Happy V Day!

I have no plans for Valentine's Day, but that's just as well as I got walloped by a nasty head cold yesterday which was brought on solely out of spite.  I'm moving at the end of the month, so when a friend popped over for tea the other day, I sent her home with ALL of my tea including my all time favorite cold remedy Throat Formula herbal tea.  This stuff is fabulous for sore throats which is the symptom I always get when I'm sick.  I should really have had my tonsils out years ago, but they don't like to do it as an adult.  Anyway...what are the chances I'm going to need my special throat tea in the next 2 weeks?  I'm not going to pack tea, so out the door it went.  The next morning?  Sick.  Who knew tea could be so spiteful?

Fortunately, I'm not one of those girlies who really cares about Valentine's Day.  I don't hang in the Cool Kid camp of bashing Hallmark holidays either, I'm just rather indifferent.  I can't tell if this is just part of my personality or if it's a cause & effect reaction to having lucked out early on with many lovely V Day memories.

My earliest ones are in grade school, cutting out paper cards to give to all my classmates.  My mom forced me to give a Valentine to every single kid in my class, whether I liked them or not.  I resented it at the time & was careful to give the BEST cards to my friends, but looking back I appreciate the lesson.  She worried that there might be a few kids in my class who weren't very popular & might not get a Valentine at all while everyone around them was having fun opening their own.  She was sure that any kid in my class would feel extra special if he or she got a card from me since, according to my mom, I was so smart & pretty & likeable.  I, of course, thought she was loony.  If kids didn't talk to me in school I was sure it must be because they didn't like me, not because they were just intimidated or shy.  Since I was (still am!) very shy myself, if someone didn't go out of their way to talk to me, there was no way we'd become friends.

Fortunately, most of the boys did go out of their way to talk to me & my next Valentine's memory is courtesy of my very first boyfriend.  He was our paperboy & on special holidays like V Day & Easter, he'd slip little presents in with our paper.  He was very romantic & the mushy card & chocolates became quite the sensation in our house.  I think my older sister gave her boyfriend a few elbow shots after an 11 year old showed him up.  I might've given my paperboy a few playful elbow shots of my own when we met after school by the bike racks.  We would stand there kissing for what seemed like hours.

Do you remember just kissing?  Before it even occurred to you that there was more you could be doing?  *swoon*