Valentine's Day Dazzle

I usually view the onset of Valentine's Day with mistrust and considerable qualms.  This year was no exception.  I fully expected it to be okay, but no more.  I must report though, that it was a fabulous Valentine's Day, wonderful and satisfying and fun.  Thank you, Twin!

First of all, to my delight, I received not only red roses, but also a heart-shaped box of chocolates.  For some reason, the heart shape doubled the impact.  It is Valentine's Day, after all!  Then beautiful earrings with iridescent montana blue beads, and, la piece de resistance (sorry, don't know how to do accents on the computer) a hand-made card!!!!!

But I am not a complete traditionalist.  When Twin suggested taking me to a fancy restaurant for dinner, I confessed that my preference was a bowl of oatmeal with hot milk at the neighborhood diner.  We finished the day at Barnes and Noble, browsing and, as always, talking.

What a wonderful day, most importantly because everything was evidence of Twin's thoughtfulness and wish to please.  Nothing could make a person feel more loved - and that should be the point of Valentine's Day - showing each other love.

Snow Bound

At left, a rather cheerful snowperson Twin and I made a few days ago.  Sure she's cheerful - she doesn't have to shovel!

I was delighted when the weather forecast called for a snow storm of blizzard-like proportions, and awed by the beauty the snowfall bestowed on the quotidian outlines of my house and yard.

I was less thrilled when I had to go out and shovel to get to work.  Much less thrilled.  The snow is up to my knees, and is over an old layer of snow which has been compacted.  It took me an hour to do less than half the job, an hour during which, to my chagrin, I felt so miserable I finally told myself, "No negative thinking about how you can't do this, but you're allowed to cry if you want to."  And I wanted to.  Memories of past winters, past snowstorms, different circumstances.  Tears ran down my cheeks as I shovelled on, nearly falling several times because of the sleety, icy layer exposed underneath. 

As my alarm struck twelve, I knew I couldn't get to my job teaching, and called the principal,  who was matter-of-fact and understanding, and probably mystified by my tearful tone.

I took a break for a couple of mugs of hot water and some raisin biscuits, read a couple of old, old, old (mainly depressing, unfortunately) stories from a collection of stories from The New Yorker published at the end of the 1940s, and now I have re-girded my loins and am heading out to do battle with the Snow Beaste once again.  I remember decades ago, the excitement when a children's book was published where the princess, instead of being saved by her prince or a knight in shining armor, saved herself (gag me with a spoon).  My further thoughts are best left unwritten.  In the meantime, this peasant girl has to finish saving her crumbling hovel.  (I wonder if I need to shovel the flat roof?  I know some people have done that - and several years ago I did when it was mentioned on the news.)

"Be careful what you wish for; you may get it."  That certainly applies here, but despite the consequences, my heart will always long for the magic of snow in winter.  Beauty has its price, and if I must pay for it myself, I will.

Valentines

Dum da dum dum DUM . . . It's that time of year again, Valentine's Day.  I am ambivalent about this holiday.  It seems a tad meaningless even when I am dating someone.  (When I am not, like New Year's Eve,  it is a trial and something to be endured in silent suffering.) 

The traditional gifts are flowers (good) and chocolate (a mixed blessing).  I remember one year Lorenzo the Magnificent and I went to a craft store and bought bunches of bits and we each retired to our own corner and made valentines for each other.  Lorenzo is not an artist, not a crafter, but darned if he didn't make the niftiest valentine using using large ribbon roses  he had purchased in different colors.  The one I made was nice, but I loved the tactile, three dimensionality of his.  It was lush.  I still have it somewhere . . . I bet it wouldn't take me more than two hours to find it, if I didn't get distracted.

Well, now I am distracted.  I am remembering other handmade cards I have received.  None other than Twin once made a card for me, with elaborate hand-drawn spirals, very horror vacuii and decorative, which I treasure along with the other cards he has given me, some with very meaningful messages.

Nosson,  my X (he deserves a better designation than that!) made me several cards, including a President's Birthday card (we went out for the first time on George Washington's birthday, and he gave me chocolate covered cherries - pretty clever) and a snazzy Purim card card which featured a slightly inebriated Nosson (one is commanded to get drunk on Purim, believe it or not) saying "hic .... brucha Ester .....hic ..... brucha Toby ....."  a play on the Purim phrase, blessed be (Queen ) Esther.

I wouldn't mind spending time on Valentine's Day with some art supplies (stickers, stencils, glue-on rhinestones and fabric flowers, and facy papers) and Twin  making each other cards, but something tells me that strychnine might be a preferable alternative as far as he is concerned!

But returning to Valentine's Day, I have been looking through a book of  mine about the history of valentines, and salivating over some early, hand-drawn and written examples.  They are so charming and such a treat for the eye, the faded sepia copperplate and naive watercolors . . . I lust after them.

Of course, greeting cards are available in such a dazzling and inexhaustible variety nowadays, that purchased valentines can be drool-worthy as well.  Amidst the dross and the mediocre are some phenomenally-designed cards which are either so charmingly designed, or so mechanically clever (elaborate pop-up cards are now sold even at bookstores) that only those who are dissatisfied out of principle could fail to be delighted to find them in the mail.

I guess there is no point to this post - just an acknowledgement of the fast-approaching day which brings with it such exalted expectations - and such hyped suggestions for romance on the television news etc. - that some letdown is almost inevitable.  I said almost.