Parking Purgatory Shifts Into High Gear

Never underestimate the curative powers of alcohol.

For the third time in about a week, I’ve bowed outta my evening plans.

One reason. Always the same reason.

Parking at La Aldea subdivision in Gilbert, AZ

In words, Parking Purgatory.

Happened again last night.

There was an evening event yesterday. Recognized the probable tradeoff — of no parking spots when I got home.

I went because I really wanted to attend. At such cost.

Sure enough, I got back early (for me).

At 9 p.m. On a Wednesday.

Up and down and round and round every street I went.

TO NO AVAIL. WHATSOEVER.

Once again, yet again, I was forced to park at some other subdivision, sprint across 6 lanes of speeding traffic — potentially deadly day or night — and walk 1/3 of a mile home.

Only I didn’t walk. I MARCHED. FAST. I was ON FIRE. INFURIATED. Smoke pouring out my ears. Surprised no one reported a house fire!

Because this has been going on since I moved in 1-1/2 months ago and I am at the end of my rope and patience.

I’ve observed that on a particularly bad night — like when I cut an evening many hours short to improve the odds of finding a parking spot yet FINDING NOTHING — forcing me to park in some strange complex far away — recovery takes two nights.

Meaning I won’t drive anywhere come hell or high water if it means returning to Parking Purgatory after 6 p.m., when availability fast dwindles then vanishes.

Which is why I bowed out of tonight’s much-anticipated writing group — my first visit to boot. ARRRRGH. Sad.

Because I’d get back around 9:30 p.m.

The Parking Dead Zone.

Truly, as much as I want(ed) to go — and I do — it’s NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT worth the rage, stress, frustration, yet another reminder of the utter stupidity of the city and La Aldea planners that slaps me in the face every time I (fight to) park.

So yet another social event bites the dust. The Parking Purgatory is shifting into high gear the longer I reside here.

Hence it bears repeating: Do not underestimate the curative powers of alcohol.

Say cheers! to my curative cocktail.

(Diet) Ginger Ale meets Rye Whiskey

Advertisement

Drive to the (rotten) Big Apple of Arizona, if you dare

If you knew: You’d have to circle subdivision streets for up to 30 minutes for a parking space …

… would you ever leave the house?

If you knew: You might have to park 1/3 of a mile away in another subdivision, sprint across 6 lanes of traffic (no pedestrian crossings) …

… would you ever leave the house, unless forced to?

If you knew:  That your friends, family, visitors might never find a parking space … that everyone’s better off if you instruct them to park at the supermarket 1+ mile away and you’ll shuttle ’em

… would you invite anyone over?

The window of parking opportunity in the subdivision is narrow: from early morning, when residents go to work, to 3 p.m., when they begin returning.

Seemingly gold-encrusted spaces fill us F-A-S-T. By 5 and certainly by 6 p.m., good fucking luck.

La Aldea subdivision is the Big Apple of Arizona. Its dearth of spaces is as severe as New York City’s. A rotten apple, this Arizona subdivision.

I am indeed a Prisoner of Parking.

I’m new to town (just about a month!) so boy oh boy do I need to get out. Explore. Engage. Learn.

Metro Phoenix is a gargantuan city of 5+ million — and exploding in population.

There’s tons to do. Activities to engage in, craft beers to drink, people to meet, HOPEFULLY friends to make.

I may not.

Unless these engagements and such happen in time for me to get back and snag that precious parking space by 3-ish, I’m ultra-screwed.

I’ve become a recluse  even before I’ve gained any traction in the city.

Be it a beer at a pub, a gathering at a library, a dance at a spiritual center, a group playing board games, a walk in a park, I weigh each activity against the promised stress of no parking upon my return.

Especially if it’s after 11 p.m. A 1/3-mile hike from some division guaranteed.

Being a Prisoner of Love is so much easier on heart and soul than being a Prisoner of Parking. to heart and soul.

Take today, easy example. I’ve been craving a hefeweisen from a particular pub with a particular bartender whom I enjoy.

Mostly I was craving conversation with a human being.

I weighed the value of the parking space just a block away — thanks to the 3 p.m. hour. (Even then, lots of spots had filled so I was doubly lucky.)

I weighed that against the CERTAIN stress, frustration, angst, rage of driving circles and finding no space even at an early 8 or 9 p.m.

The parking space won.

No hefeweizen. No one to talk with. No engaging with civilization. No fun at all.

Just the security of having and holding a parking space for the next 19 hours … until I must lose it for an appointment.

So I ask you: If you knew you’d have to circle up to 30 minutes — in futility — would you ever leave the house?

If you knew that you might have to park 1/3 of a mile away, sprint across a busy highway, how motivated would you be to leave?

La Aldea subdivision is no place to live (unless you’ve got garage access, I don’t).

It IS a place to become a sorta Howard Hughes — an extraordinary celebrity-hermit.

He became so for no reason of La Aldea subdivision though.

Howard, if you’re up there listening, unshackle from these Mean Streets. Let me drive free let me be free, a move must be, thank you very kindly good and eccentric, sir.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Give Jerks an Inch, They Take Miles of Parking Eternally

I need a drink. And I don’t mean this second cuppa coffee.

I’m in Parking Purgatory.  I’m a renter in a metro Phoenix subdivision where parking is as severely scarce as downtown New York’s.

But that’s not why I’m writing.

I’m in Parking Purgatory. A renter in a subdivision ruled by an HOA, aka Hell Of Absolutes.

Blog-worthy though that be, that’s also not why I’m writing.

I’m writing ’cause there’s a car that’s sat abandoned in the subdivision street for weeks. WeekS.

A silvery Subaru Tribeca with two flat rear tires and New Mexico plates. For all we know, its owner may be back in Albuquerque drunk while some local friend babysits his unmoved car.

Son of a bitch.

No matter.

Abandoning a car is illegal. As in against the law. As in certifiably towable.

Long highly-aggravating story short:

The HOA is useless. They can and will do nothing. These are public streets.

So I contacted the police. Reported the vehicle. With every detail. I’m a natural detective, uber meticulous, detailed and thorough. Nothing escapes my attention unless I let it.

They came out Tuesday and tagged the car. An orange notice that reads:

“Any vehicle left unattended on a street/highway for 48 hours may be removed by any police officer/employee.”

Orange water-based paint indicating the position of the rear (flat) tire to pavement was also applied.

The police told me: “Monitor and report back after 48 hours.”

I did, do. Three days later, car’s still there. (Big surprise. Not.)

They came back today. Left a SECOND orange note — same warning. “Any vehicle left for 48 hours can be towed.”

And a second application of orange striping, this time from front tire to pavement.

Smoke from my ears blasts fast and furious.

Not only am I — and I ALONE in a community of thousands, with NO help from the HOA and some help from the police, thank god — working overtime to do the right thing in an illegal matter but a community matter. That car’s taking up PRIME PRICELESS REAL ESTATE.

Here’s the rub.

The car, after its first warning, was “moved.” Approximately 6 to 12 inches forward. Most certainly it was pushed. Not driven. Rolled.

I’m a little person and even I could push a car a foot!

Inches juuuuuuust enough to misalign the painted orange stripe from tire to pavement and legally satisfy the “car was moved” requirement.

Absolute total bullshit!!!!!!!

That’s not smoke from my ears you see. They’re flames!

I got really lucky.

I bumped into the patrolling officer as I was walking to the illegal car to take more photos. Document document document. Evidence evidence evidence.

We had a friendly, long, informative chat.

A game of cat-and-mouse is under way.

Yes, an officer can cite the car with 48-hour warnings and painted orange stripes from tire to road a thousand times.

As long as the car’s been moved within 48 hours — even if pushed an inch — it cannot be towed.

He said sometimes a rock’s placed on top of a tire and if it’s moved or gone after 48 hours, the car’s “been moved.”

First thing I’m gonna do if I’m a parking asshole is take that rock and heave it into this desert! Costly tow and impound thwarted!

It gets worse.

He said that citizens sometimes have to call to report the same abandoned vehicle 20, 30 times until something’s done. So far, I’ve called in twice. Prospects are not good.

Reason being, he said, that sometimes the owner, graced with indefinite 48-hour allowances, gets lazy. Or forgets. So the car doesn’t get moved that inch.

Then and only then can it be towed.

So any citizen doing the right thing and the LEGAL thing must be in it for the long haul. The very long haul. The haul that reads: Welcome to Infinity.

Oh my f-ing gawd.

Parking Purgatory. Did I mention I live there? Forget the address. Just address letters and bills to :

Exhausted Inflamed Citizen Doing the Right Thing

Parking Purgatory

Maricopa County, Arizona 85234

Cash for my soon-to-explode bar tabs also gratefully accepted.

Do You Pee Wee or JV Your Blog?

There are writers and there are bloggers.

This flashed — boom! — while I crossing Costco. If you’ve been inside a Costco, then you know that walking from one end to the other offers plenty of contemplative time!

There are writers and there are bloggers.

They’re mutually exclusive, despite surface appearances.

What is a writer?

The simplest answer: One who crafts with words. Who cares for the craft. Is impassioned for it. Is committed to it and the crafting — from the bold strokes of the visual brush to the finest threads of correct grammar, spelling, fundamentals of language.

Nothing but nothing ruins otherwise adept writing more than sloppiness and inattention to and disregard of the details.

Even an incorrect subject-verb agreement can tip the scale and create a stir, a disharmony and imbalance in otherwise fine writing.

Such sloppiness, of course, reflects the writer.

I’m turned off by sloppiness in any trade and craft but most poignantly and painfully writing because it is mine.

There are writers and there are bloggers.

So what’s a blogger?

Someone who throws slop on a page.

Do not misinterpret.

It is not to say that the intrinsic content is slop (though it may be) but rather that the words are thrown onto a page with scarce tending to a standard of quality or crafting.

The content reads as if the author didn’t care — and s/he didn’t.

Sometimes a blogger is a mediocre storyteller.

(I know only of one who is a superb storyteller AND excellent writer (most of the time) but he blogs infrequently. Our loss.)

Sometimes the mediocre storyteller can make a blog worth reading … but it requires enduring and turning a blind eye (or pretense of one) to hair-raising sloppiness.

I mean serious sloppiness.  It’s instead of its, they’re instead of there, no instead of know, your instead of you’re. I knooooow, 2nd-grade stuff, right?! Stuff not gone wrong, rather made wrong by educated native-English-speaking adults!

There’s no reason for it, only excuses.

The eyesores and mines in a field that mar a chunk of writing render reading painful. Eye-bleeders I call ’em. Plus they’re insulting to the craft and language itself.

Throwing stuff onto a page does not a writer make.

You are a blogger until you prove that you can write.

There’s Pee Wee baseball and the Philadelphia Phillies.

Somewhere in that broad spectrum you fall.

Be it in books or blogs, it’s easy to spot, roll eyes at and laugh off the multitudes who claim they can write. “I’ve got the next Big American Novel in me” thang. {gag} Thanks to technology and self-publication, there’s no measure to the sea of that crap.

What irks and saddens me are bloggers and folks who exhibit some modicum of talent or skill in expression but fail to invest any energy or care into the writing.

Their blogs, their writing could be elevated if only they did care … if they’d take the time to look up a word’s definition, to check spelling, to ensure accuracy of noun-verb agreement, punctuation, grammar, syntax (which even some better bloggers/writers lack in spades), the nuts ‘n’ bolts.

So simple. So basic. Third-grade stuff. No Hemingway here.

Laziness lands you in the Pee Wee league and keeps you there.

Do yourself better, do your readers better, do language better.

Dedication and commitment to the fundamentals help elevate from Pee Wee to JV (junior varsity).

Do not aspire to write that next big novel. Do not try to be a writer (unless you’re genuinely one).

Just write decently on your blog.

Soup Nazi Still Says: No Muffin for You!

Ugly, this bout of food poisoning.

As described delicately in the prior post.

More than 48 hours have passed since a lemon poppyseed muffin from a gas station convenience store brought me to my knees, literally.

Am somewhat surprised it’s taking the body this long to rid itself of the contamination. Maybe it’s my age (sunset years) … or the particular bacteria.

Whatever the reason(s), the healing progresses — slowly.

Yesterday was able to get down the remaining half of the chicken noodle soup I couldn’t stomach the day after the nightlong vomit fest. And managed a slow melt-in-the-mouth of a little Lindt chocolate 90% cocoa so uber bittersweet, nooo sweetness.

Also graduated from soothing diet ginger ale to coffee! A big step indeed considering java’s acidity. Also, well, admittedly, I drank up all the ginger ale in recovery. A trip to the market for more ahead.

The fever’s vanished plus I slept a reasonable 8-9 hours instead of the 16 immediately after the poisoning.

But I still have no appetite or desire to even view or touch food beyond soup or possibly some quality ice cream — both soothing to the stomach. Which feels like it’s been run over by a semi and a bus simultaneously.

Food poisoning’s ugly. No two ways about it. It causes massive cramping, vomiting, diarrhea, fever,  dehydration — even hospitalization in worse instances.

However, the body is amazing! Its ability to repair and right itself, with little to no instruction or guidance from our minds — also amazing!

When you cut your finger, you don’t have to tell your body what to do to heal. Various biological systems immediately spring into action, independent of instruction from you, to repair the wound.

Biology fascinates. Looooooooved it in high school, love it still decades later!

Anyhow, this food poisoning, as gross and unpleasant as it was, has rekindled my appreciation for my physicality, the body’s innate processes to heal that adhere to their own rhythm like clockwork. Gotta love the body as it repairs itself from damage. With no conscious instruction from me. Rest assured, I’d only make matters worse!

Still: Feelin’ only 50-60% some 48 hours later.

Still: Pretty woozy and raw in the stomach/gastrointestinal system.

Still: Like Soup Nazi commands: No muffin for me!

Yes Sir!

 

 

 

 

 

Soup Nazi commands: No muffin for you!

Head in the toilet, puking. Then dry-heaving when the stomach’s emptied.

Diarrhea. Gross watery streams and the rest of that picture I’ll leave to you.

I’ll never look at a lemon poppyseed muffin the same way.

The culprit easily identified. It’s either the small bag of baked Lay’s potato chips or the muffin. And honestly, who gets food poisoning from potato chips?

I thought I was doing myself a favor, picking up the muffin and chips at Maverick (gas station) for the 2-1/2-hour midnight drive home Thursday. After all, I hadn’t eaten all day.

Food poisoning’s timetable is remarkably predictive. A thing of beauty physically.

Within two hours of eating, rumblings of gastrointestinal distress emerged.

At three, I was in bed in the depth of night flat on my back, unable to move, overcome with nausea and speculating whether I’d sleep it away — haha, as if! — or throw up.

If you’ve ever been drunk — and God I hope you have! it’s a critical life experience — then you know precisely that experience. Am I gonna throw up or am I not? Do I want to? No. Will I feel better if I do? Yes. In the end, nature takes its course and you’re her puppet.

Nature won. Not once. Not twice. But three times. Hastened dashes from bedroom to toilet to unleash the poison, the contaminants of a lemon poppyseed muffin that several hours prior had looked so innocent and inviting sitting there inside its protective little plastic bubble.

I won’t lie. It was ugly.

I’ve only twice had marked food poisoning.

The first was from contaminated sushi at a Japanese restaurant in San Francisco some 30 years ago. Ironically, I never got food poisoning in the oodles of raw fish I joyfully and abundantly consumed during my 10+ years in Japan!

The muffin poisoning was worse than the sushi. More, ahem, graphic. Intense. Enduring. Kept me up all night with diarrhea, vomiting, dry heaving, then drained me of all energy the next day and produced a fever.

Needless to say, food held no appeal what-so-ever the day after! Not even a gentle bowl of healing Campbell’s chicken noodle. A slow halfway in my stomach rebelled so I let the soup go and stuck with the only thing that soothes — diet ginger ale.

One thing to know about me. I’m a highly conscious and conscientious citizen of the planet. (I couldn’t be a part of today’s Self-Absorbed Me-Me-Me culture if I tried!)

I did the right thing. The responsible thing. I called that Maverick, spoke with the manager to inform of the contaminated muffin. She was glad for the information and stated she’d pull the products.

Were I a modern American, I’d be hiring a lawyer and suing the corporation for some insane cause – excuse drummed up by some scummy lawyer and me!

But I’m no modern American.

I’m a reasonable and reasoning and inordinately fair American who assumes responsibility for her actions — in this case, purchasing a lemon poppyseed muffin. It’s not Maverick’s fault that it was contaminated! How could they know … unless informed by a responsible customer.

My job there done, I returned to healing. Slooowly. Two days later and my system’s still distressed, out of whack, uber sensitive. Nuthin’ but liquids for unhappy tummy!

I slept deeply for some 16 hours last night. The fever broke. However, my energy’s far from peppy.

There shall be no lemon peppy, I mean poppy, seed muffins any time soon methinks.

Or Muffin for You!! (courtesy of Soup Nazi on “Seinfeld.”)

 

 

 

Books, brats & a birthday bash!

Happy birthday to you … happy birthday to you

Happy birthday dear library … hap …

Hold up, pause audio!  Library?! Darn tootin’!

Imagine you’re in a large room  — with some 100 people of all ages, from baby to senior, singing the birthday song … to the very place where all are gathered!

Yesterday was the 10th birthday of Queen Creek library.

Queen Creek’s a rural area in the far eastern corner of metro Phoenix, a restful area far from city suffocating sprawl, a place where farmland and irrigated ditches and, sadly, explosive growth prevail.

A place where presumably the library’s arrival to then-little Queen Creek was a very big deal 10 years ago.

As a newbie to the Valley — as greater Phoenix and its outlying areas are known — I’d never been to Queen Creek’s library. (In fact, had not been to Queen Creek apart from driving.) That certainly wouldn’t preclude me from participating in its celebration.

A cause that I very nearly gave up on, truth be known. The traffic – OH MY GAWD! Country roads swollen with evening commuters who’ve discovered they joys of living rural.

Or have they?

As I inched along mired in rudeness — Phoenix drivers are famous for not letting you in for mergings and lane changes — I was aware that every minute stuck in their mud was a moment lost in the magic show underway. I very nearly threw down the cards and baled to the next possible right turn — destination: DOESN’T MATTER — to escape.

Then I was brought back to my better/higher senses by my lifelong love of books and libraries. That singularly fueled my patience and perseverance — through driver muck, wrong turns and winding reroutings that eventually did get me to my destination, thank you Garmin GPS!

The magic show — I was soo excited! — was half over.

But better half than none at all, right?!

What a blast! The magician, Craig Davis, was excellent, spot-on with his sleights of hands plus his fun personality and presentation kept the brat monsters — I mean kids, in abundance — engaged.

No easy trick.

And me too! I so enjoyed his illusions even more than the kids did! Loove magic! Always have. As a girl, I even had a magic kit that I still often think about.

Life eventually beat the magic (and magician) outta me but in its presence, that spark flickers.

And that IS magic!

After the act, a cheerful library staffer led us in an uplifting rendition of Happy Birthday … to the library.

Then came cake — for what’s a birthday sans sugar sugar and sugar still!!

A massive sheet cake decorated with that thick sickeningly sweet white frosting and blue trim and “Happy 10th Birthday to the library” in cursive blue with a photo of the library to boot!

Plus there were cupcakes, vanilla and chocolate, with colorful sprinkles.

When I left , there was but one slice of cake on its paper plate remaining and a dozen or so cupcakes. I considered taking that last slice, it looked so lonely on that big long table.

(But my mother pounded in me to never take the last of anything (or anything at all) so I snagged a vanilla cupcake instead just to ensure my sugar soared into a stratosphere.)

“Wow, the crowd really went through that giant cake!” I commented to a staffer.

“Yeah and that’s the second one today!”

So Queen Creek surely got sugared up.

So, the celebration, was it worth the horrendous slog? Yes.

The kiddie brats? Briefly.

The sugar high? Nah but exceptions are called for upon certain occasions.

The magic show? Indeed!

To sing (really badly) in group song to a library? Yup, even that.

Every queen’s got to have a crown. Queen Creek is no different. This one’s for you, library. You wore it well and deservingly. You’re Queen for a Day — and in my book, every day.

Long Live Libraries!

 

Do I Stay (and Read On) or Do I Go?

Do I start a new read?

Or finish the book I’m halfway through? The novel I began more than a month ago.

There are no rules. There is only dilemma.

I’m not inclined whatsoever to have multiple reads simultaneously on the proverbial nightstand.

Also, I don’t feel bound to finish reading a book just because I started it. Plenty of times I’ve borrowed one from the liberry — I’m a huuuuuuuuuuge liberry fan, get veritably all my reads there — and returned it unfinished for whatever reason.

The mood’s lost.

It’s not hitting that sweet spot.

It’s not as good as everyone said. (I look askance at public opinion on most everything, including books.)

It’s boring or too long for my energy investment.

Perhaps that’s the problem with “Zoo.” A James Patterson paperback I picked up for free in a tiny old library in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in the last three months of being on the road and homeless.

Now THERE’S a story worth reading if I wrote it!

Anywho, it’s 394 pages. Long for my tastes. I’m stuck at 179. Just shy of the halfway mark. Shall I press onward in a story that’s engaged me enough that I wanna now how it ends — at a snail’s pace of a chapter or two at a time — yet not so engaged that I can’t put it down.

Borderline Blah is how I’d describe it.

What to do what to do.

Set it aside and hope for a resurgence of interest at another distant time? Won’t happen. Plus as an anti-clutter nazi, I hate keeping stuff around that I won’t use, don’t need, don’t reference, etc.

So if I quit “Zoo,” to library donations it shall go. It’s heading there regardless but whether it shall be as finished or unfinished remains to be seen.

The season’s turning dark and cold — in many parts of the world but not here in Phoenix. Perfect time for a weird dark tale of animals gone mad and attacking and destroying people but why?!

Who am I to question or advise James Patterson on length of book or anything else. But to throw in my two cents, were “Zoo” roughly cut in half … maybe just maybe I’d know how the story ends sans the slog.

Anywho, such is the lightweight dilemma.

“Do I Stay or Do I Go” refrain by the Clash bounces in my brain.

James James James, why must “Zoo” be a work of uncaged words, left free to roam the prairies of our brains, with no confinement or seemingly end in sight? …

Perhaps, just perhaps, a leash on “Zoo” woulda made the difference …

Ice cream, you scream … ssshhhhhhhh

I scream you scream we all scream …

Hold on, Halloween was yesterday.

Today say:

Birthday Cake

Blueberry Cobbler

Blue Moon

Buckeye

Cinnamon Pecan

Coffee Chocolate Chip

Graham Central Station

Key Lime Pie

Salty Caramel Truffle

Spouse Like a House. (Huh?)

Your appetite whetted yet?

Those are but some flavors at an ice cream store featured in the newspaper.

Try it I must!

See, ice cream’s my favorite food on the planet. (Sushi’s second.) Good ice cream. Not junk. Not frozen yogurt — a substitute for ice cream – puuleaze, don’t insult my palate! Not sugar-free. Certainly not ice milk!

Bring on the butterfat!

Bring on the savory.

Bring on the sweet — not too much — and contrary to most Americans who absolutely equate flavor with sugar. The recipe to quality ice cream is balance. Mouthfeel. Add-ins in proper proportion. Like craft beer, quality ice cream is a science and art.

So I did nothing on Halloween night — frighteningly unheard-of phenomenon not to celebrate my Most Favorite Holiday.

Couldn’t let it go completely unrecognized so in lieu of gorging on candy neither wanted nor needed, I treated myself to an introduction to the ice cream store about which I’d read very good things, Handel’s. Cool story too.

An extensive and mouthwatering menu greeted me — with standard fare like black walnut, chocolate chip, Oreo cookie.

Then the intriguing flavors. Like in the above list.

Like Twixter. You can guess but sample to be sure. This Twixter is vanilla with caramel ripple, chocolate chips and sugar cookie pieces.

Like Buckeye.

What’s buckeye candy? Peanut-butter fudge balls partly dipped into chocolate to resemble eyes.

How Halloween-y.

Like Blue Moon. Sorry to disappoint (fellow) beer drinkers but it’s not what you think. Or hope. It’s blue raspberry-flavored ice cream.

I wasn’t craving any particular flavor rather one unique.

Fortunately it wasn’t busy — with everyone loading up on sweets elsewhere! — which allowed me time to sample without holding up a line. (Which I ‘d never have done, I’d-a baled first, but that’s another Overconsiderate Me post.)

I sampled from a short list of candidates, based on descriptions provided by a helpful and rather patient young employee.

Wasn’t seeking ice cream to wow or rock my world rather just to like it.

I wasn’t winning. It’s how I ended up sampling 6, 7, maybe 8 flavors. Small samples so don’t go calling me a glutton now. I simply was not liking what I tasted, for one reason or another.

Finally a hit.

Graham Central Station.

Graham-flavored ice cream with a graham-cracker ripple and chocolate-covered crunchies.

One of their most popular flavors, turned out.

Since the scoops were small, I could (calorically) afford a second flavor. Plus it was Halloween after all. Nor a day for Conservative Sugar.

Not as easy as it sounded. 

I’d sampled and ruled out numerous flavors I normally go for as well as “exotic” ones . Except peanut butter and jelly, which I didn’t try, despite a lifelong passion for peanut butter. I don’t care for sweet as add-ins or generally.

So I proceeded to do something normally reserved exclusively for Deschutes Brewery beers.

I chose a flavor on blind faith. Isn’t all faith blind?

Yes.

No sampling. No idea what I was getting — except that it fell within a ballpark of preferences.

More so, ’twas an act of compassion for the employee who’d patiently assisted for a while. I wanted to “set him free.” 

It’s one Blind Faith scoop. One day. If I didn’t like it, it’s not the end of my world. 

Sadly, I could not tell you what the Blind Faith flavor, the second scoop paired with the Graham Central, which was actually pretty tasty,  \except it was chocolate. Left no impression. Once again, didn’t invoke excitement or satisfying pleasure.

The anticipated first dip into Handel’s Ice Cream — “homemade ice cream since 1947” — was a bust. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. Or would be returning.

My foodie / “ice creamer” wasn’t satisfied; my curiosity was.

I scream, you scream, we all scream ….

at Halloween.

Sadly there is no screaming for ice cream at Handel’s.

For you rarities with curious and attentive minds, to answer the lingering question about what exactly is Spouse Like A House ice cream:

It’s malted vanilla ice cream with Reese’s Peanut Butter ripple and chocolate-covered pretzels.

Now you know. Now can sleep peacefully. Bwaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahaha