Yes, I agree. Valentine's Day is absolutely a Hallmark, media concocted load of crap that encourages needless spending, and silly expectations. The part that bothers me the most is that it takes away the spontaneity of love and discourages creativity within a relationship. Never mind the fact that it makes single people everywhere feel like shit (I would like to remind them that probably half of the married folks out there wish they were single again!). But you can also look at it as another reason to celebrate love. You can make a kick-ass dinner and share massages. That costs nothing and is can make for a very nice night. Just remember, this shouldn't be the only dinner you cook, or the only massage you give!
Last year Valentine's Day was pretty fantastic. I will leave out the gooey details because they are not “internet-friendly” but I will say that things just fell right into place and I couldn't have asked for better “circumstances.” (Just went into a 2 minute reverie remembering it...)
This year I wanted to do something simple, practical and cute. Nothing expensive, or over the top. I popped down to Abasto to pick up a little something...and 6 hours later I left the mall in a state of horrified shock. Yes, 6 hours. The people were rude, unhelpful, unwilling to work with me to figure out what I needed, even though I practically begged them (I broken Spanish) to take my money. All I needed was clarification of size (things are measured very differently here) but what I ended up with was dirty looks and shrugs saying “oh well.” I even made a bathroom pit-stop to regain composure and blot the tears from my eyes. Can you believe that?
After leaving the Abasto-Mall-O-Misery at 9:30 PM, I wandered around for a while trying to find a store that sold paper and pencils, and then grabbed the last train home. I texted Abby (who was pretty sure I was dead by this point) to tell her I would be home in an hour and took up camp at a local cafe (it was 10:30 PM by this time) to relax, have a coffee and make a card. Thank goodness THAT went well.
At 10:30 AM the next morning, I snuck out of bed and popped down to the local bakery to grab some pastries and stopped into the florist for 3 large, beautiful gerber daisies. I tiptoed back home (of course Abby was awake by then, so I told her to stay in the bedroom – damn!), and made a little breakfast spread consisting of 8 medialunas & facturas (yummy pastries), fresh-squeezed orange juice mimosas, flowers and the little gift I had purchased. We chowed down on medialunas, laughed about the drama of the previous day and got a little tipsy on the mimosas. It even turns out the gift might work OK.
Needless to say, we had a nice morning, but I officially have a couple extra white hairs from the experience and we are on a salad-only diet until we can get rid of the lbs we packed on from the overload of white sugar and carbs.
Worth it, you might ask? Eh, whatever.
16 years ago
I spent a lot of time thinking about the ways that Maya and I have shared our five or so Valentine's Days. And, you know, they are usually stressful at some point or other, part of it never pulls off as planned, but somehow they work out and are worth it. Why? I guess we like each other. I'll give you an example. Completely failed V-Day in Malta. Planned on making a nice meal at home. Fail. The chicken went from raw to bloody to bloodier. I think we just gave up on eating that night. But now, since we still like each other (it was not so funny then), we can laugh about how ridiculous it was.
ReplyDeletePS. Sorry it was so stressful for you though; that sucks.