NaBloPoMo: Feb 11: A Perfect Valentine's Day

Okay, full honesty time here: I'm running out of steam on topics so I'm using a prompt.

I have this bad habit of talking at people when I'm overloaded. My brain is often going a mile a minute and I'll be halfway through a descriptor for my week before I turn to whomever I'm talking to and say "I'm sorry. I'm using you as a planner."

I don't want to use you all as a planner. So I'm using a prompt.

What is Your Ideal Valentine's Day Celebration?

Huh. Bohkay.

I'm not a big fan of Valentine's day. It seems like a really good way to sell candy between Christmas and Easter and for restaurants to get twice as many people inside twice as quickly for prix fixe chateaubriand for two. But I also don't hate Valentine's Day. It may be de rigeur to dump on couple appreciation day (to which everyone is entitled to scream "EVERYDAY IS COUPLE APPRECIATION DAY!!) but I don't mind it. Your mom gets kind of misty if you call her, lobster tails go on sale, which is good news for everyone, and February 15th is circled in my calendar as "Discount candy day", my favourite unofficial holiday of the year.

That being said, I have never really spent a Valentine's Day alone so I am sensitive that others may justifiably dread the red-dyed shitstorm that comes rolling in this time of year.

If it were up to me, my Valentine's Day would start with brunch. I'm 30, white, with no kids, in a somewhat-urban centre, so obviously brunch is my religion. There are some amazing spots for it in the city but Pressed and Murray Street are two of my favourites. I would eat with reckless abandon, and would snack off The Boy's plate whenever his guard was down. LOVE DOES NOT JUDGE.

There would be a lot of walking - downtown is very walkable and I love those winter days where it's hovering around 0 degrees and the sun is shining and you almost open your coat but don't because that's when the hypothermia will sneak up on you and hit you in the solar plexus. I'm not a huge handholder because I have very little legs and The Boy is 6'1" or something so basically we look like this when he tries to walk slow enough that we can hold hands

But I do like hooking my arm into his elbow because then I can surreptitiously lean on him a bit while he's walking until I can drag my feet and he ends up doing the lion's share of the work of forward motion. Because even when it looks like I'm being cute, I'm just hiding how duplicitously lazy I am.

Anyway, so where were we? Right - brunch, walking. I would probably try to work in some shopping there because I am such a girl, right? I know! But it would probably be at our favourite thrift shop (and obscure treasure trove). It's our first stop for just about any costume need or piece of charming vintage flair and with stuff literally packed to the rafters, it's a super fun place to play treasure hunter. The Boy's gotten a couple of sweet hats from them and I've picked up a fascinator, some jewellery and some great clutches there as well. One day we'll buy that giant sombrero that hangs from the ceiling. We got big dreams.

I'd try to fit in some time for sneaky make-outs. When we were first dating we were fond of the area behind some of the more prestigiously historic buildings in town (and there are a LOT of them) - though I do remember we were once embarrassingly interrupted to be informed that we were about to become part of the "Winter Light and Sound Show" so maybe somewhere a little more out of the way?

Dinner would be at one of our other favourite haunts. There's a tapas place very near to us that we went to in December and immediately loved. Our favourite restaurant in town is the Fraser Cafe though it's a bit far. I'd probably push for Beckta - because I am a fancy fucking bitch, natch. And also because it's very close to home (see above- so fat, so lazy). I would wear a magical dress that made me look awesome but also felt like sweatpants*

Dinner would be fantastic, we would ignore the wine list as per usual, order girl drinks and drunkenly flirt our way through a tasting menu until I burst my shapewear. 

At this point I'd want to chill at home for a bit. We love home. We're working our way through several tv series right now so I'd probably want to become better acquainted with my good friend "couch" (everyone's true valentine) as we cuddled to some kind of ghastly, yet wryly hilarious, murder on Sherlock.

And then we would bone.

Okay, okay, you didn't need that last part, but I couldn't resist.

No flowers, no perfume, no jewellery, just good food, fun talks and a day spent doing a whole lot of nothing. But you know what? I'll probably be doing something very similar on the 15th with my sister for Galentine's Day. Dinner, shopping, walking, the whole enchilada.

Except for the sexy bits, natch. Grody.

But my point is, Valentine's Day doesn't have to be about trading presents for vag or spending all your pennies on overpriced roses or trying to overcompensate for every bad V-Day you've had prior to this. It's a meaningless nothing day if you want it to be or just an excuse to tell people you love them. And who couldn't use an extra moment or two, in the middle of a frosty winter, to bring a little warmth to people you love? And hey, if you hate it all that much, there's always the 15th. Or, actually, hate on the 15th, too- leaves more Reese's peanut butter-filled hearts for me.

*I just Googled "bedazzled onesie" and "fancy Snuggie" to no avail so I think I'm out of luck here.