the local gelato store

I moved into a new neighborhood about nine months ago. I didn't choose the neighborhood, it came with the house I bought. But it's a good neighborhood. A lot of people choose it. My only complaint would be that it's a bit far from the part of the city I used to call home.
It could be worse though. A lot worse. I've lived in worse neighborhoods.
About ten years ago, I was exiled from my home. I'd lived in a particular neighborhood for almost ten years, felt at home there and then I got evicted. I couldn't find an apartment anywhere close to where I wanted to live. Actually that wasn't quite true. When I did finally find an apartment, it was close to where I wanted to live. Close. But no cigar.
It was about a ten or fifteen minute walk from a part of the city I felt at home in. It was about a half hour walk from the part of the city I'd left. The problem was, if I left my house and walked those fifteen minutes to the part of the city I felt at home in, it would be what you might call a "dead walk". I could walk down one of the residential streets and see a lot of nice homes, kids playing, and maybe wave to a distant acquaintance. Or I could walk down the main drag, past a whole bunch of stores that I had no interest in, alongside a lot of car traffic and very little foot traffic.
In other words, where I lived was nowhere. It was only close to somewhere.
Now don't get me wrong, this particular neighborhood was very desirable. A number of my friends live there now and are very happy to be there. But they're happy for the kids. They're happy because they can walk to work. They have different priorities than me.
I don't need to live in the heart of it. I don't need to live in what I recently heard someone call a "destination neighborhood". But I prefer to live in or close to one of those neighborhoods where people sit in cafes and on patios, buy groceries, go for a stroll. Somewhere you might run into someone you know.
That sort of describes where I live now. I don't love it here like I loved that place I was exiled from ten years ago but I'm more than satisfied. My house is on a kind of a sketchy street, not one of the really beautiful leafy streets in this neighborhood. But on the other hand, it's about as close to the main street as you can get without being right on the street. And I like that. I'm lazy. If I just want to go for a walk, I like to walk where other people are walking. And I don't like to walk for ten minutes to get there.
Anyway back when I lived in exile, there were a few occasions when a nearby business folded. The best example was probably the variety store a couple of door from me, we used to call The Elvis Head Store. It was one of those fell-off-the-back-of-a-truck stores that sold different brands of cigarettes on different days, filled with knicknacks from eras gone by. And as the name suggests, it was filled with Elvis heads, which no one I knew ever saw anyone buy. But it usually had milk and pop and smokes and interesting old birthday cards and the owner was a character and he actually had a revolving gang of sidekicks who would hang out with him all day. It was a hangout as much as a store. And it definitely made a contribution to my daily life.
It disappeared one night. A truck must have pulled up while I was sleeping. Later I heard that they were running some kind of bookie joint in the basement and the cops came by and made them an offer they couldn't refuse.
So began the wait for what would replace the Elvis Head Store.
I was hoping for a coffee shop. A Second Cup or even a Starbucks. It stayed empty for a long time and then it became a dentist's office. On the rare occasion I go to the dentist, I'm willing to drive.
And so it went. Everytime a business would leave, it would be replaced by something equally or more useless to me. A local bar went out of business and was replaced by a lawyer's office. A framing store was replaced by a winemaking store.
I hated this area so much I actually made a film about how much I hated it. It wasn't a very good film; it was kind of a challenging subject for a film. But I hated it enough to try.
Anyway a couple of months after I moved to my new neighborhood, a store that, as far as I could tell, sold slightly groovy upscale furniture, went out of business. I didn't pay much attention. I certainly didn't begin the "what's this going to become" countdown I used to engage in back in my exile days.
That's partly because I'm more or less satisfied with the neighborhood. But it's also because of the particular mix of stores in this neighborhood. For every restaurant, bar, store and cafe I might occasionally patronize, there are four more I'll probably never set foot in. This includes a number of fancyish restaurants as well as sports bars, a framing store, a bead store and a place that apparently teaches children how to cook.
But a few weeks ago when the newspaper finally went up on the empty store windows and the abandoned spot was finally about to become something, I felt a little flutter of anticipation. I couldn't think what I wanted to see there but I was hoping for the best.
They put up a little sign a few days ago. It's going to be a gelato store.
The kids will like it. And there are a lot of kids around here.
Myself, I guess I'll try it out. Maybe they'll have a good lemon gelato. I like tart things. But I try not to buy too much ice cream or sugary things so I won't be there too often.
It could be worse.

I meant to talk about women in this post. But the gelato store kind of reminds me of my fortunes with women these days. I can't say exactly what I'm looking for but whatever it might be, I think it's too much to ask for.