Valentines Day: Past and Present

Ah, Valentine's Day.  Until I met my true love (yes, it's you John!) I had a love/hate relationship with Valentine's Day.  Loved it as a kid when all it meant was getting cards from other kids in the class (sans candy - seems like the kids bring home tons of candy from school on Valentine's Day now - what's up with that?).  Started hating it when it meant all my friends with boyfriends were getting flowers and candy and being all gooey and gross and I was left twiddling my thumbs.

I was a late bloomer when it came to boyfriends.  I didn't really have any boyfriends in high school - mostly because I was pretty shy and wore braces until the end of my senior year in high school so basically had ZERO self esteem.  It wasn't until my freshman year in college that I had my first real boyfriend - by real I mean that the relationship actually lasted longer than a month or two.

So you can imagine how super excited I was when Valentine's Day rolled around that year and (gasp!) I actually had a BOYFRIEND!!  I remember we got all dressed up and went for dinner at the "steak house" on campus.  Now, the "steak house" was actually just a glorified room in the campus center that served a steak dinner in the evenings complete with Texas Toast and baked potato.  You were given ten "punches" on your dining card that you could use throughout the year to dine at the very exclusive "steak house".  Not having taken advantage of this exciting portion of the college dining plan, I assumed that the "steak house" was extra fancy so I told my boyfriend that we had to dress up to go there for Valentine's Day.  We felt pretty dumb when we showed up and everyone was wearing jeans.  My boyfriend was a bit annoyed with me for making him look like an idiot wearing a tie, but he soon got over it and we enjoyed our nice steak dinner.

After dinner was over, we took a walk and I mentioned to him how glad I was that I'd gotten the paper done that was due tomorrow for the English class we were in together .  He stopped walking and slowly said, "What paper?"  Crap.  We spent the rest of the evening coming up with a theme for his English paper and I practically wrote the damn thing for him just to get him to stop complaining about how English class was ruining Valentine's Day for him.  Needless to say, it was not the most romantic evening.

Valentine's Day pretty much went downhill from there.  This particular boyfriend and I broke up the following fall and even though I had a few short-term boyfriends here and there throughout college and graduate school, I did not happen to be dating ANY of them during Valentine's Day.  What are the odds of that?  I guess I was better at dating in the warmer months of the year, who knows.

My first memorable Valentine's Day of my post-college days was in 1997 - the year I started dating my husband John.  When Valentine's Day rolled around we'd only been going out for about a month but things were going really well so I was optimistic about the prospects of an unforgettable day of love.  Valentine's Day happened to fall on a friday that year and we'd made plans to drive out to West Virginia that evening for a weekend of skiing with John's college buddies, our first weekend away together as a couple.  We were happy, we were in love - what could possibly go wrong? 



The ill-fated Curry Rd.

 The evening started off well enough.  John brought me a dozen red roses and Chinese food for dinner.  After we ate we hopped into his car to start the drive to West Virginia.  By now it was close to 9 p.m. and we'd underestimated how long the drive would take.  Then we got lost and it took even longer.  Finally we reached the turn to John's friend's house - long, dark and curvy "Curry Road".  We took a wrong turn and our car got stuck in a snowbank - at 3 a.m.  This was in the days before cell phones so we were S.O.L.  We wandered Curry Rd. aimlessly until we finally knocked on the door of a dilapitated trailer with an El Camino parked out front.  A man with no teeth answered the door and let us use his phone.  (I am not making this up).  Long story short, we got hold of John's friend and finally made it to our destination.  Turns out our car got stuck about 100 yards from his house.  Happy Valentine's Day!  Although technically by then it was no longer Valentine's Day since it was now 4 a.m. the next day.



Me and John on the slopes at Snowshoe

The rest of the weekend went by smoothly and we had a great time, despite the fact that on our first day of skiing I spent the first run trying to teach John how to snowplow and then on our second run I somehow (oops!) lost him for the rest of the afternoon.  Poor guy.  You'd think after that he would have given up on me - but no.  We had a lovely weekend and our relationship was cemented even further by the fact that we'd gotten through some rough patches together and came out laughing at the end.  Our second day skiing together went much more smoothly and we ended the day with some hot toddies at a cozy little mid-mountain lodge - I was happy because I had a Bailey's and coffee in my hand and John was happy because the bar was full of tvs tuned to college basketball.  Foreshadowing of days ahead.

Me and John relaxing at the lodge :)

Quite honestly - I don't have very many clear memories of Valentine's Days after that.  By the following year we were engaged and I did a whole dramatic Valentine's thing where I blindfolded John and took him to the Key Bridge Marriott where I'd secretly gotten us a room with a view of the river.  When we got there and opened the window we realized that that we had a picturesque view of a brick wall.   I could have saved us a lot of money and just stayed home.  

On Valentine's Day 2004, ten months after a miscarriage and many failed pregnancy tests, I woke up, peed on a stick, and found out that we were going to have another baby.  The first day I had any knowledge of my darling little Ella was on the day designated for love.  Suddenly I realized that Valentine's Day isn't just for couples.  It's for anyone who has love in their hearts for another person. 

Our love dog :)

Ever since Valentine's Day 2007 we've celebrated our dog Penny's birthday on February 14th.  We're not sure if she was born on Valentine's Day, but we were told she was born in February so we decided that the new love of all our lives must have been born on the day of unconditional love.  Every Valentine's Day Penny gets a nice fat rawhide bone packed with peanut butter flavoring.  Lucky dog.  Lucky us.

As the years have gone by - we typically spend Valentine's Day at home.  Going out on Valentine's Day is a madhouse - too many crowds, too many lovebirds waiting for tables at restaurants, etc., etc.  Usually one of us makes a nice dinner, we put the kids downstairs with food and tv, and then we stay upstairs and play a favorite cd, drink red wine, eat the nice dinner and have a real conversation.  We save date night for another night - what's the big hurry?  We have everything we want and need right here.

Tonight was no different.  After a lovely steak dinner, we called the kids upstairs for a piece of red velvet cake and Jack brought us this . . .

Kind of hard to read in this photo - but it says "Mom and Dad - "eye" "heart" U - Happy Valentine's Day.  Jack let Ella pose for the picture too.  Then he took a picture of me and John, the happy parents . . .

Ah, yes - complete with cluttered refrigerator and our ugly cabinets in the background.  Still working on that . . . .

Valentine's Day - I wouldn't have it any other way.