🍨
I know I’ve already shared that I witnessed the cutest moment in public but it’s happened again. Grabbed ice cream with friends after the beach where I saw this elderly couple enjoying ice cream cookie sandwiches together. They were playing with their cookies while laughing and smiling so much. They were having the best time ever and you could definitely tell they’ve enjoyed growing together. Witnessing that gave me a reality check to my fear of aging, and made me see how getting older can be such a beautiful thing that we take for granted, especially when you get to grow with someone you love. It was the most sweetest moment to end the perfect day.
Oct 20, 2024
Related Recs
🍦
My grandparents owned an ice cream shop for 35 years. In the early days they sold sandwiches too, before moving to just ice cream. At one point when my dad was an adolescent, they actually lived above their shop. My grandma would dream up flavors and my grandpa would make them — he's lactose intolerant, he never really even reaped the one benefit of owning an ice cream shop. My grandparents, dad, aunt, great aunts and uncles, second cousins, and even my mom all worked fairs and festivals scooping ice cream. It was a family business, my grandma and grandpa were the core. They had to change locations twice. They "retired" at least once before actually retiring. This ice cream shop was an institution.
For me though it was the place where we would have Thanksgiving. Closed for the season, the shop was the only space big enough for all of us. I had birthday parties there as a baby. It was our first stop after a five hour drive across state lines to see family. That's the place where, at my grandpa's insistence, I wrote my initials into the wet cement he had laid down for a bike rack. They are still there.
When I was 16, I worked at the shop over the summer. You don't realize how tough it is. Decades of dipping had made my grandpa particular. I didn't have the wrist strength or the speed necessary when there were customers out the door, all of them hungry and agitated by the stifling heat. I was terrified of giving someone back the wrong amount of change. Becoming almost paralyzed by the responsibility of being behind the cash register — it was their livelihood after all. That was my grandma's responsibility. I was in charge of the milkshakes and malts. I decorated sundaes with hot fudge, wet walnuts, sprinkles, and cherries. I packed the shaved ice into paper cones and doused the evenly shaped mounds with syrup. I doled out the frozen lemonade into styrofoam cups. My hands became raw from all the cleaning. I'm now particular about hygiene in the kitchen and always tip.
My grandparents still own the building, renting it out to a dentist and coincidentally, an ice cream shop. It's so strange now to go there. Everything is entirely different while being exactly the same. They painted the chairs a different color, but they are still those heart-shaped wrought iron, poorly cushioned chairs I know from childhood. Some of the flavors have remained. But it's not the same. Maybe they're buying their heavy cream from a different supplier. Or the high schoolers who work behind the counter aren't as precise with the measurements. I can try, skipping the artisanal flavors for the ones I grew up eating, but it will never be the same as it was.
And that's alright. They're softer now, my grandparents; the anxieties and stress of those decades having melted away. These days, ice cream is just ice cream.
Dec 30, 2024
🍨
It’s so fun for us all 2 dig in w our spoons
Jul 17, 2024
🍦
I haven't done this in a long time and actually have done it only once, but i think it's such a sweet thing to do. to go to an ice cream shop alone and getting a cone (two flavors) then going about your day minding your own business. really, self care.
Jan 11, 2025
Top Recs from @fatherdaniella
🫂
Just saw a girl from my lecture get dropped off by her mom and it made me so emotional. She waited in the same spot till her daughter walked completely away and watched the entire time. Such a raw feeling it is to think about your parent tending to you like a kid even as an adult. It was so beautiful, shoutout moms
Oct 17, 2024
👫
That feeling when you reconnect with someone from your past and they come back funnier. honestly such a warm thing to appreciate.
Oct 18, 2024
🛠
Aphex twin. Imogen heap. Tame impala. artists who’ve created their own instruments to produce. Getting to live as the same time as these creators feels like a blessing in disguise to spark that creative drive in one. Isn’t so cool that people actually create their own tools to produce the kind of sounds that they want others to hear and experience?
Nov 30, 2024