After nine Valentine’s Days of being with Grey, our celebrations have run the gamut.
On our first, you could tell we were newly in love and wanting to impress each other. He took me to a fancy Italian restaurant in Newport and surprised me with a pearl bracelet (which two years later I wore on our wedding day). I blew half my paycheck on a watch for him.
Then there was the Valentine’s Day when he was on deployment with the Navy. He bought me a ticket to visit him in Hawaii and I sent him a care package with Valentine’s Day Pez dispensers, love letters, and cookies my mom had made.
In California, our February 14th included a walk on the beach and a Pacifico with lime. And maybe a burrito.
I’ll never forget our first DC Valentine’s — we went to 1789 in Georgetown and were sitting next to Donald Rumsfeld. Grey got so excited he stood up and knocked the entire table over. It was like the Republican porn.
Yet, this year might just top them all. Last night, on Valentine’s Eve, we took Ollie out to dinner at a local burger joint. We laughed about the waitress calling Ollie a “she” and him eating mac and cheese while wearing sunglasses. Then we came home and watched a movie over dessert of Cadbury Eggs. Nothing fancy, nothing expensive – but perfect all the same!
Never in my life did I think I would be dating someone from a Midwest town of 400 people. A football-loving, two-stepping, Nebraskan who can call cattle and is proud to be from a map dot. But even more surprising, is how happy he makes me. I’ve mentioned this before, but my college nickname was Snobby Tanabe. I’m from a city of 600,000 people. I chided Craig for not knowing any Latin. It is very surprising that it works. But work it does.
Lately I love him because he shoveled my walk during this snow madness every morning while I slept in like a good for nothing. Before that I loved him because he agrees to my half baked ideas like trying to get biblical on the National Mall. And sometimes I love him because he has a killer bod. But most of the time, it’s just because he is who he is, one of the greatest men I have ever known.
Kissing on the kissing bridge in Vermont. Ahh, l'amour!
I have a small obsession with lingerie. Even when my posterior was the size of a bagel, I knew that I should be outfitting it in something other than cotton briefs. Of course, when I was in college, I felt like a harlot when I tried to wear thigh highs and garments that screamed turn of the century hooker, but now that I’m 29, I am completely at ease wearing things like edible underwear.
I most memorably wore one of Agent Provocateur’s captivating getups on Valentine’s Day 2009. The morning of February 14th I woke up with a flesh-eating rash on my face. Sure, my dermatologist told me it was dry skin and suggested I remove my mask and stop crying, but nothing could lift my spirits. It wasn’t until sundown that my depression began to lift. Was it the champagne I threw down my throat, or the frills and thrills I had on from thigh to breast? The man I sat down in a chair and shimmied for like Calamity Jane, was sure it was the latter that finally cured my ails.
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Wow, this image captures my Wednesday mornings so well. I have to remember to sport a cape and thigh highs more often.
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