Chocolate…good. Shoes…good.

I started thinking about Valentine’s Day today because it is foisted upon us this time of year like the Republican primaries.  Plus, I am far too cynical NOT to write a Valentine’s blog.  All of this thinking made me think of love and lust and chocolate and of course that made me think of shoes.  Ya see, I have this really cute pair of chocolate brown patent leather pumps that I was thinking I would wear today to boycott Valentine’s Day but not boycott chocolate.  Get it? Cuz they’re chocolate brown?  (That was totally funny in my head.  Seriously, I really need to stop hanging out with eight year olds who have a propensity for puns.) The chocolate brown pumps do have little plaid bows and are really cute and I bought them last year and they were like, 50% off and…oh never mind.

Last night, I had a long but fun night of basketball practice and Valentine shopping with my boys.  My older son, Max, has a short list of girlfriends this year.  Just two.  Both independent, smart, fabulous, great style and yep, eight years old.  I know both of the moms and we really like each other as friends so we are totally fine if they get married (after college) because then we would get to be in-laws.  Max is meticulous, let me tell you.  We spent like, thirty minutes at the 99Cent store shopping for the perfect gifts.  I figure when he’s nine he can hit Nordstrom and when he is ten:  Tiffany; but for now, the 99Cent store will do. 

I really would have loved him to have made the girls something instead of buying them something.  Remember in grade school when we would spend hours with pink and red paper, lots of glitter and glue and we would MAKE the cards?  You would come home covered in glitter like the way men come home from bachelor parties.  I love homemade gifts as much as I love bachelors.  My favorite Valentine gifts have always been homemade.  This very wonderful man once sent me a poem which made me smile and sigh for the entire day.  Paintings, songs, a original documentaries (well, it was a short) and once there was a Valentine dinner homemade and delicious and I didn't even have to do the dishes.  I love the sentiment with homemade gifts.  Come to think of it, a Victoria Secrets gift card is always nice too...

But I digress…

I would tell you what Max bought them, but both moms read my blog and I do want it to be a surprise for the lovely ladies. The moms both think it is adorable which is good because there was this other mom whose daughter used to liked to hold hands with Max at the YMCA and she got all like, “she’s too young for that!!”  What exactly did she think an eight year old, in a fluorescently lit room with tons of grownups around was going to do to her precious girl?  Seriously, the mom had issues. 

I really want my charming boy to enjoy Valentine’s Day.  I would hate for him to find out it is a total mockery of love tantamount to corporate peer pressure.  It has nothing to do with St. Valentine’s original intent.  Even if he was the patron saint of the plague, epilepsy, and bees; don’t forget he was also the patron saint of engaged couples and happy marriage.  The man was clubbed to death because he was secretly marrying couples in love.  I'm guessing the divorce rate wasn't as high as it is now, but he was really trying to bring love and joy and blah blah blah.  He apparently would secretly help pass notes between the affianced couples and then they killed him and stuck his head on a stake.  


By the way, some chick named Agatha was the patron saint of single women and some dude named Gregory the Great was the patron saint of teachers.  Nice to know I have someone looking out for me.

Digressing again…

My last year’s Valentine blog was called, Happy Capitalist Mockery of Chocolate Day.  (Crap, maybe I have issues.)

Anyway, here is how I explained my disdain for Valentine’s Day last year: 

Don’t get me wrong. I like love. I like chocolate. I even like heart shaped chocolate. I especially like the little heart shaped Valentine Peeps that are marked down 50% on the day after Valentine’s Day. If you poke a hole in the cellophane wrapper of the Peeps, they get just the right amount of staleness that makes them totally yummy. Then of course you have Tuescher’s Champagne truffles in Beverly Hills which, if one could marry chocolate, this would be the chocolate I would marry. Of course, I would weigh 300 pounds from being married to truffles, but who cares, I would be happy and the truffles would never leave the toilet seat up.

Oh, wait, that just explains my love of chocolate.  Hmmm…hold on.  Oh yeah, here we are:

Making someone wear red and hope someone will validate them on that one special day once a year is ludicrous. It’s stupid and makes people feel like crap. If you are single, then you feel like crap because the world is decorated with hearts and little cherubs should be buzzing around you, but they’re not buzzing around you, they are buzzing around the guy next to you who is looking at someone else.   If you are actually in a relationship, you may end up feeling like crap as well. There is all of this pressure to buy your significant other something romantic on Valentine's Day. Emphasis on BUY. God forbid you forget to buy something, then your significant other might think you are secretly harboring feelings for someone else or that you really don’t like them all that much because you couldn’t see the ten million ads that told you diamonds were on sale at Zales. But, hey, you can eat chocolate that is 50% off the next day to heal your wounds. You’ll just be eating it alone.

That wasn't too cynical.  Was it?

Anyway, I would just like to say once again that I have nothing against love and romance but I just prefer my love and romance on a Tuesday in say, April or June.  For no reason whatsoever.  Tell me you love me without the Hallmark card.  Bring me truffles when you just stopped by to say hi.  Or better yet, bring me daffodils on Memorial Day.  I like that holiday better. You get a day off from work.


Have a nice Valentine's Day.