David called from work today to remind me he had an early-afternoon appointment to have a tooth crowned.
I expressed sympathy and headed for HEB for ice cream. Two gallons—Dutch chocolate and coffee—plus a bottle of chocolate sundae sauce.
Some people, aka spoilsports, wet blankets, and killjoys, might call that excessive.
I call it caring, compassion, the willingness of a wife to share her husband’s pain.
To demonstrate that the quality of mercy is not strained, I bought Blue Bell, made at the Little Creamery in Brenham. (“Blue Bell ice cream tastes so good because the cows think Brenham is heaven.”)
Well. You can imagine my pain when David came home and said the dentist had done absolutely nothing. They couldn’t decide which tooth needed treatment. Might be this one, might be that one. Didn’t want to crown the wrong tooth. Best to wait and see.
“But I bought ice cream for dinner,” I said.
I thought he would say, “That’s okay. We’ll eat it anyway.” Anyone who’s seen David eat ice cream would have anticipated that response.
What he said was, “Well, I’ll go back to the dentist eventually.”
At that, the milk of human kindness I’d been sloshing around in all day sort of evaporated. There was no Plan B menu. And my mouth was all set for Blue Bell.
So I ate some. Coffee. With ribbons of chocolate sauce swirled on top.
Now I’m drunk, torn between reeling up the stairs to bed and reeling back into the kitchen for one more bowl.
I don’t know when David will go back for his crown.
It would be a shame to let such lovely ice cream just sit in the freezer and go bad.
*****
NaNoWriMo begins tomorrow. That’s my goal for the next four weeks. I will take a shot at writing 50,000 words by midnight on November 30. I’m sure I can write 50,000 words in a month. I’m not sure they will turn out to be a novel, or a near novel, or that they’ll even make sense. But there are worse things to do in November. And there’s plenty of ice cream here in case I need comfort along the way.
*
Image of Giant Half-Gallon of Ice Cream by KB35 via flickr, CC BY 2.0.
M. K. Waller 
Your fall back sounds good. Ice cream for NaNo! Good luck.
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Thank you. I heard a health expert on TV say ice cream is therapeutic.
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Go, go, go! Against my better judgement, I’m doing it this year also. EEEK!
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EEK ! is the word for it, all right. Good luck. And thanks for visiting and commenting.
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I’m not doing NaNo this year. This is one thing I have the power to say *No* unto.
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I lack your strength of character. I’m just a compulsive joiner.
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[OOT] I’m wondering how you can put that “FEEDJIT” widget to your blog,… could you tell me?
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Gladly. Here’s the link for the Feedjit widget that works with WordPress. You can choose the colors you want. Then paste the code into a text box on your sidebar.
http://feedjit.com/joinimg/
(If these instructions don’t work, please let me know, and I’ll try to see where I’ve gone wrong.)
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It works!!!
Thank you so much,… (^_^)v
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I’m glad it works! Thanks for letting me know. I hope you enjoy seeing where your readers link from.
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All the best for NaNo, Kathy 🙂 Might there be an occasional tweet or FB squeak to see how you’re doing during November? I am sad and get very excited about my friends NaNos.
In case you’re still wondering, you should reel back into the kitchen for one more bowl
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Kate, there will no doubt be periodic wailing and gnashing of teeth on both Twitter and Facebook. It’s possible there will be more wailing than novel. For a compulsive person, I’m very uncompulsive about NaNo.
I didn’t reel back to the kitchen last night. This morning I bought a bathroom scale and a tape measure. I’ll probably wail about that, too.
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I’m on board….
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Best wishes for a smooth trip.
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Love your goal and supporting it in thoughts and prayers. I am going to do it next year! Show us what you produce.
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