Swimming in ice cream

Before melting underneath the glaring heat and suffocating humidity of the city's recent weeklong sweat fest, some residents and guests slurped and licked their way to cooler body temperatures despite oppressive heat waves.\nScreaming for ice cream and dreaming of homemade frozen treats, Bloomington offers ice cream addicts, fanatics and dabblers alike various shops and stands to freeze their brains during swampy-desert-like outdoor conditions. From the traditional vanilla wrapped in a homemade waffle cone to fresh strawberry chunks blended into soft-serve mixed with bananas, city ice cream vendors are treating the community to cold-hearted ways to cope with an otherwise boiling globe.\n"I'm used to summertime business and I know what to expect. I hope for hot weather, although the perfect weather for ice cream is 70 to 80 degrees," said Bloomington resident Tim May, two-decade owner of the Chocolate Moose ice cream stand, at 401 S. Walnut Ave. "People don't mind waiting in an outside line if it is seventy-five degrees with a nice breeze. If it's ninety-five degrees with a hot black top, people don't want to wait in the heat."\nMay also sells bags and blocks of ice to patrons from freezers located his ice cream stand. He said his ice business boomed during the weeklong national heat wave that scorched Hoosier brows.\n"I sell a lot more ice through the window -- instead of buying one bag they buy three," May said. Ice cream is a fun food and it makes people happy no matter what their mood. If you don't eat it fast enough it can make your hands sticky. Anything that can help cool your body temperature down a little bit on a hot day is good."\nBloomington resident Marcia Stewart, owner of Bruster's Ice Cream, 4531 E. Third St., said the weather has seemed "almost too hot" to appreciate the beauty of homemade ice cream. Similar to the Chocolate Moose's lack of indoor seating, she said her business has suffered from extreme humidity and sweltering heat because people have difficulty coping with charred concrete and minimal shade opportunities.\n"Ice cream is fun to play with -- I get to make waffle cones. They make my clothes and hair smell. Husbands and babies like me and so does my dog. He likes to clean off my shoes when I get home," Stewart said. "Ice cream cools you down, fills you up and gives you some extra energy -- it will make you feel comforted. Don't eat too fast or you get brain freeze, a painful sensation between your eyes. If that happens slow down, wait a few seconds and the feeling will dissipate."\nShe said an estimated 50 slurps is all that is needed to consume a milk shake from her stand. Stewart said an "interesting" but "really good" milkshake combination is a root beer float mixed with malt. \nIU senior Tessa Sturgeon, shift leader at Cold Stone Creamery, 530 E. Kirkwood Ave., said ice cream sales have melted away during midday throughout the weeklong heat wave but creamy scoops of flavored ice goo flew through the doors from 3 p.m. to close. She estimates 15 licks is all it takes to get to the bottom of a small ice cream cone from her shop.\n"I have noticed that people are staying inside to eat their ice cream. We have a couple of tables outside and people normally go outside to eat it," Sturgeon said. "Our ice cream is really hard and it melts pretty quickly unless you put in a lid on it. In a cone, I suggest eating inside unless you eat the ice cream really fast. A lot of people have been getting bottled water and asking for fruit in their ice cream like strawberries and raspberries."\nShe said her one wish involving ice cream is for more "non-fattening" varieties so a person could "eat it all the time and there would be no consequences"