Valentine's Day, A Reflection

I'm a fan of Valentine's Day, despite having experienced my 23rd straight February 14th without a valentine. In school they always make it enjoyable, what with all the sugar and mail (nothings more exciting to a child than mail. This is a fact). Even in high school, where I was a moody teenager with raging hormones, Valentine's Day was light hearted and fun. Disclosure: Even at my moodiest I was happier than most teens. I'm really, really easy to please. Overall I never understood the angsty anti-Valentine's Day/wear black/be a jerk movement. It's a day to eat candy and send mail. Find me two things more enjoyable than candy and mail! Have I mentioned I'm easy to please?

Going to a women's college made Valentine's Day obsolete for the seemingly small but actually very large portion of us who were both straight and unattached. I would try to wear pink as I am that person that feels that all holidays should be properly represented by their assigned color, but generally didn't pay much attention to it. I did laugh along with everyone else when a snowstorm closed the post office one Valentine's Day and everyone who had been sent flowers were stuck getting dead bouquets when it opened up again a few days later. That wasn't out of spite, however, that was just hilarious.

Now that I'm no longer in school, Valentine's Day seemed to sneak up on me. Earlier this week my mother, an elementary school volunteer, came home with a white paper bag and set me to work decorating it. She wanted it to be prettier than her students. I welcomed the chance to use the fancy pair of scissors I got for Christmas and created a masterpiece of heart shaped papercuttings (I have mad paper cutting skills). I figured this would be my only Valentine's Day activity.

On Saturday night I went to a birthday party for a friend in Hoboken. I had vague hopes of turning some poor bloke into Ryan roughly 25 seconds into this video

Alas....it was not meant to be.

I returned home from Hoboken, scarred from numerous train changes and 45 minute layovers at unheated stations to find two valentines on the table in my living room. The first one, from OMP, was addressed to a daughter who's one of a kind

Unfortunately his card was not one of a kind as the next one was from my mother.

Mom and OMP had a good laugh about how unoriginal they were while I had an even bigger laugh....this is the third year in a row one of them has gotten me this card. I know this because I cleaned my room the other day and remembered finding this card

Unfortunately for this story I finally threw out all of the greeting cards that have been kicking around my room forever. I always saved them "in case I would need them". This is probably the ONLY instance I would ever need them again....and I threw them out.

The laughter continued, we popped some champagne, downed some wine, then OMP made ham wrapped in pie crust (soooooo good. sooooooo deadly). Eclairs and The Olympics rounded out the day.

Maybe next year I'll get a card from the man of my dreams....or maybe I'll get the "For a Daughter Who's One of a Kind" card for the 4th year in a row. Either way works for me, they'll both make me smile.