Estoy Nueces

Valentine's Day. You anticipate it wildly as a kid. My dad was always a sweet Valentine. I may therapize about a lot of things in our relationship (therapize?, that's a good one to add to the Merriam-Webster), but I remember him coming home from work with the little boxes of conversation hearts for my sister and me and a big box of chocolates in a heart for my mom. As we grew up, our candy got nicer, too. One year, he brought medium boxes with a girl on the front with one of those rippledy flat faces that showed one expression if you looked at it one way and another if you tilted it. I kept that box for ages. Even last year when we got Daddy out of the hospital on Valentine's Day after a month of surgery and rehab, he had us stop by my sister's house and he had sent her to get me and Mom and her each a beautiful orchid plant.

Once I got into school, the good feelings about Valentine's faded in the every year anticipation and dread of which classmate would give me what Valentine. You got a Valentine from everyone in the class, so you analyzed the one from James and Ricky to see if they had any secret meaning not overtly shown in the smiling turtle with the words "SHELL we be Valentines?"

Let's just skip the crappy years of Valentines from junior high through my thirties. I don't think there was a single great Valentine's Day in those 20 years!

Fortunately, Mark came along and he takes Valentine's seriously. Makes it a little difficult for me because I don't plan ahead as much as he does and I am not as prepared as he always is, but then, girls are supposed to be the recipients of Valentines, right?

Mark had a nice Valentine's for me last night. I stopped by Central Market just to get something for us to eat. They have these great dinners in a bag that aren't cheap, but are very good. With the cold miserable weather, I was ready to even sacrifice the Atkins and have a good carb-filled lasagna like I'd bought there before. Trouble was, all their meal-in-a-bags last night were Valentine's meals with lobster and fancy things and were expensive. I wasn't anticipating a Valentine's dinner so I stuck to the Atkins and bought blackened chicken, green beans almondine, and a bleu cheese and pecan and spinach salad. Yum. Good stuff. It was going to be a nice meal.

I got home and was settling in before I put the food on the table and in the bathroom there was a single tulip in a special vase. How pretty! Where's the rest of them? I asked. Mark said, You think there's more? Of course I thought there was more, he would never give me one tulip (at least not on Valentine's weekend). I went through the house and, in my office, I found a big vase filled with red tulips and red roses. A beautiful arrangment. Around it were four burning candles... Mark makes wonderful altar candles with the pictures of favorite (mostly dead) musicians on them: Johnny Cash, Townes Van Zandt, Dough Sahm, and lots and lots of blues guys. For me he started a new line! There were two red altar candles with Valentines on them, the old fashioned kind. Both had characters with drums and had lines like "My heart beats for you" and "You've snared my heart." How cute and clever is that? The other two candles were the pre-printed Mexican candles for love spells.

We had a nice sit-down dinner with Julia Fordham music on the stereo. I gave him my card (two kittens in shoes on the front, inside: We make a purr-fect pair) and a warm pair of gloves to use while working in this cold weather.

I'll give him an A+ for this Valentine's Day. Today I'll earn my A+ when I make him his annual (well, more than annual because he gets it for birthday, anniversary, and big homecomings, too) apple pie.