Your Valentine's Day Plan?
Yesterday I got up the nerve to just stand outside a local grocery store (yes, the site of my unprecedented musical triumph described in “Duet With A Drifter”—what can I say, it’s near my house) and ask people about their plans for Valentine’s Day (Thursday, February 14). What I won’t do to bring you ideas!
Of course it was predictable—and amazingly evident, in some cases—that there were people with no intention of divulging, to a possible nutcase with a pad and pen at the ready, their plans for the most romantic day on the calendar. But some of those were among the most charming people I met on my roving-girl-reporter gig that afternoon!
Here’s how Valentine’s Day is shaping up for some (and comments here may be edited for clarity):
“It’s a Thursday this year, so we’re going to watch ‘Ugly Betty’, and then I’m going to force him to watch ‘Grey’s Anatomy’. We’ll probably do dinner on the weekend.”
“My husband will be working that night, but I’ll have a good home-cooked meal waiting when he gets back. All his favorites. Got a new gown, too, girl!”
“We generally like to dress up and go for Chinese.”
“I don’t know what we’re going to do yet. He says he has a surprise for me!” (Good luck on that one. Visions of stuffed moose heads, Hoover bagless uprights, hog’s head souse starter kits, and black-velvet Elvises spring to mind…)
“I got tickets to the Doobie Brothers in Tunica that weekend…We’ll figure out how to pay the rent later, but we met at a Doobie Brothers concert back in ’79, and haven’t seen them since. So if they’re going to be this close around Valentine’s…”
“‘Brad Pitt’ here said he wanted to have dinner and then go see No Country For Old Men. I told him our house wouldn’t be no country for young men if that was still on and he didn’t pick another movie. And I don’t mean Rambo.”
“We’re wanting to just stay home, and while everybody’s doing homework, or more likely glued to the computer, we’re going to microwave some popcorn, go down to the family room, snuggle up and watch The Bridges of Madison County. We’re going to have red wine and popcorn, ’cause that’s what we do…It’s better than it sounds, in the right company.”
“We usually exchange little gifts that morning just after we get up. We’ve been together long enough to where we can always get something the other one can use, or just really likes. Then we’ll say a little something, you know, about how it’s all been for us and everything. That makes it a really good day after that.”
“I’m working on a letter—a real long, just-him-and-me type of letter—I might mail it to his work, I might put it in his lunch that day…”
“She’s going to be in the hospital—surgery the day before. So I’m going to get a babysitter and then just go down and kind of pretend like we’re still in high school. I’m just going to hold her hand and tell her bad jokes and sing to her, until she goes to sleep.”
Here’s hoping you and your beloved, together, create the Valentine’s Day of your dreams!