My Darling B was up until midnight making ice cream last night. Actually, I don’t know how late she was up. I went to bed at about eleven and laid there reading a book until eleven-thirty, but I could still hear the ice cream maker churning when I turned out the lights, and she had a big clean-up job to do after the ice cream was done, so I can only assume she didn’t turn in until well after twelve bells.

For three days she’d been threatening to do something with the avocados that had been haunting the kitchen countertop ever since she bought them last week, and last night she finally followed through. This was after we got home from our dance lesson. My guess is there was still too much adrenaline in her system after doing the mambo, and it was too dark outside to garden, so she naturally gravitated toward the kitchen.

Last summer she was jonesing for some home-made strawberry ice cream and a new kitchen gadget at the same time, so she trolled e-bay until she found an ice cream maker that attaches to the food processor she’s owned since she was, like, twelve years old. I stand in awe of determination like that.

When it finally arrived in the mail she washed it up and made strawberry ice cream that very night, if memory serves, and an awesome batch of ice cream it was, too. It literally inspired awe. I can’t remember tasting ice cream as delicious as B’s home-made ice cream, and I would have wolfed down half of it if there weren’t enough lactose in whipping cream to make my back end play the tuba part in just about any polka you can think of. As it was, I took three milk pills so I could just taste a tablespoon or two, and I still squeaked out a few notes afterwards.

I didn’t get to taste last night’s batch of avocado ice cream because I was sawing through a pretty big log by the time B was finished making it. Our group dance lesson was a jitterbug-like salsa step that gives B the energy to stay up all night, but tuckers me right out. She loves all that Latin dancing, while I’m more a waltzing kind of guy. After that and mamboing through our private lesson I only wanted to go home and go to bed, but I had a few chores to do and I wanted to read another chapter. I think I permanently damaged my willpower by staying up past eleven, though.