You can’t make ice cream without harmonicas, don't even bother arguing; harmonicas are more American than Cracker Jacks. Speaking of which, I just finished a book that explains where Cracker Jacks, Ferris Wheels, Shredded Wheat, alternating current, Central Park, griddage and the term psychopath all come from. And that’s not all... a good book and I haven’t had so much fun reading history in quite some time, plus it gives me lots of things to go look at with semi-knowledgeable awe when I return to Chicago: Devil in the White City.

(ps. I miss you Chicago. I've decided you're home, something not expected. Miss my friends there too, yep.)

But back to ice cream. I just weighed myself today and I’m 15 pounds heavier than when I left Chicago, so there is some difference apparently between a diet of ramen noodles & cottage cheese and a diet of steak, chicken, salmon, ice cream, beer, pasta, and really good local potato chips. I am currently making all kinds of vows for my month’s stint fishing in AK and I’m hoping the exercise will whip me back into shape. Or maybe just the less food because I am getting more exercise, which entails gaining ground on reclaiming my ass: grinding ice cream, biking around the lake, kayaking, playing catch, dancing sometimes and going for the occasional walk.

But back to the ice cream. I decided to do a little experimentating and got some partial recipes off the web. Personally I had my heart set on mint chocolate chip, and thought there was plenty of mint around about in my mom’s yard, but when I went to look for it, it was revealed to me that my mom had gone on a mint holocaust last summer and had ripped out all of the peppermint and spearmint, leaving vast quantities of lemon balm. This particular mint, lemon balm, is great and all for hot tea in the winter when it is 20 below with the wind chill, and your nose is running and maybe a little crinkle in the throat so you brew up some of that kind of mint and add honey and viola, you have great medicinal tea, but nevertheless is not something I want to work into an early ice cream experiment. So instead I went about with a very sharp eye and gathered little shy renegade garmants of peppermint and spearmint. Then I blended them together with milk and sugar, strained the result and ended up with a strainer that looked like this:

My next move was to grate up a bunch of chocolate and then I also mashed some home-grown raspberries and made a raspberry-chip ice cream too. With the addition of the following moments…
















We ended up getting something like such…

Which created about 5 of my new pounds and also something like this…

So, I think it’s safe to say that the fourth of July was celebrated in true American spirit. Now I must gripe about something: Germany won against Argentina! Which means I won my sibling rivalry moment, although I was really pissed off when she swapped “sides” right as the game started and as we were watching a recording and I knew I had won the rivalry, I was annoyed to have to share the kudos when she really only changed her mind because she thinks Ballack is cute. But this isn’t my gripe. This is:

German freakin’ lost to Italy yesterday! How dare they! How dare! Now I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Italy was bad, but man, I’ve never seen such a bunch of swimmers leapin’ off the high dive. Every little wiffle of air or touch of the shoulder and those weasaly little Italians were hitting the turf and holding their noses and weeping with the pain of it all. Personally, I’d rather not watch a final showdown involving a bunch of foul-moochers.

But on the other hand, I don’t like the French because they were mean to me because I don’t speak French and so I can’t root for them either. That means I have to root for Italy just because they’re cute and make funny hand gestures (and they do), even if they are big faking fakers.