February.  Home of Valentines Day.  Home of Leap day.  Dead president's day.  Debi's birthday.  Billy's birthday.  BTW, Billy is the only 1st cousin I have that amounted to anything.  I've got a couple of 2nd cousins that are good people.  Not sure why I feel compelled to share that with you...but there it is.


Val suggested this blog...Valentine's day is my least favorite "holiday".  My third cousin, Wikipedia, says this:  Saint Valentine's Day, commonly shortened to Valentine's Day, is a holiday observed on February 14 honoring one or more early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine. It is traditionally a day on which lovers express their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines").  The day first became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. It was first established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD, and was later deleted from the General Roman Calendar of saints in 1969 by Pope Paul VI. Modern Valentine's Day symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have given way to mass-produced greeting cards.


Fun stuff, huh?  Martyrs, popularity contests, unnecessary expenditures, spouse irritation/aggravation/disappointment.  Who needs it?  Not me.  And thankfully, not Val.  Oh, sure, she was sad the first few years, but she figgered it out.  Spending $50 for a bunch of "long stemmed roses" is not a showing of love.  Spending a lot of money for an overpriced dinner isn't either.  What is?  Being there, every day.  Letting her (him) do stuff, doing that stuff too.


Buying a card from Hallmark for $4 or $5 is showing your love?  Why don't you limber up yer pen and scribble a note?  Buy some jewelry?  you bet.  Esp if you incur more debt.  Nothing says "I Love You" like more credit card debt.  


But!  If I don't send flowers to work, all the people she works with will think that I don't care or that I'm cheap.  Well, I do, but I am.  She's finally figgered out a way to deal with that.  Sometimes I do pick up flowers the week before the "holiday"; they last until "the big day".  This year, it's looking like the petunia will continue to bloom, and the forced daffyodils are going to be blooming.  Odd that the other bulbs in the bucket are not doing anything, they're just a couple inches tall.  I took them out of the closet on Val's birthday.


The brainwash starts early, got to torture the kids right away.  Hype it up, candy, valentines for all the friends  everyone.  Except that no matter how nice the stupid box is, unless you're the popular kid, you don't get one from everyone and the feelings get hurt.  Rejection by Valentine, doesn't get much worse than that.  And then, all that expensive candy.  We're the fattest we've ever been, as a culture, so why do all these "holidays" use candy as a guilt-me into buying way to show love?  


And then!  the mess!  Kids bring all that candy onto the bus and chow down, it's like the buffet at CircusCircus.  Wrappers, envelopes, sucker sticks, gum, it all winds up on the floor, the seats, the windows, in the heaters.  Do they do this in the minivan?


Looks like the christmas cactus is going to bloom for Val's day too.  I'm going to have to research that thing a bit...I don't know if I don't water it enough, or too much, or what...it had a couple blossoms on it for Christmas, and it again has a few on it.  Make that several.  


So....here's my advice for St Valentine's Day.  Do something nice fer yer spouse, something out of the ordinary.  Oral sex would be nice, for example, but a promise to paint the garage, or sweeping out the wood shop, or guys...do some laundry and cook some dinner.  Don't wait till she bitches at you to take out the trash...just do it.