Pickles and Ice Cream

I can't quite explain to you how much I love pickles.  Really zingy, dilly pickles.  Bread and butter pickles are nothing short of nasty, but give me a crispy dill and I'm a happy lady.  Well of course, you say.  You're pregnant.  But my love affair with pickles began at a very young, pre-pubescent age.  If I'm out to dinner with you at a resteraunt and you order a sandwich or a burger, watch out.  I'm eyeing your pickle.  Fuddruckers is one of my favorite haunts, because they have a toppings bar with a 5-gallon vat of pickles.  I pick up the tongs and before I'm done, I have more pickle on my bun than burger.  At Subway, my standard is turkey with mayo, tomoatoes, NO lettuce, and "lots and lots of pickles."  Fledgling sandwich artists, though, are stingy with their skills, and merely spread on a few.  "More," I tell them.  My husband, aka my assertive half, will make the Artist pile on the pickles until they can hardly close the bread around it.  I have a good man. 

"I kind of thought you were pregnant," a friend told me upon my announcement, "because of the last time we went out to eat."  She was referring to a girls night at Bulldog Northeast, a decent burger-and-cupcake joint (yes, I said burgers and cupcakes- the address is 401 East Hennepin Ave, Minneapolis, you're welcome.)  I reveled in my exceptionally zingy pickle:  "Man, do I appreciate a good resteraunt pickle."  My friend handed me hers.  "I love you!" I exclaimed.  All of a sudden, the other three girls were tossing me theirs as well.  "I'm the happiest girl in the world tonight!" I sang, bouncing in my chair like a third-grader.

And though this is not out of the ordinary for me, I will note that around week eight of my pregnancy, I displayed some unruly behavior in public.  We were in Dairy Queen, (see ice cream reference, next paragraph), waiting in line to get some dip cones on a warm, Norman Rockwellian family Sunday.   All of a sudden I looked down to see a pile of hamurger pickels in my hand.  Without thinking twice, I had meandered over to the condiments and tonged-up a pile right into my palm.  Wiping the vinegar off my hands, I turned to Michael and said, "uh, I guess I really am pregnant, huh?"

I also love ice cream.  In the interest of sparing redundancy, I will not go into the details, but let's just say that you can replace the word "pickles" for "ice cream" in the previous paragraphs and it's just as accurate.  Except that ice cream doesn't work so well in a 6-inch turkey sub.  On another Rockwellian Sunday, this one being two days ago, I took Oliver to the town Dairyette for ice cream.  His small serving of vanilla soft serve was presented in a drinking cup with a spoon pushed down into it.  Oliver toddled over to me, took the cup, said thank you ("Taint too, Mommy"), and proceeded to suck the top of the spoon handle.

I can't blame the kid, I will get ice cream in any way I can.