Cream cheese

I don't remember why I used to hate cream cheese, but I do remember very clearly the moment I started to love it instead.  My mother had enrolled me in some hippy dippy sciencey summer school in which I was the only girl for half a summer.  I don't think she did the gender thing on purpose, but that half summer was one of the more formative summers of my life.  We played Capture the Flag in a big city park in the Salt Lake City heat and did jumping jacks to practice being astronauts (who need to be in peak physical condition, of course.)  We drove in this big van all the way to Jordan River (River Jordan?)  and fished, and we looked at the eclipse through holes in pieces of paper.  My mom used to pick me up by bus to take me home at night, she'd arrive at the school and we'd hop on the bus together.  The bus stop was in front of a school, I think, and my mother had a bagel for a snack and nothing else.  My half still  had strawberry cream cheese clinging to it, despite my mom's efforts to scrape it off.  I was famished from a long day of being Queen Bee and playing archeologist, so I ate it anyway.  I remember how it made the sweet taste less sweet, how it made me want more and more.  I'm pretty sure I made my mom trade with me so I could eat the cream cheese off the other half too.  Or maybe I just tried, my mom does love cheese.

Anyway, today I had some cream cheese from Publix.  I put it on the leftover pumpernickel from earlier this week and it was divine.  Just like it should be: predictable, simple, grand.  It makes me mad to have real cream cheese after having some light cream cheese recently.  Although light cream cheese is better than no cream cheese, it's only barely, and is really just an insult to regular cream cheese that it even exists.  Always go with regular cream cheese.  If you're trying to cut calories, spread it on celery, for Chrissake.