Valentine's Day

Whenever I think of Valentine's Day, I think about red construction paper and glue. That's because I was introduced to the holiday at East Broadway Elementary School, on Long Island, where we were handed that thick, almost cardboard, scissors, glue, and told to make cards for our mother's and the girls.

I was awful at art projects. I was a lefty, and the scissors never worked well for me. My paper hearts always came out looking like they had suffered some sort of massive death of cardiac muscle --typically a lobe was missing. I have no recollection of any girls I gave the cards to, and I'm sure my mother smiled, accepted hers, and thanked me. EVERYTHING I did, in her eyes, was worthwhile (exhibit A in the presentation of how to raise a self confident man).

Over the years of my adult life, I wouldn't DARE forget Valentine's Day. Wifey is like all women (this is sexist but true). She must have sat in Elementary School classrooms, too, petrified that none of the awkward boys would give HER a V Day card). All women maintain a healthy level of the petrified 3rd grader, when it comes to matters of the heart.

So, I'd always find ways to be creative, with cards and one year a huge poster, which Wifey now displays as her Facebook (tm) page. There'd be jewelry, and flowers.

Then came the Ds. Wifey and I would always get them gifts as well. (Exhibit B in the manual of how to raise self confident women). These are my favorite Valentine's Day memories --impossibly adorable girls smiling at chocolate and flowers...

Well, the Ds are women now. D1 is spending the weekend in Savannah, with her boyfriend. D2 has already "warned " me that HER (maybe not boyfriend, but someone she's dating) will be over early this am in some type of V Day recognition.

I've already wished Happy V Day to the 2 females up early with me --the aging Labrador and the strange Basset Hound. They were nonplussed.

Wifey is still sleeping. I'm going to bring her breakfast in bed, along with the Sunday Times.

Tonight we're going to a jazz show at the Deering Estate, with Jeff and Lili, very old friends. We'll bring picnic food, and a bottle of PJ I have chilling, which Lili and I, the only drinkers of the 4 of us, will share.

It's supposed to be a chilly night, so maybe Jeff and I will snuggle up (with our wives, of course).

The romance is there in the every day, I guess...