Valentine's Day

LUCY BURDETTE: Sometimes I think Valentine’s Day is a hokey, trumped up way to sell limp roses infused with too many chemicals, and mediocre chocolate. And jacked up restaurant prices for prix fixe menus that make married people swallow hard and single people feel lousy. 

On the other hand, John proposed to me on Valentine’s Day 26 years ago so that’s a super special memory. He wrote a poem for the occasion and ordered a bottle of frog’s leap wine to celebrate taking the plunge. 

This year we doing something unusual – we’ve become small-scale sponsors of the new show going up at the Studios of Key West. Undying Love, written by local musician/writer Ben Harrison, tells the quirky Key West story of Count von Cosel, a radiologist at the Marine Hospital who x-rayed the chest of the lovely Elena Milagro Hoyos and fell madly in love. In 1933, almost two years after her death, the count removed Hoyos' body from its tomb, and lived with the corpse at his home for seven years until this was discovered by her relatives and reported to the authorities in 1940. 


Is that a Valentine’s Day story or what? We can’t wait to see what he’s done with it!

Reds, how do you feel about Valentine’s Day? Will you be doing something special?

INGRID THOFT: I hate to sound cynical, but I definitely think that Valentine’s Day is a holiday made up by greeting card companies.  My husband and I have never celebrated it, but this this reflects our approach to marriage, which is that you should make your spouse feel special every day in small ways.  What’s romantic in my book?  When I made passing mention of the pain of tending my hardboiled eggs (first world problem, I know), and the next day a Dash Egg Cooker showed up on our doorstep.  I love my egg cooker!  Romance to me is paying attention to my hubby every day and doing things to make his life easier and more joyful. We’re not perfect at it, but we’ve been together 26 years and married for 17 of those, so we’re doing something right!

HALLIE EPHRON: Oh, I love Valentine's Day. I used to send candy (red hots, candy hearts with sayings on them BE MINE and LOVE YOU... ) in the kids' lunch bags, a big deal because we almost never had candy in the house. I get a homemade card from my husband which I cherish more than any flowers or cards he could give me.

I'm awful at giving, much better at receiving. But a few years ago I bought him a pair of bright red fleece bedroom slippers and left them on the floor on his side of the bed on Valentine's Day morning. Here's the card I got the next Valentine's day.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, you all, I have no idea. We did a story once about how much the prices are pumped up for Valentines', and the results were so dramatically gouge-y that I was incredibly dismissive of the whole idea. But, little candy heart with sayings on them? Yeah, I like those.  Still, the holiday always reminds me of grade-school trauma, when it was all about who go the most cards from classmates, and I was so stressed about it. And yeah,  Ingrid, I agree. Every day should be Valentines Day.

You see how wishy-washy I am about this. Because, yes, it's manipulative and stressful. But if there's a day that reminds people to love each other, or that gives people (like Lucy's John) a platform to do something romantic, what's not to like? 

JENN McKINLAY: Well, I love chocolate so it goes without saying that I love me some Valentine's Day See's Candy - soft centers, if you're asking. The Hub and Hooligans usually make the trek to pick out the box (and get free samples) and then they splurge for a plant (I love plants) and they each give me a card. I have to say they are all very good at writing a heartfelt sentiment, so those are saved because I think they have a competition going to see who can make me cry (happy tears). In return, for the Hooligans, I give a card and candy and some cash and for the Hub, a card and a gift card to whatever his bookstore of the moment is. So, we keep it simple and maybe Hallmark is the generator of it, but I do love my box of See's and my plants (I haven't killed any yet except for one very uncooperative orchid), and my cards, which I cherish.

RHYS BOWEN: We've never really celebrated Valentine's Day in a big way. Certainly not eaten out as you don't get good service. I expect we'll cook a lovely meal at home: filet mignon and lobster tail sounds good at the moment. But as I posted last week we have this ongoing Valentine's joke in which John brings out the same balloon and roses from the dollar store every year. Amazingly the balloon still hasn't gone down after ten years.

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  So, my hubby being of the "hokey holiday" opinion, I decided years ago to buy myself flowers, which works out just fine--especially now that we have a Trader Joe's nearby and I buy myself flowers every week! He is, however, not averse to a little home-made celebration, so I usually cook something special but easy, and if I make to our local La Madeleine, I buy us a mini heart-shaped cheese cake. I couldn't imagine a nicer Valentine's Day--and I certainly can't imagine wanting to fight the restaurant crowds!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Fortunately, Ross and I were never big on Valentines Day, so it's not going to be one of the hard-to-bear holidays for me this year. I recall a few memorable ones - when my first college boyfriend brought me a big pot of white chrysanthemums instead of cut flowers, because I could enjoy them longer. What a sweetheart he was. With Ross - I hate to say this - the most memorable VDay was a decade or so back. I was trying to lose weight, and he gave me a big heart-shaped box of sugar-free chocolates. My friend Mary dropped in that day and we opened up the box and proceeded to gab and drink tea and stuff ourselves with the excellent chocolates - until one of us happened to turn the box over. "Consume in moderation," the underside warned. "Chocolates may have a laxative effect."

Boy, did they. Ross's romantic Valentines evening turned into me in the bathroom with a glass of water and a stack of magazines.



LOL Julia! And Reds, we want you to know that you are all our Valentines! No sugar-free chocolates, either. xoxo

Flora Church is the winner of Susan Meissner's book last week--please contact Rhys to make the exchange. And Margie Bunting is the winner of Tina Kashian's ebook--she will send this when the book releases on 2/27!

Be My Valentine

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Did you know that Americans exchange more cards on Valentine's Day than on any occasion other than Christmas? Or that the first commercial valentines were sold in 1850 by an American artist and printer named Esther Howland?

What an enterprising woman! (She looked a bit like Queen Victoria, don't you think? Maybe she needed a valentine...) Howland sold her business and retired in 1881, quite well off. And thanks at least in part to her, in the U.S. we send valentines to everyone, starting with making them for all our first grade class mates. (Remember those cutout hearts and doilies? And, of course, the candy hearts!) We send  valentines to our kids, to parents, to friends. We got this darling one from our daughter and son-in-law.

Not so in other parts of the world, however. In the UK, apparently, valentines are only meant for a sweetie--or someone you hope will be a sweetie--and are often given anonymously, even between established couples. More romantic... but maybe less fun.

REDS, do you send valentines, and to whom? Store-bought, homemade, or, gulp, e-cards?

LUCY BURDETTE: Mostly I remember the packages of store-bought valentines for school pals--"You're a great catch", "You send me into orbit"--like that. Up until the moment my dad's Alzheimer's overwhelmed him, he sent all of us kids little cards with 4-1-4 written inside. (Get it? D-a-d.) Now we send out a few, but not many, having just recovered from Christmas.

However, I am partial to Valentine's Day, as that's when John proposed some years ago with doggerel in hand. I won't make you sit through all of it, but the last line was "Honey-bunny, don't leave me in the lurch, let's go do it in the church!"

HALLIE EPHRON: What a romantic! My husband draws me a card on Valentine's Day. I've saved every one of them. I cook for him. This time it'll be a pineapple upside down cake because it's what I've got the ingredients for... and I'm not going out unless I have to. Even for him.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Lucy, your John puts the "dog" into doggerel.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  You had me at Honey-bunny.  xoox  Well, we are pitiful. We do nothing.   And yikes, it was SO traumatic in grade school!   Have you read about the glitter-bombs?  It's apparently the latest revenge thing---there's a website that will anonymously send someone you are annoyed with a packet of glitter. They open it--and poof. And you know how difficult it is to clean up glitter. Diabolical.

RHYS BOWEN: I grew up in UK, went to a girl's school and only read about valentines when I was in college and had a real boyfriend and he sent me one. I had always longed for a secret admirer and wondered who he might be, but that never happened, alas. John and I exchange cards (I used to draw mine in the first flush of married love, Hallie) and we usually stay in and cook a really nice meal. I'm thinking lobster tail and creme brulee. These days of equality and not hurting anyone's feelings I think it's silly that the kids have to send one to the whole class.

JULIA: I'm glad to see I'm in with a bunch of non-romantics. Or at least, non-commercially-mandated romantics. Poor Ross spent years trying to do up Valentine's Day for me, chocolates, flowers, etc., and I with my frugal Scots background was always saying, "Don't give me flowers when they're expensive! Buy the chocolate the day after, when it's fifty per cent off!" It's not that I don't enjoy the sweet gestures that say "I'm thinking of you," I just don't believe they should go by the calendar. The last time Ross surprised me with an oil and fluids change it made my heart go pitty-pat. Taking the car to the garage - that's my valentine.

Oh, and yes to the kiddie valentines, which, you all realize, are mostly organized by the mothers. I have spent years writing them myself (when the kids were small), checking off the list (when they were bigger) licking and stamping envelopes closed and even  - a recent development - stuffing them with candy. Glad to say that aspect of motherhood is behind me now.

 DEBS: Lucy, how could you not say yes to a guy who called you "honey-bunny?" Really. So cute. Hank, we don't do anything, either. (And I think you could call glitter bombs the anti-Valentine...) I did get Rick a card a couple of weeks ago when I was at the carwash (best place to buy greeting cards) and when I paid my bill I thought they'd made a mistake. It was $5!!! For a card. It doesn't sing or dance or do anything fancy, it's just a plain old card. I was horrified. Julia, maybe I have Scots ancestors, too.

I do usually cook, hopefully something easy, and I might manage to get a Valentine's Cheesecake for Two from La Madeleine. I'm definitely not making it! Oh, and I might buy myself some tulips of they haven't run out at Trader Joe's! What an unromantic bunch we are...

READERS, tell us if you send valentines. And in the meantime, here's a big RED smoochie one from all of us here at JRW!

And a last note--Edith Maxwell is the winner of a copy of PAST CRIMES! Drop me a note with your mailing info, Edith, and I'll pass it along!