Day 30: A Word About Valentine’s Day

Step one: infuse cream with blood orange peel. Sounds good to me, recipe!

I‘m taking part in a 30-day writing experiment. The theme for me is “personal, not pretty.” See Kale & Cigarettes for details and the Facebook Group to read stories by other 500-words-ers.

I try not to eat sugar. So naturally I have a lot of complicated rules around when it’s okay to eat it, and also when it’s okay for my daughters to eat it. It’s okay for them to eat sugar if:

1. It’s their birthday
2. Jon just managed to cut their nails and vanilla ice cream is their reward and only solace
3. I have just absolutely had it with the times-two crying and I give them a baby treat so they’ll calm down for please just one sec

In my case, I am allowed to eat sugar on holidays and birthdays and also if I make something sweet from scratch in my own kitchen. Last night, for instance, in honor of Valentine’s Day, I made chocolate truffles.

A word about Valentine’s Day.

That word is: stupid.

Valentine’s Day is a holiday designed to make people spend money on crap and question their life choices. I don’t approve of it as a holiday, but I do approve of it as an excuse to make chocolate truffles.

And I admit, I love that my husband feels the pressure to buy me flowers, even if that pressure is coming from SOCIETY and not from me directly. I don’t really care if my husband acknowledges Valentine’s Day, but I do love flowers.

Every time a flower occasion comes up, Jon asks me to remind him what kind of flowers are on my no-fly list. Just the fact that I have one of those makes me an asshole. And just the fact that he knows I have one makes him incredible. I have strong opinions about flowers, though, so no use in pretending to be laidback about it.

Carnations and baby’s breath, of course, are never okay. I am not a fan of peruvian lilies aka alstroemeria either. Gerbera daisies are sort of gimmicky in my opinion. And roses have to be done with class. Never from the grocery store.

My favorite flowers are ranunculus, anemone, dahlias, peonies, and poppies—things that might grow in your back yard, if you lived in a coastal climate with sea-rich air and had a green thumb. I also love tuberose, a sublimely fragrant flower native to Hawaii that’s impossible to find in Utah. Snapdragons and sweet peas are right up there. Lilies are a little funereal, but smell fantastic. Orange and brown “autumn-themed” bouquets make me suicidal.

I have this dream about opening a storefront business that is an urban hybrid of a flower shop, a tea shop, a bookstore, and a craft center. You know, exactly the kind of place that is never successful. But a really fun idea, nevertheless.

There would be a big wooden communal table taking up prominent space in the center, and I would conduct invite-only craft sessions there. And during the day, people could come in and order tea and read books or linger on their laptop and just hang out and feel content. There would always be classical music playing and no one would ever talk. That would be the vibe—nay, an unspoken rule. We would sell super snobby expensive teas that I would personally vet. And of course, everyone would buy flowers on the way out.

My husband also has a dream of opening a storefront business. Well, a garage-front business, I should say. He wants to start a coffee shop in our garage called the “Not for You Coffee Shop.” The coffee would be free but the customer service would be atrocious. We would only be open when and if we felt like it, and then we wouldn’t feel at all obligated to be friendly or fair or courteous. 

He suspects it would be so wildly successful that soon, famous grunge musicians would start dropping in to conduct impromptu unplugged.

I mean, maybe not in Sandy, Utah. But.