Friday, February 13, 2009

Cupid, Draw Back your Bow....

Check this out: http://todayspictures.slate.com/20090213. Every day Slate.com runs a “Today’s Pictures” feature with photos on a daily theme. With Valentine’s Day being this weekend, today’s theme is K-I-S-S-I-N-G, and it’s way cute. This is the opening photo…..(CREDIT: This is obviously not my photo. It was taken by someone from Magnum Photos and I took it from Slate.)





Valentine’s Day gives me a complex. When I was single, I thought actually having someone to celebrate Valentine’s Day with would make everything automatically perfect. Oooohhhh, but no. First off, I hate planning things, which is an odd thing for a former event planner to say. It’s not really that I hate to plan things; I really LIKE to plan things….as long as they are not MY things. As far as I go, I’m a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of girl. The Todd is also a non planner. The only thing he plans ahead of time is a concert. The only thing I plan ahead of time is the release of certain books and/or movies. (Bring it, Harry Potter. July 17th is just around the corner.) What this results in is a serious lack of plans. “We’ll just see what comes up…” often ends in “not a damn thing.” Thus, when I DO plan something, I go all Martha-Stewart on acid and want to make everything picture perfect. There is no possible way for reality to reach half of where my expectations set themselves.

Example: I once planned a picnic for us to go to Callaway Gardens. I borrowed Baby Sister’s huge picnic basket and filled it with things like pate. Do either of us eat pate? Dude. I don’t even eat ketchup.

So you see how Valentine’s Day is problematic for crazy over-the-top Jamie. THIS year, we are getting a TV as our present to each other, but I still want to do SOMETHING. And of course it can’t be just dinner or a movie. Oh, what to do that is both original and fits into our tiny Dave Ramsey budget. (I know you’re thinking “She knows Dave Ramsey and she’s buying a TV?” But what you do not know is that said TV is a used 27” for $100. Dave would SO approve.) So I have to think of something fun.

One unnamed person called me yesterday to ask if I thought it would be sweet or stupid for her to send her man on a scavenger hunt around town winding up at her house for dinner. I told her I thought it was great. Then she called me to ask which new lingerie she should buy. Somebody is getting a GOOD Valentine! I pondered doing something like that for a minute and then realized that if I handed Pete a scavenger hunt clues, he would look at me like, “No, Beavis. Really. Let’s just go grab some steaks.” And as far as lingerie? Girlfriend was grabbing satin and lace, and that just does not work in my world. Pete’s all about the two Lauras…..Ingalls and Ashley. His freak-o grandpa taste used to irritate me, but now I think this is awesome. I can look like I walked out of Sense & Sensibility for the rest of my life, and Pete will think I’m dressing for him. Two birds, one stone.

So now I don’t know what we’ll do. I think this evening I will break out the old Southern Born & Bread cookbook and figure out something fairly easy (and romantic) to cook. Any ideas? Do y’all still go all out for Valentine’s? Are you one of those people who thinks it’s a “greeting card holiday” and don’t celebrate? Do you include people other than your honey? Once, when Chuck the Girl and I were living together, we both found ourselves single as Valentine’s Day rolled around. And on the day itself, one of our good guy friends brought us each a rose. I've always thought that was the sweetest gesture, and it’s always stuck with me, and I know it has with Chuck, too. So there you go, folks. If you can’t figure out what to do for the holiday, go make someone else’s holiday special!

2 comments:

Layne Street said...

We are meant to be blog buddies.

1. I just about wrote something regarding expectations versus reality. Fantasyland beats the heck out of reality sometimes!

2. DAVE RAMSEY? Come on! He's ah-mazing. We'll both look away as you purchase that t.v. But we will leave you with this..."Live like no one else, so that later, you can live like no one else."

3. I'm getting my hair done. To look pretty. For myself! Valentine Schmalentine.

The Cwtch said...

:o) ooh your post made me chuckle - I can relate to the Martha Stewart on acid planning disease! I have it in abundance! On me and my man's first valentines day I organised a treasure hunt around our university flat, - each clue had a love heart attached to it!!! (how sickly!!!) and I was so pleased with myself. He came back from a long rowing training session and did not enter into the spirit of things at all. I was soooo upset. Conversely his effort involved popping into a shop on the way back from a visit to a beach and asking me if I wanted to pick out some flowers for myself!! It almost all ended then and there until I realised why this had happened: 1. he is one of three boys and spent most of his life in an all boys boarding school, 2 I grew up watching old hollywood romantic films and he grew up watching terminator ! The result: utter disaster. After seven years I have lost the sickly sweet love ideas and he has moments of romantic brilliance- so there is hope!