In the same vein as Tang and various other astronaut safe foods, today I bring you the wonder that is freeze dried Ice cream.

Freeze dried ice cream, more commonly known by its “street” name of Astronaut ice cream, can be purchased in many places. My first introduction to it was, of course, at OMSI, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. I was  still  nearly a baby, and I was fixated on becoming an astronaut. Astronaut Ice cream just seemed fitting as myneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.com favourite snack at the time.

I can’t tell you when from memory, but  from the beginning of time for me, I wanted to be an astronaut.  Knowing what I do know now, I can tell you that this dream of space exploration began in 1985, when I was four years old.

You see… Barbie was my best friend at a very young age. She was much more popular then than she is currently, and I think at least 4 of ever 5 of my friends owned at least a handful of barbies, if not more, even at four years old.

Sure, most of mine were hand me downs. My sister is three years older than me, so when she got “too old” for barbies, it was like I hit paydirt, and suddenly I was raking in the motherload, or rather, The Barbieload.  I was bathing in miniature plastic people. Heck, I even had the Barbie bus. You know, the cool one that was big enough for a 25 pound two year old baby to fall asleep inside of it.. Yep. That’d be me. I loved that bus, and my mom even has photographic evidence of me safely slumbering inside its rigid plastic interior (I also liked sleeping in closets, so. yeah, I was a weird kid even early on.)

1985 was a good year for Barbie. That year, among other outfits and careers she took on, she was an elementary school teacher, a business executive, and Andy Warhol painted her portrait that year.

Also, after a twenty year hiatus, she took up her old career as an astronaut.

Click here to see the youtube video of the 1985 Astronaut Barbie that encouraged my interest in space, and shoulder pads.

Anyways, so I was hooked. Shortly thereafter, my other heros, the carebears, released a book featuring tenderheart dressed as an astronaut, and it was all over.  I was going to be an astronaut..  I even went so far as to tell my grandma that I was either going to be an Astronaut or an artist when I grew up. She told me “don’t be silly, girls can’t be astronauts, and you’ll never make any money as an artist”  I hated that she thought that way, and I was going to prove her wrong.

OF course… it was not meant to be. At least not the astronaut part.  My dream ended on Tuesday, January 28th, 1986, in my elementary school auditorium.

I went to a tiny elementary school. There were probably only about 200 kids from Kindergarten up to 6th grade, and everyone knew everyone else. Such is life in a small town. Just about everyone’s parents went to school with each other, too.  I was 5 years old, and I was in Kindergarten.  It was assembly day, when everyone would gather in the auditorium for whatever various reasons that the teachers could come up with every week, and we LOVED it.  I mean, really. It was an excuse to get out of regular class and sit with your friends. We barely paid attention regularly, but this assembly seemed special. It was in the morning.

They lined us up, kindergarteners sitting on the ground infront of the televison, first and second graders behind us. third- sixth grade got to sit in chairs, and they were behind all of us, lined up, waiting for whatever they were going to show us on TV.

I can’t tell you what happened that day, I blocked it out. I only know that that was the day that the space shuttle Challenger exploded, killing everyone on board, because my mom came to pick me up from school, because I wouldn’t stop crying.

For years later, I kept my dreams and aspirations on the ground. Barbie doll, carebears or not, I wasn’t about to go explode-y on national television. My dreams were up in smoke.
Luckily, I was young and impressionable. I kept up with my dreams of being an artist, proving to my grandma that you can make money as an artist, and developing another dream of mine.. To become a baker.

So thank Barbie, every time you come here and see a delicious looking cupcake, muffin, breakfast treat or baked good. Thank Barbie for it all.

-A.

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