Explosive Donut

I bought an ice cream machine on Sunday. It wasn’t very hot at the time, but it was well over 90degF today, and it’s been that way for days. It’s so hot in my living/common room that the thermometer won’t go that high. So ice cream is a good thing (or so I tell myself).

Well, anyone that knows me at all knows I LOVE ICE CREAM. I have emptied out a vending machine of all its chipwiches. The weekly ice cream social is not only in my calendar, but my phone and computer will audibly alert me so that I get there early. I once went to almost every store in Cambridge to get a pint of Colbert’s Americone Dream. I’m not going to describe what I sucker my mother into making when I come home to visit and she’s too happy to say no. It’s probably worse than a supersized meal at McDonalds, but at least I get a lot of calcium.

So yeah, I like ice cream.

Unfortunately, the machine I bought takes careful planing. I am not good at planing, especially the ‘careful’ kind. Mostly the issue comes from the bowl. You have to completely freeze the ice-pack material inside the bowl and this takes at least a day. My solution now is to just leave the bowl in the freezer at all times. I’m always prepared – "churn in case of lack-of-ice-cream emergency."

My first attempt was making strawberry frozen yogurt. This choice came about after I saw what is in ice cream. It’s horrifying. You might as well just drink heavy cream straight out of the carton. You’ll save a few hours of waiting.

Anyway, the froyo came out okay, but was more of a sorbet. I thought it was alright, but my roommate really seemed to like it. I think I have to accept that fatty stuff just tastes better. And I know how the fatty stuff tastes.

Melody and I (well, mostly me) decided to simplify and just make plain vanilla ice cream, blob-inducing ingredients and all. This came out really good. It’s like gelato. Very light (well, tasting – certainly not in terms of ingredients). I think at this point, I’ve consumed at least a pint of heavy cream. And a lot of sugar too.

It’s been a far more chilled out independence weekend that I originally planned. Melody and I were going to visit NYC Saturday and Sunday, but it turns out virtually no one from NYC likes to stay during holidays. I suppose they’re looking to avoid tourists, such as myself.

Anyway, Melody and I went to Julia and Chris’s 4th party. They’ve got a really nice place in Back Bay, and on the top floor too. I meet up with some of Julia’s friends from Austin, TX again (it’s been about five years when I met them on a North Carolina beach in January). In related news, I got reacquainted with flip cup. There’s an added challenge here when you’re playing outside and there’s a bit of a wind. Oh, and Melody’s tiramisu and lemon bars were really good. I’m not sure if there really is a "list of things to make again," but those should be on it.

We walked over to the fireworks and planted on the Mass Av bridge. There was one guy in front of us who fell over a pedestrian railing not once, but twice (note: this was not the bridge railing, just the one that separates the sidewalk from where cars would usually drive). The fireworks were very cool, but the real fun was walking home. There was a huge mob that only fell apart when we got to Central:

 
An extremely liberal zombie army

Yesterday, Melody and I went to the zoo. Well, first we played some Mario Kart. That game is hard to put down. It’s even got some levels from the original, which I remember playing in fifth grade. I think I was better at it then though.

Anyway, after Mario Kart, Melody and I went to the Southwick zoo. It’s a privately run zoo, which means they’re a bit more commercial. I’ve never seen kiddie rides at a zoo before, but I stuck more to the monkey section anyhow. And they did have a lot of monkeys. There was a heavy focus on other animals from Africa for some reason. I know Chilumba (from Zambia) has issues with people thinking monkeys and elephants must run around in his backyard. I’m now certain this zoo is what gives everyone this crazy idea. Every animal was not just from Africa, but they had a map labeling each animal with a map clearly showing it lives everywhere in Africa. Who knew rhinos were native to the Sahara desert?

I have a nice photo of Melody trying to scare some lions away with her own lion impression, but I’m not sure she’d appreciate me posting it on the internet. So instead, I’ll put up a picture of a confused deer:

Nom?

No penguins at the zoo. But they did have a lot of deer in this one part. You could buy some dried corn and they would all crowd around you and steal your corn. The really friendly deer were getting pretty fat. You could tell that they’ve really figured the system out. Maybe they need some corn welfare reform:

 
First you get the corn, then you get the power…

 
It would seem deer can get high on corn

After the zoo, we drove over to a driving range in Natick. It was pretty fancy for a driving range – you parked your car and drove a golf cart up to the range. Melody and I were a bit confused because we walked in backwards and didn’t see all the signs saying "take a golf cart!". Instead we wanted to know why there was no driving range, just a lot of golf carts parked on a tennis court.

The main reason I wanted to go to the driving range was to test out the new set of clubs my grandma bought me for my birthday (thanks grandma!) Yeah, it’s absurdly early, but if I got the clubs in the middle of September, I’d only use them for two weeks before winter, if that. I hope I won’t need to use my 3 wood anytime soon, since the head shot off the rest of the club after I used it about three times. The guy driving the ball-pickup-mobile was nice enough to pick it up for me around the 75 yard flag. I think that’s a respectable distance, for part of a club at least?

We were across the street from a giant mall, so we made a quick stop there. Melody scooted off to Nordstrom’s, and I figured I’d check out the Apple store. I wanted to see what it’s like writing software for a Mac, but none of the computers had any of that stuff installed. I asked one of their employees that’s always asking me how I’m doing. He said they didn’t have that software with a strange look on his face, but that he had ‘compiled Xcode for a Mac Mini so it should work on any Mac’. I suspect a) he didn’t understood what I was asking and b) thought I was a hacker who would reprogram all the computers to hate on Steve Jobs.

Melody can try on clothes longer than I can procrastinate on the internet, so I went to William-Sonoma. I had a gift card my aunt and uncle gave me at least a year ago and it seemed like a good time to use it. I ended up leaving with an ice cream maker. Melody and I were going to make frozen yogurt, but we found out when we got home that you have to let the bowl freeze for 6+ hours ahead of time. So I just grilled some chicken, made some Mesculine salad (a new favorite since visiting the Cape), and steamed up some corn.Tasty, yes, but no deer came by to try it. Oh well, more for me I guess.

And finally, is it me or is unclear whether Melody is sad because she can’t feed the monkeys, or because she’s worried it will affect when she’ll eat lunch:

 
Dangerously close to "Don’t Feed the Melodies"

p.s. What’s the plural of the name Melody?