I scream you scream we all scream for...oh screw it, let's all just scream.

I'll admit it. I've been a little down.  Right now my life is not a basket of rainbows.  We are at the end of our year of living simpler, true.  But everything's catching up with us.  We're out of money for the week and I don't get paid until Friday. My sister's birthday is this week, we need groceries, I need gas.  Our roof is leaking endlessly into our walls and we need to fix it...
  I have to work and my whole family is home for the summer; it is heartbreaking to leave in the mornings, some days.  Tad still needs to catch up on stuff at night and our evenings have been baseball on TV, Internet surfing, flipping channels and more baseball on TV. 
I hate to say this but.  Ugh.

So I was clearly in a bad mood this afternoon and Tad, knowing that I'd like to see a little more spontaneity in our family life, suggested we surprise the kids by telling them we're all going to walk down to Cold Spoons for gelato.  My heart leaped.  A walk? In the evening? AFTER dinner?!!  Just what the doctor ordered, right? Apparently not.  Darn consumption not solving all my problems....stupid capitalism.

We started out down the street, alternately holding hands at driveways and intersections and running on the sidewalk.  Then we got onto Vliet street.  Lucy wouldn't hold my hand at one of the driveways and Tad got stressed out about the cars coming and I had to grab her wrist which she tried to grab away and it became a battle of will.  Still, determined that this outing would save my mental state, I remained patient and pleasant and even turned around and smiled at Tad. He smiled back. 

As we approached Cold Spoons, a disturbing realization hit me.  It is Monday. Gelato is Italian.  Are not Italian places generally closed on Mondays?  "Oh no", I said, covering my face.  We walked up to the darkened storefront, a big mean CLOSED sign staring us in the face.  "Closed!?" Coen said in a panicked voice.  We stood silent for a moment.  Considering.

Tad said calmly, "Oh no you guys, its closed!  Let's just go to the gas station and everyone can pick out an ice cream treat." Dang it! I don't want to spend money on stupid gas station ice cream.  I want to go to Cold Spoons. And now I want to go home.  But I paste a smile back on my face and take Lucy's hand.  Coen runs ahead, looking at his shadow and BAM, he trips over a crack in the sidewalk and down he goes.  He sits for a moment examining his skinned knees and suddenly becomes hysterical as red blood blobs peek through.  "Pick me up! Pick me up!" He yells clutching at me. I barely get him off the ground when my back, already injured, pulls and hurts all the way down to my toes.  Coen goes for his dad.  "Pick me up!"

Up he goes and Tad tells him its okay and he'll be fine--he's just getting his summer skin.  Before he knows it scraped knees will hardly bother him at all. Coen buys this and calms down.  We approach the gas station parking lot and Tad coaches me on which way to walk to avoid traffic which sets my blood boiling 'huh! tell ME what to do!'  But we go in and hover around the ice cream cooler.  We're in everyone's way and keep having to move and Coen considers his ice cream choice for about ten minutes.  Finally we head out and I suggest we go home and eat on our porch. I am overruled and so we sit on a broken blue bench outside the gas station.  A pick up truck is blasting I am Iron Man and a garbage can is wafting stink in our faces.  I cannot possibly think of a worse way to be spending our evening.  Stupid Iron Man!  Garbage smell!  Can't fit on this bench!  This is what my brain is saying on loop. 

Coen cries because his ice cream is melting and pieces of chocolate are falling off and Lucy still has hers and why didn't he get a push up too and his knees hurt.  I sit on the edge of the broken bench and bite into my ice cream sandwich, sprinkled with freezer burn, sticking to my teeth, obviously expired.  I fold over the wrapper and lob it into the garbage can.  I seethe.  Lucy has an issue with her push up and I pick it up to dump out the melting part and accidentally overturn the entire thing into the dirt.  She shrieks.  I try to salvage some which she now declares to be "usgusting".  She takes what is left and I pick her up to carry her home, my back aching and sticky red push up dripping onto my arms and feet at every step.  I'm sitting here with my toes sticking together, and I have to admit, I'm almost cracking a smile at the disaster of it.

Yeah, so our ice cream outing didn't really do the trick.  But I guess happiness comes when it comes.  And it sure doesn't come in a push up pop or an ice cream bar.  Here's to tomorrow being better.

Clink!

Smash!

Damnit.