Happy Hearts Day everyone! You will all be happy to know that I did not spend the day sitting in a cubicle filled with dozens and dozens of roses, dripping in gifted diamonds, nor dining by candlelight in some romantic restaurant where a two-bite pork chop with a sprig of parsley costs a month’s salary. I may be evolving, but let’s be serious, shall we? If I made that much change that fast I’d strip a gear or something. (And then I’d go jump off a bridge for being too ridiculous to live.)
The Beau Hunk and decided ahead of time that today is a Hallmark Holiday, and thus does not deserve more than a passing notice. We’ve said that we should show how much we love each other whenever we damned well please and not let that display of affection be dictated by a calendar. Hallmark can keep their holiday, and we will keep our money. So, no gifts at Chez Haggie tonight.
The pseudo-holiday almost went without notice though. After I got out of the shower this morning, I sat down and chatted with Beau Hunk in bed for a while. He left the room and I turned on the news, only to realize it was Valentine’s Day. Oops. I went and found a barely-awake Beau Hunk, planted a kiss on his forehead, and wished him a Happy Hearts Day. He called me at work later and offered up takeout from my favorite Chinese restaurant for dinner. It’s not as lopsided as it sounds, since he usually does all the cooking he gets the night off. Also, logistics dictate that I pick up the food. However, the fact that he suggested Chinese is all about me, since that’s my favorite, not his. So I think we’ve found a nice equitable split for this one.
Woo’s school had a Valentine exchange today too. We received a note on Thursday that we were to send in 20 Valentines with Woo’s name on them, they’d do the rest. Cool! We happened to be at the grocery store on Saturday and thought since they have a greeting card section there, we’d save ourselves an extra trip and buy them there. Uh, not.
The biggest packs they had were packages of eight, and they were $4.99 each. Holy shit, what a rip off! There’s no way in hell we were paying 15 fucking dollars for something that may or may not even make it out of the school. We drove over to the drug store and found something much more suitable to our cause: kid Valentines in boxes of 32 for $1.99. Score! We even bought a spare box to send to the school, in case somebody forgot to send theirs in, or whatever. It seems that a lot of the kids in this school not only have special emotional and physical needs, but come from some pretty unfair home lives as well. It was the least we could do. And hey, it’s not like we were going broke spending money on each other. We both agreed this was a more than worthy cause.
Of course, when I got home from work, dinner in hand, I did discover that Beau Hunk had bought me a lovely bunch of red and white carnations, and a box of chocolates. He’s such a sweetie pie! I felt kinda bad though, since I didn’t get him anything.
So no, I didn’t have some overblown celebration punctuated by the ring of a cash register. And guess what? I love it. I love the Beau Hunk and Woo, and they love me. I have received the best gift anyone could ever get in the name of love: a family. I have a man who cooks for me, changes the oil in my car, takes care of our home, does projects in our yard, tells me I’m beautiful and is willing to share his life and child with me. I have a little boy who gives me snuggly hugs when he wakes up, run-and-fling laughing hugs when I leave the house each morning, and big smiley hugs when I get home.
How does life get any better than that?