Better than a coffee shop

So it's hot here, and I don't have air conditioning. Back in the pre-global warming days, it hardly ever got hot here, so it's quite unusual to find places with AC (last year's heat wave I decided to go to a movie, my childhood escape from summer heat, only to discover the theater was not air-conditioned or even with a fan, and I watched an art film surrounded by sweaty elderly people. Not a fun smell.)

But last evening it cooled off and got really nice, although not inside my apartment, and I decided to venture outside to work. I was having a craving for ice cream. Like an electrode planted within my brain that kept going off at random intervals, impervious to my will or attempts to concentrate, I had sudden flashes of frozen dairy need. Reading about rationalized control of the body in a Foucauldian system (ice cream!), reading about Dr. Crazy's weight situation, which sounds just like mine, and her vow to diet and exercise (ice cream!), correcting comma splices and improper subject-verb agreement (chocolate raspberry truffle, now, damn you!). Even my cats seemed to be meowing in the key of creamery.

So I walked down the street and up the other street and into a long line at my local ice creamery, which makes its own ice cream locally but I don't know if they are a chain or not. They have the loveliest chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream, and I'm sure they have other wonderful flavors as well but once I find a good thing I stick with it.

But what should I notice when I excited with my cold and drippy prize was a well-lit patio area with little tables and all-around comfortableness! There weren't too many gaggles of loud annoying pre-teens in and out, and I think next time I could bring headphones and work for hours. I worked for quite a while last night, getting my chocolate fix, doing my course reading, enjoying the breeze and crickets (not the SUVs so much, but whatever). And no one got in my face to order another drink or move. I should work there more often.

And if I should need a pick-me-up while I'm working, you know what my source of caffeine will be: macadamia brazilian coffee chip.