Valentine's Day!

Tim and I celebrated our 13th(!) Valentine's Day together yesterday. Valentine's is not my favorite holiday. Even though I have had a sweetie for 13 years, I will never forget the first 19 years of my life when I was single. Obviously, I didn't care about being single for the first 10 or 11 of those Valentine's, but the teenage years were maudlin, full of eating candy by myself, listening to the Cure and, I'm sure, writing awful poetry. My last Valentine's Day spent as a single gal was my freshman year of college (I know, don't hate me, I realize how lucky I am to have met the love of my life at 19). My gang of friends and I decided to get dressed up and go out to eat, to alleviate the misery of being single by banding together and making fun of all the sappy happy couples. We first tried to go to Spaghetti Warehouse, but it was way too crowded, so we wound up at Chuy's, which is hardly a romantic destination. Then we headed back to my friend Rhonda's house who, by virtue of being the only one of us not living in a dorm, had become the keeper of the party house. We all lay on the floor, feeling miserable for ourselves and listening to Sarah McLachlan's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. I remember us all singing "Ice Cream" together. I am sure that there was some sort of substance being passed around to try and lift the mood, but it probably failed.
So it was quite humorous that last night I started my Valentine's Evening out at Spaghetti Warehouse acting in a Murder Mystery. It was even more packed than that evening when I was 18, we could barely get through the entryway to where we needed to be. We had a really great audience and now that we're down to only a couple more shows, the show was really tight and went great. Plus I walked out $150 richer! (They scalp folks on the Valentine's show, but luckily I get a cut of the higher price: triple my normal check.)
After the show, I walked in the front door to find the dining table set up with china, complete with chargers, flowers, and candlelight. It looked so lovely, I was really surprised! Tim made a delicious dinner of filet mignon, garlic mashed potatoes, white asparagus and followed up with dessert of Chocolate dipped strawberries, which my daughter assisted in the creation of. After dinner, we sat down to watch Sarah McLachlan's Austin City Limits appearance, which aired last night and which Anna and I attended back in December. Sure enough, you could see us for a few milliseconds a couple of times. It didn't hit me until this morning how similar this Valentine's was to that one so many years ago, complete with Spaghetti Warehouse and Sarah McLachlan. Of course, there was no loneliness this year and no "substances" either!
I think Valentine's is a Hallmark holiday created just to make people feel miserable and guilt guys into spending way too much money on flowers, cheap stuffed animals and chocolates. Luckily, my chef of a husband is still willing to make me a delicious meal every year. We avoid fighting the crowds and get to spend a quiet evening at home. I have to say, yesterday was extra fun because we spent so much of it with our sweet little daughter, and I bet next year will be even more fun because we'll have two!