The Story of How Ice Cream Made Everything Much More Better

I had a terrible day. A rotten, no good, horrible, all-wrong day. Let me whine to you about it for a little while. You'll like it.

A couple of months ago, upon the advice of the smarties running my program in France,  I made an appointment to talk to the folks at the French Consulate in San Francisco for this Friday. The way the process works is that the school where I'll be teaching is supposed to send me an official contract (arrêté in Frenchy) saying that I'm legit to be in Franceland for an extended period of time. The contract will also finally make me privy to such apparently insignificant facts as what city I'm going to be in and how long I'm going to be there. You know, stupid stuff.

I need the contract before I can get my visa, and I need to go in person to SF to get said visa. So back in May I made that all-important appointment for this Friday, thinking I was giving myself legions of buffer time. That Guy I Live With took Thursday thru Sunday off so we could drive down there and make it a real adventure. It was all so perfectly planned.  Except: I have received exactly bubkiss from France.

Thus I couldn't keep my Friday appointment. Thus I had to make a new appointment for the last week I'm in Portlandia. Thus I had to buy a plane ticket that will take me to the Mecca of Awesome (Oakland). Thus I was very upset and may or may not have shed numerous tears in my office-cave.

In an effort to cheer me up, my buddies Do and Janielle insisted that I join them for lunch. I had a lovely time with my lovely friends until it was time to pay. I rooted through my Nina Toten Bag and could not seem to find my wallet in betwixt various other  flotsam. I figured it had to be in the vicinity of my desk, because I had just used my card to buy a ticket to the Mecca of Awesome. We got back to the office and it was exactly nowhere. My already fragile nerves got so bo-jangly that I was pretty sure I was going to simultaneously vomit everywhere and scream in a pitch only alpacas can hear. I retraced my steps with Janielle, all the while thinking about all the irreplaceable things i had in my wallet, like my high school library card, and trying so so hard not to cry.

We made it to the restaurant where we had just dined and the proprietor proffered my wallet the moment we entered the premises.

"Bless you!" I exclaimed. "Seriously. Bless you! Bless you! I mean it. Bless you!" (I don't know. It seemed like the most appropriate response.)

I forced another friend to join me for happy hour so she could tell me happy things that would distract from Woe Day. Afterward, we went to Lovely's Fifty Fifty, which has the most superior ice cream in my neighborhood. It's much nobler than that at another new scoop shop I shall not name, whose caramel salted chocolate ice cream was so saltily inedible I feel the need to defame it at every opportunity. But at Lovely's I had a dish of their coffee toffee ice cream with candied almonds and hazelnuts.

And that made my day much more better. The end.

Postscript: I was relating the day's woes whilst cuddling with That Guy and the right shoulder strap on my prettiest, pinkest summer dress snapped. Tomorrow will be a better day. Tomorrow will be a better day. Tomorrow will be a better day. Amen.