Holidays

A Valentine’s Post


Couples at square dance, McIntosh County, Okla...

Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

Not many evenings ago as Rob and I sat at our desks in the home office because we still don’t have a living room and the new incredibly comfy sofa is sandwiched behind the dining room table in the space soon to be known as the kitchen, I waxed wistfully about the not so far off day when the fireplace will be operational and he and I can curl around each other in front of it.

“Like the teenager I never was, ” I said.

“We’ll need mood music,” he replied.

“70’s and make out-ish,” I concurred.

“April Wine it is.”

Truthfully, I only knew the most syrupy bland ballad of their career before I met Rob. A Canadian band, most of April Wine never made it onto the American Top Forty rotation, which is a shame. And even more truthfully, the first romantic interlude Rob and I shared was soundtracked by Tool, but the former is a better V-day pick.

Happy St. Valentine’s Day, whether you celebrate or scorn it, anything that promotes love has an edge on just about everything else in the world.

A Little Virtual Love


Happy Valentine's Day

Image by Abby Lanes via Flickr

I was hiding Valentine’s booty the other day and warned Rob not to peek.

“I hate Valentine’s,” he said. “Why is there Valentine’s? I wouldn’t participate at all if it weren’t for you.”

… and your insistence that we celebrate every Hallmark X on the calendar … but that was unspoken.

He’s not a curmudgeon about it.

Okay, he is, but he believes that love should be expressed in the moment and not confined to arbitrarily set time periods.

Some of my exuberance stems from the fact that for much of my life, Valentine’s was a holiday I watched others celebrate and now that I have children and husband I am a full participant and it’s awesome. But I really don’t see evil in blocking out time to make an effort to express feelings that – even though they can be spoken and shown anytime – are more often than not lost in the daily rush.

Love is worth a big deal holiday of its own, in my very humble opinion.

There is still a bit of Valentine prep left to do, but in the spirit of spontaneity and dissociating the feelings from the prison of the calendar, I offer a tune.

To my husband, Rob, with much love always and an ocean of appreciation for everything he does for me – which is an awful lot – without any thought for himself.

You rock, Baby. XOXOX

Club L


birthday cake

Image by freakgirl via Flickr

A friend turns fifty today. It’s one of those “milestone” birthdays of which are scare once a person passes the infamous twenty-one. Passing from one decade to another though ceases to be momentous after a certain point because, in my opinion, many of us peak in terms of knowledge base and ability to add to existing skill sets.

My friend is not one of the stunted folk, which isn’t a surprise in a earth sign. In fact, I’ve only known one earth sign in my life who was a tool and my assessment is based on his rather twisted personality rather than a lack of innate intelligence.

Being female, however, this friend rather lamented the run up to her inaugral year in a new decade. The AARP didn’t help with it’s welcome wagon membership privileges either. Fifty is harder on women than men though my own darling husband is hurumphing and grim-faced about his own fiftieth later this year. He, at least, has the decidedly unfair advantage of the myth that men improve with age while women merely get old.

There is nothing “mere” about what happens to women as they get older nor is it appreciably different than what happens to men, but in a society that worships youth in the female form and exhorts women to look to 12 year old actresses as beauty standards, it’s understandable that many women dread and even fight aging with everything in their arsenal.

Being of a certain age myself, I am torn between grace and battle. My hair has been graying since my late twenties – it happens with redheads – but I’ve hidden it with highlights because I am blessed with that pure white replacement rather than the steely variety, but there isn’t enough of it to allow it dominance. Blonde simply lightens me in a way whitening red does not.

For the moment, I do nothing, but I think about doing something and that is maddening. Because why should I think about doing something anyway?

Not long ago I ran across an article bemoaning the fact that Elle Fanning is the new fashion “it” girl, the one designers love and hype as the “perfect female form”.

She’s twelve. And who wasn’t sparkly and full of feminine promise at that age?

Of course it’s her rack that attracts both filmmakers and haute couture pimps alike. She’s coltish with a ballerina body type, blond and fair. She’s the fantasy. The idea that for some reason maturity ruins females. Roundness and hair in the wrong places, and oozing once a month render us worthless. Not to mention that it is the beginning of the end. Age will take us and if it takes us – it can take men too.

Maybe that’s the real appeal. Men look at scandalously young females and see themselves in a way that defies the mirrors they ignore.

But why should my friend lament fifty? Why should anyone?

It’s not like many of us would willingly relive twelve. No one but the most stunted long to be teenagers again in any way. And, for one, resent the suggestion that I should emulate a 12 year old. It’s insulting and not just a little creepy.

In mythology, women travel from maiden to crone, but crone is powerful. The form she takes is of her choosing really, and that is the beauty of aging. Choice. And the wisdom, experience  and means to make ones that suit us. Let a 12 year old claim that.

At twelve, females are objects. Too young to know that, they smile and accept inappropriate and dangerous to them ideas and attention. At 50, not so much.

Happy Birthday then to my fabously fifty friend, who is wise and wily and wonderful.

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