Sorbetes

Summertime 

Life is like an ice cream cone; you have to lick it one day at a time. - Charles Schulz

Summer takes me back to my childhood days when my brothers and I waited for the sorbetero.

Because the house windows were always open to let the fresh air in, we could hear the world outside - a tree branch grazing the walls, the distant cries of the city alive at all hours. But our ears were cranked toward only one specific sound.

The familiar pealing of a small hand-held bell from the street vendor that peddled our favorite summer treat.

Sorbetes.

At the first ring, we would head for the street, swarming like bees disturbed in their hive, toward the sorbetero's colorful wooden pushcart. 

We stood around. Just staring in anticipation. Our pockets full of optimism, jingling five centavo coins.

Whistling like someone who hadn't a care in the world, the sorbetero would open the lids of the frozen confection. There were options of one flavor or, for no extra charge, a mixture of available flavors served in a wafer cone or as a pandesal ice cream sandwich.

Personally, I liked to mix and match.

As we made our choices, he would lean forward and tap his chin, then proceed with dramatic flair to dive into each gallon container, make full and rounded spoonfuls, first of the vanilla, followed by the chocolate, and topped off with the strawberry - and plop each with concise and deliberate movement into the cone that was on his other hand. 

I used to think, If I could ever afford all the ice cream I want to eat, that’s as rich as I ever want to be.

I remember how sitting under the star apple tree just outside our home, I would draw the cone forward, then slowly lick each savory drop. 

The best part? 

After I'd eaten most of the ice cream. That was when I held the cone up higher and tilted my head to bite its pointy end off, and suck the tad ice milk that trickled down.

Ice cream is honestly my favorite all-time dessert. I can never in a hundred summers get tired of it. It makes me  feel like a kid again. It never fails to make me smile. When everyone has let you down, you still have ice cream.

Seriously, have you ever seen a kid eating ice cream who is not happy? 

You can't buy happiness, but you can buy ice cream.

For me, that's kind of the same thing.