The Valentine's Day Post

I didn't do it right.  I didn't get my wife a bunch of limp roses at the supermarket.  I didn't hang up beautiful little notes full of wise and encouraging words for my boys to find on their dressers and read this morning.  I didn't make a "love song playset" on the computer, complete with images, to slideshow during our romantic "living room picnic"  (not that I'd know how).  I didn't make Valentines for all of the lunch staff at the boys school, or the busdrivers, or the trashlady, or the postal workers in my life.

I didn't bake heart and Cupid-shaped cookies and ice them with pink icing (actually I made a stirfry the boys didn't even like so they had rice and sliced turkey).  I didn't get a Pajamagram or send a Teddygram, hell,  I didn't even buy a single card.  I didn't write my wife a love sonnet or a song (although I've been known to) nor did I "spend time meditating on those I have loved" as someone suggested on some TV show today.  I didn't really do much to celebrate this Valentine's Day.  I've always been a bad consumer.

And yet I got this...

and this...

You know what, I did get my wife those little packets of hummus she likes from the supermarket the other day, and I send little silly notes in the boys' lunches when they pack.  We have picnics, indoor and out, with some frequency and, we often sing songs together.  I always smile and thank the lunchroom staff anywhere I am  The busdriver is as sweet a woman as I've ever met and I have thanked her, and her superiors, for her dedication in writing, I always chat with the trashlady (and leave her a note when there is loose, broken glass in the trashbin) whose hard work is often underappreciated. And our mail-carrier always waves.  I acknowledge and treasure these people frequently and openly.

You see, every day is Valentine's Day here.  Every day is Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter and Martin Luther King Day and New Year's Day and whatever Holiday you've got.  Every day is a day to say 'I love you.'  Just as every day is a day to glorify new hope, appreciate our many gifts, consider forgiveness and resurrection, proclaim and honor our heroes and make new resolutions.  Everyday there's something to celebrate.

Actually, we did have leftover heart-shaped cookies that my wife brought home from work, but, we pretty  much eat cookies any shape, any size, any time around here.

From Marci's '...things you don't expect to hear from the backseat...'

"The Town Hall has been robbed.

Signed, The Hopper."

Curse you, The Hopper, curse you...