just Post a Photo