Eating Ice Cream Quotes

I am angry that I starved my brain and that I sat shivering in my bed at night instead of dancing or reading poetry or eating ice cream or kissing a boy...

The last laugh, the last cup of coffee, the last sunset, the last time you jump through a sprinkler, or eat an ice-cream cone, or stick your tongue out to catch a snowflake. You just don't know.

Nothing's a better cure for writer's block than to eat ice cream right out of the carton.

Ari smiled. The sun was shining, the weather was great, he was eating ice cream, and all his dreams were about to come true.

Tatiana: I found my true love on Ulita Saltykov-Schedrin, while I sat on a bench eating ice cream. Alexander: You didn't find me. You weren't even looking for me. I found you. Long pause. Tatiana: Alexander, we're you .... looking for me ? Alexander: All my life.

If I had my life to live over... Someone asked me the other day if I had my life to live over would I change anything. My answer was no, but then I thought about it and changed my mind. If I had my life to live over again I would have waxed less and listened more. Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy and complaining about the shadow over my feet, I'd have cherished every minute of it and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was to be my only chance in life to assist God in a miracle. I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed. I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded. I would have eaten popcorn in the "good" living room and worried less about the dirt when you lit the fireplace. I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth. I would have burnt the pink candle that was sculptured like a rose before it melted while being stored. I would have sat cross-legged on the lawn with my children and never worried about grass stains. I would have cried and laughed less while watching television ... and more while watching real life. I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband which I took for granted. I would have eaten less cottage cheese and more ice cream. I would have gone to bed when I was sick, instead of pretending the Earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for a day. I would never have bought ANYTHING just because it was practical/wouldn't show soil/ guaranteed to last a lifetime. When my child kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now, go get washed up for dinner." There would have been more I love yous ... more I'm sorrys ... more I'm listenings ... but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute of it ... look at it and really see it ... try it on ... live it ... exhaust it ... and never give that minute back until there was nothing left of it.

Why does ice cream go with a broken heart?” Kylie asked. “Because if you eat enough of it, it freezes the heart and numbs the pain for a bit,

I’m not a complicated girl, she laughed, I just want to run away with you, rob a bank, fall in love and eat ice creams in Paris.

Maybe happiness didn't have to be about the big, sweeping circumstances, about having everything in your life in place. Maybe it was about stringing together a bunch of small pleasures. Wearing slippers and watching the Miss Universe contest. Eating a brownie with vanilla ice cream. Getting to level seven in Dragon Master and knowing there were twenty more levels to go. Maybe happiness was just a matter of the little upticks- the traffic signal that said "Walk" the second you go there- and downticks- the itch tag at the back of your collar- that happened to every person in the course of the day. Maybe everybody had the same allotted measure of happiness within each day. maybe it didn't matter if you were a world-famous heartthrob or a painful geek. Maybe it didn't matter if your friend was possibly dying. Maybe you just got through it. Maybe that was all you could ask for.

I'd treat myself to a reading marathon all weekend. All the ice cream I could eat, all the pages I could read. Heaven.

Nothing has ever been so painful or delicious as being so close to him and being unable to do anything about it: like eating ice cream so fast on a hot day you get a splitting headache.

When my daughter was a toddler, I used to take her to a park not far from our apartment. One day as she was playing in a sandbox, an ice-cream salesman approached us. I purchased her a treat, and when I turned to give it to her, I saw her mouth was full of sand. Where I had intended to put a delicacy, she had put dirt. Did I love her with dirt in her mouth? Absolutely. Was she any less of my daughter with dirt in her mouth? Of course not. Was I going to allow her to keep the dirt in her mouth? No way. I loved her right where she was, but I refused to leave her there. I carried her over to the water fountain and washed out her mouth. Why? Because I love her. God does the same for us. He holds us over the fountain. "Spit out the dirt, honey," our Father urges. "I've got something better for you." And so he cleanses us of filth; immorality, dishonesty, prejudice, bitterness, greed. We don't enjoy the cleansing; sometimes we even opt for the dirt over the ice cream. "I can eat dirt if I want to!" we pout and proclaim. Which is true—we can. But if we do, the loss is ours. God has a better offer.

I am angry that I starved my brain and that I sat shivering in my bed at night instead of dancing or reading poetry or eating ice cream or kissing a boy or maybe a girl with gentle lips and strong hands.

I remember the feeling even now; an inescapable stickines of each other like magnets on the fridge. It's funny how someone can be such an integral part of your life, like you laugh at the same jokes and eat your ice cream cones the same way and share your toys and dreams and everything but your heartbeats, and then one day - nothing. You share nothing. It's like none of it ever happened.

Ma and God God gave us fingers--Ma says, "Use your fork." God gave us voices--Ma says, "Don't scream." Ma says eat broccoli, cereal and carrots. But God gave us tasteys for maple ice cream. God gave us fingers--Ma says, "Use your hanky." God gave us puddles--Ma says, "Don't splash." Ma says, "Be quiet, your father is sleeping." But God gave us garbage can covers to crash. God gave us fingers--Ma says, "Put your gloves on." God gave us raindrops--Ma says, "Don't get wet." Ma says be careful, and don't get too near to Thoses strange lovely dogs that God gave us to pet. God gave us fingers--Ma says, "Go wash 'em." But God gave us coal bins and nice dirty bodies. And I ain't too smart, but there's one thing for certain-- Either Ma's wrong or else God is.

I would have done anything for him. But these days, I don't want to do anything. I don't want to get drunk or go to a wild party or make out with random boys-not that I've ever wanted to. I don't want to watch chick flicks or eat ice cream or get a haircut or buy out half of the mall. I don't want cold, cruel revenge. I don't want to see him suffer when karma catches up with him and kick his ass. I don't even want to talk to him right now, simply because it would be awkward and pathetic and I wouldn't know what to say to him. Yes, there is self-control, preventing me from being stupid and acting like a desperate doofus in the manner most heartbroken people do. But there is also a weary numbness threatening to consume every inch of me: Isn't there a way for me to skip straight to the part where I'm fine again?

Popcorn, chocolate, coffee, ice cream, and pizza. The five food groups. Health nuts are going to feel stupid one day, dying of nothing.

We’ll meet again in Lvov, my love and I…” Tatiana hums, eating her ice cream, in our Leningrad, in jasmine June, near Fontanka, the Neva, the Summer Garden, where we are forever young.

...stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot oftener, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more and cry less. Life must be lived as we go along.

I remember I once saw this old movie...; in it the main character was talking about how sad it is that the last time you have sex you don't know it's the last time. Since I've never even had a first time, I'm not exactly an expert, but I'm guessing it's like that for most things in life--the last kiss, the last laugh, the last cup of coffee, the last sunset, the last time you jump through a sprinkler or eat an ice-cream cone, or stick your tongue out to catch a snowflake. You just don't know. But I think that's a good thing, really, because if you did know it would be almost impossible to let go. When you do know, it's like being asked to step off the edge of a cliff: all you want to do is get down on your hands and knees and kiss the solid ground, smell it, hold on to it.

And we spend the rest of the evening getting very pissed and eating ice cream, as we always do when something good or bad happens to either one of us.

If your arteries are good, eat more ice cream. If they are bad, drink more red wine. Proceed thusly.

When I did show up next door, at 6:34, it sounded like World War III had erupted in the house. I’d let myself in since no one answered the damn door. “I can’t believe you ate all the ice cream, Daemon!” I cringed and stopped inside the dining room. There was no way I was going into that kitchen. “I didn’t eat all of it.” “Oh, so it ate itself?” Dee shrieked so loudly I thought I heard the rafters in the ceiling shake. “Did the spoon eat it? Oh wait, I know. The carton ate it.” “Actually, I think the freezer ate it,” Daemon responded dryly. I grinned when I heard what sounded like the empty container hitting what suspiciously sounded like flesh.

We are going to eat ice cream and we are going to eat shit. The trick is to use different spoons.

Tania, I was spellbound by you from the first moment I saw you. There I was, living my dissolute life, and war had just started. My entire base was in disarray, people were running around, closing accounts, taking money out, grabbing food out of stores, buying up the entire Gostiny Dvor, volunteering for the army, sending their kids to camp—” He broke off. “And in the middle of my chaos, there was you!” Alexander whispered passionately. “You were sitting alone on this bench, impossibly young, breathtakingly blonde and lovely, and you were eating ice cream with such abandon, such pleasure, such mystical delight that I could not believe my eyes. As if there were nothing else in the world on that summer Sunday.

Inej cleared her throat. “You do look a bit …” “Enchanting,” said Matthias. Nina was about to snap that she didn’t appreciate the sarcasm when she saw the expression on his face. He looked like someone had just given him a tuba full of puppies. “You could be a maiden on the first day of Roennigsdjel.” “What is Roennigsdjel?” asked Kuwei. “Some festival,” replied Nina. “I can’t remember. But I’m pretty sure it involves eating a lot of elk. Let’s go, you big goon—and I’m supposed to be your sister, stop looking at me like that.” “Like what?” “Like I’m made of ice cream.” “I don’t care for ice cream.” “Matthias,” Nina said, “I’m not sure we can continue to spend time together.” But she couldn’t quite keep the satisfaction from her voice. Apparently she was going to have to stock up on ugly knitwear.

Of course a lot of guys were ashamed. Somebody said let's go out and fight for liberty and so they went out and got killed without ever once thinking of liberty. And what kind of liberty were they fighting for anyway? How much liberty and whose kind of liberty? Were they fighting for the liberty of eating free ice cream cones all their lives or for the liberty of robbing anybody they pleased whenever they wanted to or what? You tell a man he can't rob and you take away some of his liberty. You've got to. What the hell does liberty mean anyhow? It's a word like house or table or any other word. Only it's a special kind of word. A guy says house and he can point to a house to prove it. But a guy says come on let's fight for liberty and he can't show you liberty. He can't prove the thing he's talking about so how in the hell can he be telling you to fight for it? No sir anybody who went out and got into the front line trenches to fight for liberty was a goddamn fool and the guy who got him there was a liar.

Eliza got vanilla ice cream with butterscotch sauce, whipped cream, and a cherry. She asked me to get chocolate ice cream with hot fudge and marshmallows. This way, she explained, we could share without overlapping flavors. Except she was pretty goddamn stingy with hers. She only gave me one bite. Meanwhile I was supposed to let her eat half of mine.

If I could live again my life, In the next – I’ll try, - to make more mistakes, I won’t try to be so perfect, I’ll be more relaxed, I’ll be more full – than I am now, In fact, I’ll take fewer things seriously, I’ll be less hygienic, I’ll take more risks, I’ll take more trips, I’ll watch more sunsets, I’ll climb more mountains, I’ll swim more rivers, I’ll go to more places – I’ve never been, I’ll eat more ice creams and less lima beans, I’ll have more real problems – and less imaginary ones, I was one of those people who live prudent and prolific lives - each minute of his life, Of course that I had moments of joy – but, if I could go back I’ll try to have only good moments, If you don’t know – that’s what life is made of, Don’t lose the now! I was one of those who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, without a hot-water bottle, and without an umbrella and without a parachute, If I could live again – I will travel light, If I could live again – I’ll try to work bare feet at the beginning of spring till the end of autumn, I’ll ride more carts, I’ll watch more sunrises and play with more children, If I have the life to live – but now I am 85, - and I know that I am dying …

The Best Way to teach your kids about taxes is by eating 30% of their ice cream.

A serving size on ice cream is like a half a cup. Is that like a joke some guy put on there? "Hey, come here: look what I put for the serving size. Did you see? I just did it as a joke but they're going out like that." You ever know anybody to eat a half a cup of ice cream? "Hey, you wanna go grab something to eat?" "Ah, no. I had a half a cup of ice cream. Ya, a whole half a cup. I just kept eating and eating and eating. I must've had two spoonfuls.

Because...Beacause it's so good, and there's only one chance to read a book for the first time, and I want it to last. That experience. I'd finish it in a day otherwise, and that'd be like...like eating a carton of ice cream in one sitting. Too much richness over too quickly. This way, I can draw it out. Make the book last longer. Savor it. I have to since they don't come out that often.

Dee:I can't believe you ate all the ice cream, Daemon! Daemon:I didn't eat all of it. Dee:Oh, so it ate itself? Did the spoon eat it? Oh wait, I know. The carton ate it. Daemon:Actually, I think the freezer ate it.

Sucking your thumb without a blanket is like eating a cone without ice cream!

We don’t ask when people age out of singing, or eating ice cream; why would we stop making love?

I’ve come to think of my lizard brain as basically a version of Felix. It’s totally random and makes no sense and you can’t let it run your life. If we let Felix run our lives, we’d all wear superhero costumes all day long and eat nothing but ice-cream. But if you try to fight Felix, all you get is wails and screams and tantrums, and it all gets more and more stressy. So the thing is to listen to him with half an ear and nod your head and then ignore him and do what you want to do. Same with the lizard brain.

If you're eating an ice cream cone, it's just very hard to believe that things have gone completely to shit. That there isn't still hope.

If you want your customers to start eating spinach flavored ice cream, your idea won’t need as much cultural change as it will if you want your customers to start taking a coffee pill in the morning instead of fresh brewed coffee. Obviously, the latter will require more efforts and more marketing.

This one is called "Chunky Munky".' Nadia stopped with the spoon halfway to her mouth. 'But isn´t a monkey a small chattering Earth creature that lives in trees?' she asked faintly. 'Are ... are you telling me I´m eating chunks of its flesh?' 'Ugh.' Sophia shivered. 'What a thought! The poor monkeys!' Nadia felt ill. 'Is that why this stuff is called 'I Scream?' Because the animal screams when they make it into dessert?

I came to the conclusion, Marilla, that I wasn't born for city life and that I was glad of it. It's nice to be eating ice cream at brilliant restaurants at eleven o'clock at night once in a while; but as a regular thing I'd rather be in east gable at eleven, sound asleep, but kind of knowing even in my sleep that the stars were shining outside and the wind was blowing in the firs across the brook.

Like this book, the dictionary shows you that the word "nervous" means "worried about something" -- you might feel nervous, for instance, if you were served prune ice cream for dessert, because you would be worried that it would taste awful -- whereas the word "anxious" means "troubled by disturbing suspense," which you might feel if you were served a live alligator for dessert, because you would be troubled by the disturbing suspense about whether you would eat your dessert or it would eat you.

When you're stressed, you eat ice cream, cake, chocolate and sweets. Why? Because stressed spelled backwards is desserts.

The administration says the American people want tax cuts. Well, duh. The American people also want drive-through nickel beer night. The American people want to lose weight by eating ice cream. The American people love the Home Shopping Network because it's commercial-free.

You think you're charging up that memory? Is that what you think? You are going to be so sorry when I dream about my experience of eating chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream yesterday. Now that was exciting.

You think you can change a guy, that he’ll be different with you, that you’ll finally be the one to tame him… and before you know it, you’re alone in your underwear at nine o’clock on a Saturday night, crying to Adele songs, eating ice cream straight from the gallon, and wondering what the hell is the matter with you that you fell for such a goddamned man-child, after he explicitly warned you not to.

Of course, that rationalization didn't work at all. It would have helped if I'd had some Oreo cookie ice cream to eat at the same time. I've learned that self-delusion is much easier when there's something sweet in your mouth.

And did you feel like, 'This is it!?' Did music swell and fireworks explode and did you think to yourself,'This is what a kiss is supposed to feel like?'" "It was like ice cream." "I worked at DQ. Trust me, it's not like ice cream." "No, I mean it's like all my life I've been eating frozen yogurt. And kissing boys is ice cream.

If there is shit all around me, how can I eat my ice cream?

But this was the way I liked things. I ended it (or he did), I had a few weeks’ getting over it and listening to lots of girl-power music and eating ice cream, and then, before too long, I’d start to crush on someone new and would begin the whole cycle over again. It worked for me.

When I review my travels among the astronauts, my mind's eye goes first to the Houston shopping mall where Alan Bean sat for hours after returning from space, just eating ice cream and watching the people swirl around him, enraptured by the simple yet miraculous fact they they were there and alive in that moment, and so was he.

If I had my life to live over, I'd dare to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax, I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones. You see, I'm one of those people who lived sensibly and sanely, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I've been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat and a parachute. If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have. If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies.

There was real plasure to be had eating ice cream out of container and pickles out of a glass jar, standing up at the counter. I wondered whether the cravings associated with pregnancy were really only a matter of women feeling empowered to admit their odd longings to their husbands, to ask another person to bring them the eccentric combinations they'd long enjoyed in private.

One of the problems with all of this is that not all narratives are equal. Imagine, to take a silly example, that someone told you story after story extolling the virtues of eating dog shit. You've been told these stories since you were a child. You believe them. You eat dog shit hotdogs, dog shit ice cream, General Tso's dog shit. Sooner or later, if you are exposed to some other foods, you might figure out that dog shit really doesn't taste good. Or if you cling too tightly to these stories (or if your enculturation is so strong that dog shit actually does taste good to you), the diet might make you sick or kill you. To make this example a little less silly, substitute the word pesticides for dog shit. Or, for that matter, substitute Big Mac, Whopper, or Coca Cola.

Women eat ice-cream, men toast marshmallows.

Oh, I had a great time. My thirty-three-year-old boyfriend said he wished they could package my cum like ice cream so he could eat it all day.

A person looked at me and said "I can't believe you eat ice cream when it's cold out" "I replied oh that's nothing I drink water also when it rains

You are such an optimist. My Spidey-sense is tingling all over the place. (Tory) That’s from eating the ice cream. Relax. (Acheron) Relax. Trust me. It’ll be all right. Isn’t that how I ended up dead? (Danger) Stop feeding her anxiety. (Acheron) Anxiety. The Simi’s never eaten that before. Is that tasty? (Simi) Not really. (Danger) Oh. Maybe we should put barbecue sauce on it. Everything’s better with barbecue. (Simi)

Sometimes people ask you: "When is your birthday?" But you might ask yourself a more interesting question: "Before that day which is called my birthday, where was I?" Ask a cloud: "What is your date of birth? Before you were born, where were you?" If you ask the cloud, "How old are you? Can you give me your date of birth?" you can listen deeply and you may hear a reply. You can imagine the cloud being born. Before being born it was the water on the ocean's surface. Or it was in the river and then it became vapor. It was also the sun because the sun makes the vapor. The wind is there too, helping the water to become a cloud. The cloud does not come from nothing; there has been only a change in form. It is not a birth of something out of nothing. Sooner or later, the cloud will change into rain or snow or ice. If you look deeply into the rain, you can see the cloud. The cloud is not lost; it is transformed into rain, and the rain is transformed into grass and the grass into cows and then to milk and then into the ice cream you eat. Today if you eat an ice cream, give yourself time to look at the ice cream and say: "Hello, cloud! I recognize you.

Falling in love for the first time is a completely transcendent experience. It’s like eating pizza-flavored ice cream. Your brain can’t even process that level of joy. Love makes people do crazy things like kill other people or shop at Crate & Barrel. I think on some level it makes us all delusional. Deep down, our whole lives, no matter how low our self-esteem gets, we think, I have a special skill that no one knows about and if they knew they’d be amazed. And then eventually we meet someone who says, “You have a secret special skill.” And you’re like, “I know! So do you!” And they’re like, “I know!” And then you’re like, “We should eat pizza ice cream together.” And that’s what love is. It’s this giant mound of pizza-flavored ice cream and delusion

All there was to it, he was in a panic. He was scared stiff that any minute a fact might come bouncing in that would force him to send me down to Cramer bearing gifts, and there was practically nothing on earth he wouldn't rather do, even eating ice cream with cantaloupe or horseradish on oysters.

Diana: "I wish I were rich, and I could spend the whole summer at a hotel, eating ice cream and chicken salad." Anne: "You know something, Diana? We are rich. We have sixteen years to our credit, and we both have wonderful imaginations. We should be as happy as queens." [gestures to the setting sun] Anne Shirley: "Look at that. You couldn't enjoy its loveliness more if you had ropes of diamonds.

Poppy: What makes you think I'm having dinner with you? Jake: Because you can't sit in your room and eat ice cream and chips two nights in a row. You'll get scurvy. You need vitamin C.

Ellen rose to her feet. Jack thought for a moment she was going to storm out. Instead, she picked up the pitcher of hot fudge and poured the contents onto Leesha Middleton's pink jeans and fuzzy white sweater. "Oops." Ellen sat down again and went back to eating her ice cream. Leesha screamed, a sound that could be heard in Canada. Every eye in Corcoran's was on her. She slid out of the booth and swiped ineffectually at her jeans with a napkin.Then she plucked at her ruined sweater with her thumb and forefinger. "You...you...I can't believe you did that!" Ellen licked whipped cream from the back of her spoon and looked at Leesha calmly. Leesha was tiny, but she seemed to expand, like an amphibian taking on air, then she drew herself up and retrieved her pink leather purse from the bench next to Jack. It was smeared with fudge too. "You'll pay for that, I promise you," she said to Ellen in a voice that raised the gooseflesh on Jack's neck. Then she turned and left. For a moment, Corcoran's was totally silent. Ellen looked across the table at Jack's sundae. "Are you going to finish that?

Personally, I like to mix and match--I prefer to get a couple of milk shakes, a banana split ... a sundae or two. Then I top it off with a mocha chip in a cone. I don't know why. I guess that's like the dinner mint at the end of a meal to me. Know what I mean?" Mary had to turn around again. Bitty was looking forward, her brows super-high, her little face the picture of surprise. "He's not kidding," Mary murmured. "Even if you're not into the ice cream, watching him eat all that is something to see.

If I had my life to live over again, I would focus on the getting and eating of ice cream.

Eat Ice Cream. Read Books. Be Happy.

For it is a mad world and it will get madder if we allow the minorities, be they dwarf or giant, orangutan or dolphin, nuclear-head or water conservationalist, pro-computerologist or Neo-Luddite, simpleton or sage, to interfere with aesthetics. The real world is the playing ground for each and every group, to make or unmake laws. But the tip of the nose of my book or stories or poems is where their rights end and my territorial imperatives begin, run and rule. If Mormons do not like my plays, let them write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent typewriters. If teachers and grammar school editors find my jawbreaker sentences shatter their mushmilk teeth, let them eat stale cake dunked in weak tea of their own ungodly manufacture. If the Chicano intellectuals wish to re-cut my "Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" so it shapes "Zoot," may the belt unravel and the pants fall.

FORKED BRANCHES We grew up on the same street, You and me. We went to the same schools, Rode the same bus, Had the same friends, And even shared spaghetti With each other's families. And though our roots belong to The same tree, Our branches have grown In different directions. Our tree, Now resembles a thousand Other trees In a sea of a trillion Other trees With parallel destinies And similar dreams. You cannot envy the branch That grows bigger From the same seed, And you cannot Blame it on the sun's direction. But you still compare us, As if we're still those two Kids at the park Slurping down slushies and Eating ice cream. Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun (2010)

And ice-cream cones,' she says. 'What is it with you and ice-cream cones?' He licks around the edge of his cone as he considers the question. 'I guess no one ever eats an ice-cream cone at a funeral, or a fire. The Red Cross doesn't drop ice-cream cones into third-world countries. If you're eating an ice-cream cone, it's just very hard to believe that things have gone completely to shit. That there isn't still hope.

I told him I wanted to major in creative writing and sit around in yoga pants and do nothing but write books eat ice cream every day.

Pretty impressive, right?" "No," Neil said. Nicky sighed. "Eat your ice cream, jerk.

That was his moment in Leningrad, on an empty street, when his life became possible—when Alexander became possible. There he stood as he was—a young Red Army officer in dissolution, all his days stamped with no future and all his appetites unrestrained, on patrol the day war started for Russia. He stood with his rifle slung on his shoulder and cast his wanton eyes on her, eating her ice cream all sunny, singing, blonde, blossoming, breathtaking. He gazed at her with his entire unknowable life in front of him, and this is what he was thinking… To cross the street or not to cross? To follow her? To hop on the bus, after her? What absolute madness.

Grow up with me,Let’s run in fields and through the dark together,Fall off swings and burn special things,And both play outside in bad weather,Let’s eat badly,Let’s watch adults drink wine and laugh at their idiocy,Let’s sit in the back of the car making eye contact with strangers driving past,Making them uncomfortable,Not caring, not swearing, don’t look,Let’s both reclaim our superpowers, The ones we all have and lose with our milk teeth,The ability not to fear social awkwardness,The panic when locked in the cellar, still sure there’s something down there,And while picking through pillows each feather,Let’s both stay away from the edge of the bed,Forcing us closer together,Let’s sit in public, with ice-cream all over both our faces,Sticking our tongues out at passers-by,Let’s cry, let’s swim, let’s everything,Let’s not find it funny, lest someone falls over,Classical music is boring,Poetry baffles us both,There’s nothing that’s said is what’s meant,Plays are long, tiresome, sullen and filled With hours that could be spent rolling down hills and grazing our knees on cement,Let’s hear stories and both lose our innocence,Learn about parents and forgiveness,Death and morality,Kindness and heart,Thus losing both of our innocent hearts,But at least we wont do it apart,Grow up with me.

She went out with Jacob for five dates, and then they broke up. She came over that night with a tub of ice cream and a bag of Hershey's KISSES. "Comfort food?" I said. "If I needed comfort food I'd have brought two tubs of ice cream. I'm nor upset, Luce. This is what I always eat on a Friday night.

It’s a bit burned,” my mother would say apologetically at every meal, presenting you with a piece of meat that looked like something — a much-loved pet perhaps — salvaged from a tragic house fire. “But I think I scraped off most of the burned part,” she would add, overlooking that this included every bit of it that had once been flesh. Happily, all this suited my father. His palate only responded to two tastes - burned and ice cream — so everything suited him so long as it was sufficiently dark and not too startlingly flavorful. Theirs truly was a marriage made in heaven, for no one could burn food like my mother or eat it like my dad.

I can't believe you ate all the ice cream, Daemon!"I cringed and stopped inside the dining room. There was no way I was going into that kitchen."I didn't eat all of it.""Oh, so it ate itself?" Dee shrieked so loudly I thought I heard the rafters in the ceiling shake."Did the spoon eat it? Oh wait, I know. The carton ate it.""Actually, I think the freezer ate it," Daemon responded dryly.

But no matter what happens, the earth keeps turning. Monday always comes and eventually, sometimes excruciatingly slowly, that Monday is followed by a Friday. You take tests, hand in papers you wrote at two in the morning the day they were due, and your shoes get worn out, and the pollen in the air increases so that you go through an entire package of tissues during the SATs, and you wander through the crowds at parties looking for Natalie Banks because you came with her, and you watch her take off for the backyard with a senior who seems to be in the backyard with a different girl at every party, and you learn to play chess with your dad, and you eat too much ice cream, and your favorite television drama has its two-hour season finale, and then suddenly the school year ends and you pack your bags for Tennessee.

Perhaps a past of bingeing, restricting, or purging comes back to haunt you from time to time. Maybe you have to fight hard battles against vanity, gluttony, and shame. But with God’s saving power, every new day is a gift, an opportunity to detach yourself from tormenting thoughts about food or how you look and to attach yourself to God. Remember, we all hunger for God, more than we hunger for a big bowl of ice cream or a perfect physique.

I held up my ice-cream cone in the gesture of a toast. "Number thirteen: Eat ice cream in public." About this one... I don't get it. What's the big deal about eating ice cream?" Fat people aren't allowed to eat in public." What are you talking about?" she said, a bit snobbily in my opinion. "I notice them eating all the time." Exactly." You lost me." It's hard to enjoy the eating experience when you feel everyone's staring at you, thinking, No wonder she's such a fat cow. Look how she eats." I don't think that!" Sure.

She’s in every place I visit, in all the love songs I listen to. She’s in the chocolate-cherry ice cream I eat and the 2000s movies I watch and the Jeep I still drive and the thunderstorms outside my window and the quotes I read about love and pain and beauty and heartache.

We feign disinterest and laugh, and creep into the kitchen some nights, a triangle of light spilled on the floor form the fridge, shoveling cold casseroles, ice cream, jelly, cheese, into our mouths, swallowing without chewing as we listen to the steady, echoing tisk-tisk-tisk of the clock. I have done this. Millions of people have done this. There is an empty space in many of us that gnaws at our ribs and cannot be filled by any amount of food. There is a hunger for something, and we never know quite what it is, only that it is a hunger, so we eat.

Aw, my girl misses her family. “Now that we’re dating, come with me to dinner at my folks’ house on the weekend.” She laughs. “Blake, seriously? You’re heading out on a week-long road trip, where I’ll bet you’d rather be single.” “Nope. I’m going to text you every night. You’ll see.” “We’re not dating,” she says. Except she’s cuddling me with her entire naked body and stroking my chest lovingly with one hand. “Want to eat ice cream in bed?” I ask. “Yeah,” she sighs, the arch of her foot stroking mine. Silly Jessie. We are dating. She just doesn’t know it yet.

We grew up on the same street, You and me. We went to the same schools, Rode the same bus, Had the same friends, And even shared spaghetti With each other's families. And though our roots belong to The same tree, Our branches have grown In different directions. Our tree, Now resembles a thousand Other trees In a sea of a trillion Other trees With parallel destinies And similar dreams. You cannot envy the branch That grows bigger From the same seed, And you cannot Blame it on the sun's direction. But you still compare us, As if we're still those two Kids at the park Slurping down slushies and Eating ice cream. Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun (2010)

Develop a healthy relationship with food. If you’re hungry, eat. If you’re full, don’t eat. Eat vegetables to be good to your body, but eat ice cream to be good to your soul. Take pictures of yourself frequently. Chronicle your life. Selfies are completely underrated. Even if the pictures are unflattering, keep them anyway. There will always be mountains and cities and buildings, but you will never look the same way as you did in that one moment in time. Your worth does not depend on how desirable someone finds you. Spend less time in front of the mirror and more time with people who make you feel beautiful. Close doors. Don’t hold onto things that no longer brings you happiness and do not help you grow as a person. It is okay to walk away from toxic relationships. You are not weak for letting go. Forgive yourself. We all have something in our pasts that we are ashamed of, but they only weigh us down if we allow them to. Make amends with the old you and work every day to become the person that you’ve always wanted to be.

At the end of the day, the argument between spirituality and about spirituality, is all against the nature of spirituality. In arguing spirituality, we go against its very nature. The important question: “Am I being kind in what I am saying/doing”? And that is all. In all truth, to eat an ice cream cone and to smile with the joy of a child, is about a billion times more spiritual of an activity, than to discuss views about spirituality. The experience of innocence; the experience of joy—this edifies ourselves and others. And that is spirituality. An ice cream cone can be the most spiritual object in the universe, at any given time.

If you have a monster inside of you, please teach it how to jump, and laugh, and fly and catch fish! Please teach it to climb mountains to watch sunsets and wade in ponds to feel moonlight. Please love your monster, tell it that it has a home, teach it that it has a place in this world, maybe it likes ice cream, maybe marshmallows make it smile, maybe it goes to beautiful places in its dreams at night. One day it will sit atop a clocktower and cast sunbeams onto everyone! Because it will learn that! Because angels are too busy to do that, but monsters are not. Monsters would love to catch sunbeams and eat sugar donuts. Teach your monsters, they will form moonbeams one day!

Regret crossing the street for me, soldier?” Taking her hand into both of his, Alexander said, “Tania, I was spellbound by you from the first moment I saw you. There I was, living my dissolute life, and war had just started. My entire base was in disarray, people were running around, closing accounts, taking money out, grabbing food out of stores, buying up the entire Gostiny Dvor, volunteering for the army, sending their kids to camp—” He broke off. “And in the middle of my chaos, there was you!” Alexander whispered passionately. “You were sitting alone on this bench, impossibly young, breathtakingly blonde and lovely, and you were eating ice cream with such abandon, such pleasure, such mystical delight that I could not believe my eyes. As if there were nothing else in the world on that summer Sunday. I give you this so that if you ever need strength in the future and I’m not there, you don’t have to look far. You, with your high-heeled red sandals, in your sublime dress, eating ice cream before war, before going who knows where to find who knows what, and yet never having any doubt that you would find it. That’s what I crossed the street for, Tatiana. Because I believed that you would find it. I believed in you.

I wish that, at the end of life, when things were truly "done," there was something to look forward to. Something more pleasure-oriented. Perhaps opium, or heroin. So you become addicted. So what? All-you-can-eat ice cream parlors for the extremely aged. Big art pictures books and music. EXTREME palliative care, for when you've had it with everything else: the x-rays, the MRIs, the boring food, and the pills that don't do anything at all. Would that be so bad?

And what kind of liberty were they fighting for anyway? How much liberty and whose idea of liberty? Were they fighting for the liberty of eating free ice cream cones all their lives or for the liberty of robbing anybody they pleased whenever they wanted to or what? You tell a man he can’t rob and you take away some of his liberty. You’ve got to. What the hell does liberty mean anyhow?

As a rule, you knew it was time to eat when you could hear potatoes exploding in the oven. Happily, all this suited my father. His palate only responded to two tastes - burned and ice cream - so everything suited him so long as it was sufficiently dark and not startlingly flavorful. Theirs truly was a marriage made in heaven, for no one could burn food like my mother or eat it like my Dad.

A Rough Guide Be polite at the reception desk. Not all the knives are in the museum. The waitresses know that a nice boy is formed in the same way as a deckchair. Pay for the beer and send flowers. Introduce yourself as Richard. Do not refer to what somebody did at a particular time in the past. Remember, every Friday we used to go for a walk. I walked. You walked. Everything in the past is irregular. This steak is very good. Sit down. There is no wine, but there is ice cream. Eat slowly. I have many matches.

So you have chosen aloneness. You have chosen the security and the relative freedom of solitude, because there is no risk involved. You can stay up every night and watch your TV shows and eat ice cream out of the box and scroll through your Tumblr and never let your brain sit still, not even for a moment. You can fill your days up with books and coffees and trips to the store where you forget what you wanted the second you walk in the automatic sliding door. You can do so many little, pointless things throughout the day that all you can think of is how badly you want to sleep, how heavy your whole body is, how much your feet hurt. You can wear yourself out again and again on the pavement, and you do, and it feels good. No one will ever bridge that gap and point to your stomach or your hair or your eyes in the mirror and magically make you see the wonderful things about getting to be next to you. And maybe that’s it, after all, this fear that no one will ever truly feel about you the way you want to be felt about. Maybe what you want is someone to make you love yourself, to put sense into all that positive rhetoric, to make it so the aloneness of TV and blasting music in your ears at all times isn’t the most happy place you can think of. Maybe you want someone who makes you so sure of how wonderful things are that you cannot help but to tell them your feelings first, even at the risk of being humiliated. Because you will know that, when you’re telling them you love them, what you’re really saying is “I love who I become when I am with you.

Tatiana turns to him, looks up at him, and smiles. “Do you know what a happy ending is to a Russian?” she says. “When the hero, at the end of his own story, finally learns the reason for his suffering.” Taking another swig of Coke, Alexander says, “Your jokes are getting so lame.” He knocks into her with his stretched-out leg. She takes hold of his hand. “What?” he asks. “Nothing, soldier,” says Tatiana. He is thinking of sailboats in distant oceans, the desert from dimmest childhood, the ghost of fortune, the girl on the bench. When he saw her, he saw something new. He saw it because he wanted to see it, because he wanted to change his life. He stepped off the curb and out of the deadfall. To cross the street. To follow her. And she will give your life meaning, she will save you. Yes, yes—to cross. “We’ll meet again in Lvov, my love and I ...” Tatiana hums, eating her ice cream, in our Leningrad, in jasmine June, near Fontanka, the Neva, the Summer Garden, where we are forever young.  

Under the mellowing influence of good food and good music, Adam relaxed, and I discovered that underneath that overbearing, hot-tempered Alpha disguise he usually wore was a charming, over-bearing, hot-tempered man. He seemed to enjoy finding out that I was as stubborn and disrespectful of authority as he’d always suspected. He ordered dessert without consulting me. I’d have been angrier, but it was something I could never have ordered for myself: chocolate, caramel, nuts, ice cream, real whipped cream, and cake so rich it might as well have been a brownie. “So,” he said, as I finished the last bit, “I’m forgiven?” “You are arrogant and overstep your bounds,” I told him, pointing my clean fork at him. “I try,” he said with false modesty. Then his eyes darkened and he reached across the table and ran his thumb over my bottom lip. He watched me as he licked the caramel from his skin. I thumped my hands down on the table and leaned forward. “That is not fair. I’ll eat your dessert and like it—but you can’t use sex to keep me from getting mad.” He laughed, one of those soft laughs that start in the belly and rise up through the chest: a relaxed, happy sort of laugh. To change the subject, because matters were heating up faster than I was comfortable with, I said, “So Bran tells me that he ordered you to keep an eye out for me.” He stopped laughing and raised both eyebrows. “Yes. Now ask me if I was watching you for Bran.” It was a trick question. I could see the amusement in his eyes. I hesitated, but decided I wanted to know anyway. “Okay, I’ll bite. Were you watching me for Bran?” “Honey,” he drawled, pulling on his Southern roots. “When a wolf watches a lamb, he’s not thinking of the lamb’s mommy.” I grinned. I couldn’t help it. The idea of Bran as a lamb’s mommy was too funny. “I’m not much of a lamb,” I said. He just smiled.

…Sugar has become an ingredient avoidable in prepared and packaged foods only by concerted and determined effort, effectively ubiquitous. Not just in the obvious sweet foods (candy bars, cookies, ice creams, chocolates, sodas, juices, sports and energy drinks, sweetened iced tea, jams, jellies, and breakfast cereals both cold and hot), but also in peanut butter, salad dressings, ketchup, BBQ sauces, canned soups, cold cuts, luncheon meats, bacon, hot dogs, pretzels, chips, roasted peanuts, spaghetti sauces, canned tomatoes, and breads. From the 1980's onward manufacturers of products advertised as uniquely healthy because they were low in fat…not to mention gluten free, no MSG, and zero grams trans fat per serving, took to replacing those fat calories with sugar to make them equally…palatable and often disguising the sugar under one or more of the fifty plus names, by which the fructose-glucose combination of sugar and high-fructose corn syrup might be found. Fat was removed from candy bars sugar added, or at least kept, so that they became health food bars. Fat was removed from yogurts and sugars added and these became heart healthy snacks, breakfasts, and lunches.

A healthy attitude to eating I am concerned about the current victimisation of food. The apparent need to divide the contents of our plates into heroes and villains. The current villains are sugar and gluten, though it used to be fat, and before that it was salt (and before that it was carbs and . . . oh, I’ve lost track). It is worth remembering that today’s devil will probably be tomorrow’s angel and vice versa. We risk having the life sucked out of our eating by allowing ourselves to be shamed over our food choices. If this escalates, historians may look back on this generation as one in which society’s decision about what to eat was driven by guilt and shame rather than by good taste or pleasure. Well, not on my watch. Yes, I eat cake, and ice cream and meat. I eat biscuits and bread and drink alcohol too. What is more, I eat it all without a shred of guilt. And yet, I like to think my eating is mindful rather than mindless. I care deeply about where my food has come from, its long-term effect on me and the planet. That said, I eat what you might call ‘just enough’ rather than too much. My rule of thumb – just don’t eat too much of any one thing.

She was fifty-three years old and lonely and oppressed; why couldn't he let her have her illusions? That was what her wounded, half-drunken eyes had seemed to be saying throughout his interrogation: Why can't I have my illusions? Because they're lies, he told her silently in his mind as he champed his jaws and swallowed the cheap food. Everything you say is a lie.(...) Everything you live by is a lie, and you want to know what the truth is? He watched her with murderous distaste as she fumbled with her spoon. They had ordered ice cream, and some of it clung to her lips as she rolled a cold mouthful on her tongue. Do you want to know what the truth is? The truth is that your fingernails are all broken and black because you're working as a laborer and God knows how we're ever going to get you out of that lens-grinding shop. The truth is that I'm a private in the infantry and I'm probably going to get my head blown off. The truth is, I don't really want to be sitting here at all, eating this goddam ice cream and letting you talk yourself drunk while all my time runs out. The truth is, I wish I'd taken my pass to Lynchburg today and gone to a whorehouse. That's the truth.

She sat and watched the dockhand when it was sunny and she sat and watched him when it rained. Or when it was foggy, which is what it was nearly every morning at eight o’clock. This morning was none of the above. This morning was cold. The pier smelled of fresh water and of fish. The seagulls screeched overhead, a man’s voice shouted. Where is my brother to help me, my sister, my mother? Pasha, help me, hide in the woods where I know I can find you. Dasha, look what’s happened. Do you even see? Mama, Mama. I want my mother. Where is my family to ask things of me, to weigh on me, to intrude on me, to never let me be silent or alone, where are they to help me through this? Deda, what do I do? I don’t know what to do. This morning the dockhand did not go over to see his friend at the next pier for a smoke and a coffee. Instead, he walked across the road and sat next to her on the bench. This surprised her. But she said nothing, she just wrapped her white nurse’s coat tighter around herself, and fixed the kerchief covering her hair. In Swedish he said to her, “My name is Sven. What’s your name?” After a longish pause, she replied. “Tatiana. I don’t speak Swedish.” In English he said to her, “Do you want a cigarette?” “No,” she replied, also in English. She thought of telling him she spoke little English. She was sure he didn’t speak Russian. He asked her if he could get her a coffee, or something warm to throw over her shoulders. No and no. She did not look at him. Sven was silent a moment. “You want to get on my barge, don’t you?” he asked. “Come. I will take you.” He took her by her arm. Tatiana didn’t move. “I can see you have left something behind,” he said, pulling on her gently. “Go and retrieve it.” Tatiana did not move. “Take my cigarette, take my coffee, or get on my barge. I won’t even turn away. You don’t have to sneak past me. I would have let you on the first time you came. All you had to do was ask. You want to go to Helsinki? Fine. I know you’re not Finnish.” Sven paused. “But you are very pregnant. Two months ago it would have been easier for you. But you need to go back or go forward. How long do you plan to sit here and watch my back?” Tatiana stared into the Baltic Sea. “If I knew, would I be sitting here?” “Don’t sit here anymore. Come,” said the longshoreman. She shook her head. “Where is your husband? Where is the father of your baby?” “Dead in the Soviet Union,” Tatiana breathed out. “Ah, you’re from the Soviet Union.” He nodded. “You’ve escaped somehow? Well, you’re here, so stay. Stay in Sweden. Go to the consulate, get yourself refugee protection. We have hundreds of people getting through from Denmark. Go to the consulate.” Tatiana shook her head. “You’re going to have that baby soon,” Sven said. “Go back, or move forward.” Tatiana’s hands went around her belly. Her eyes glazed over. The dockhand patted her gently and stood up. “What will it be? You want to go back to the Soviet Union? Why?” Tatiana did not reply. How to tell him her soul had been left there? “If you go back, what happens to you?” “I die most likely,” she barely whispered. “If you go forward, what happens to you?” “I live most likely.” He clapped his hands. “What kind of a choice is that? You must go forward.” “Yes,” said Tatiana, “but how do I live like this? Look at me. You think, if I could, I wouldn’t?” “So you’re here in the Stockholm purgatory, watching me move my paper day in and day out, watching me smoke, watching me. What are you going to do? Sit with your baby on the bench? Is that what you want?” Tatiana was silent. The first time she laid eyes on him she was sitting on a bench, eating ice cream. “Go forward.” “I don’t have it in me.” He nodded. “You have it. It’s just covered up. For you it’s winter.” He smiled. “Don’t worry. Summer’s here. The ice will melt.” Tatiana struggled up from the bench. Walking away, she said in Russian, “It’s not the ice anymore, my seagoing philosopher. It’s the pyre.

A woman named Cynthia once told me a story about the time her father had made plans to take her on a night out in San Francisco. Twelve-year-old Cynthia and her father had been planning the “date” for months. They had a whole itinerary planned down to the minute: she would attend the last hour of his presentation, and then meet him at the back of the room at about four-thirty and leave quickly before everyone tried to talk to him. They would catch a tram to Chinatown, eat Chinese food (their favourite), shop for a souvenir, see the sights for a while and then “catch a flick” as her dad liked to say. Then they would grab a taxi back to the hotel, jump in the pool for a quick swim (her dad was famous for sneaking in when the pool was closed), order a hot fudge sundae from room service, and watch the late, late show. They discussed the details over and over again before they left. The anticipation was part of the whole experience. This was all going according to plan until, as her father was leaving the convention centre, he ran into an old college friend and business associate. It had been years since they had seen each other, and Cynthia watched as they embraced enthusiastically. His friend said, in effect: “I am so glad you are doing some work with our company now. When Lois and I heard about it we thought it would be perfect. We want to invite you, and of course Cynthia, to get a spectacular seafood dinner down at the Wharf!” Cynthia’s father responded: “Bob, it’s so great to see you. Dinner at the wharf sounds great!” Cynthia was crestfallen. Her daydreams of tram rides and ice cream sundaes evaporated in an instant. Plus, she hated seafood and she could just imagine how bored she would be listening to the adults talk all night. But then her father continued: “But not tonight. Cynthia and I have a special date planned, don’t we?” He winked at Cynthia and grabbed her hand and they ran out of the door and continued with what was an unforgettable night in San Francisco. As it happens, Cynthia’s father was the management thinker Stephen R. Covey (author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) who had passed away only weeks before Cynthia told me this story. So it was with deep emotion she recalled that evening in San Francisco. His simple decision “Bonded him to me forever because I knew what mattered most to him was me!” she said.5 One simple answer is we are unclear about what is essential. When this happens we become defenceless. On the other hand, when we have strong internal clarity it is almost as if we have a force field protecting us from the non-essentials coming at us from all directions. With Rosa it was her deep moral clarity that gave her unusual courage of conviction. With Stephen it was the clarity of his vision for the evening with his loving daughter. In virtually every instance, clarity about what is essential fuels us with the strength to say no to the non-essentials. Stephen R. Covey, one of the most respected and widely read business thinkers of his generation, was an Essentialist. Not only did he routinely teach Essentialist principles – like “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing” – to important leaders and heads of state around the world, he lived them.6 And in this moment of living them with his daughter he made a memory that literally outlasted his lifetime. Seen with some perspective, his decision seems obvious. But many in his shoes would have accepted the friend’s invitation for fear of seeming rude or ungrateful, or passing up a rare opportunity to dine with an old friend. So why is it so hard in the moment to dare to choose what is essential over what is non-essential?

Subject: Some boat Alex, I know Fox Mulder. My mom watched The X-Files. She says it was because she liked the creepy store lines. I think she liked David Duchovny. She tried Californication, but I don't think her heart was in it. I think she was just sticking it to my grandmother, who has decided it's the work of the devil. She says that about most current music,too, but God help anyone who gets between her and American Idol. The fuzzy whale was very nice, it a little hard to identify. The profile of the guy between you and the whale in the third pic was very familiar, if a little fuzzy. I won't ask. No,no. I have to ask. I won't ask. My mother loves his wife's suits. I Googled. There are sharks off the coast of the Vineyard. Great big white ones. I believe you about the turtle. Did I mention that there are sharks there? I go to Surf City for a week every summer with my cousins. I eat too much ice cream. I play miniature golf-badly. I don't complain about sand in my hot dog buns or sheets. I even spend enough time on the beach to get sand in more uncomfortable places. I do not swim. I mean, I could if I wanted to but I figure that if we were meant to share the water with sharks, we would have a few extra rows of teeth, too. I'll save you some cannoli. -Ella Subject: Shh Fiorella, Yes,Fiorella. I looked it up. It means Flower. Which, when paired with MArino, means Flower of the Sea. What shark would dare to touch you? I won't touch the uncomfortable sand mention, hard as it is to resist. I also will not think of you in a bikini (Note to self: Do not think of Ella in a bikini under any circumstanes. Note from self: Are you f-ing kidding me?). Okay. Two pieces of info for you. One: Our host has an excellent wine cellar and my mother is European. Meaning she doesn't begrudge me the occasional glass. Or four. Two: Our hostess says to thank yur mother very much. Most people say nasty things about her suits. Three: We have a house kinda near Surf City. Maybe I'll be there when your there. You'd better burn this after reading. -Alexai Subect: Happy Thanksgiving Alexei, Consider it burned. Don't worry. I'm not showing your e-mails to anybody. Matter of national security, of course. Well,I got to sit at the adult table. In between my great-great-aunt Jo, who is ninety-three and deaf, and her daughter, JoJo, who had to repeat everyone's conversations across me. Loudly. The food was great,even my uncle Ricky's cranberry lasagna. In fact, it would have been a perfectly good TG if the Eagles han't been playing the Jets.My cousin Joey (other side of the family) lives in Hoboken. His sister married a Philly guy. It started out as a lively across-the-table debate: Jets v. Iggles. It ended up with Joey flinging himself across the table at his brother-in-law and my grandmother saying loud prayers to Saint Bridget. At least I think it was Saint Bridget. Hard to tell. She was speaking Italian. She caught me trying to freeze a half-dozen cannoli. She yelled at me. Apparently, the shells get really soggy when they defrost. I guess you'll have to come have a fresh one when you get back. -F/E