Valentine's Day Dilemnas

The first Valentine's Day with somebody new is always a bit of a relationship minefield. First of all, since people's reactions to the whole notion of Valentine's Day are so various, you never know whether you should go casual (and risk making your pookie feel neglected and unimportant) or go big (and convince him or her that you're needy/insecure/psycho). And even once you figure out what your plans are, something's bound to go terribly wrong and ruin them anyway.

My first boyfriend was bonkers about any excuse for a romantic occasion -- he wanted to celebrate every week for the first several months we dated and every month for the whole two years. Obviously, he made a huge to-do about Valentine's with fancy dinners and gifts he couldn't really afford. I broke up with him on Christmas Eve one year, and I think he was more upset about me ruining his romantic plans for Christmas than he was about us breaking up.

I presumed I would be spending the following Valentine's Day alone, but in fact, I met another young man just a couple of days before, and though we weren't yet dating, he happened to be at my house on February 14th when my charming ex decided to make an appearance for one of his big, romantic gestures. He was jogging up to the front door when he spotted the other guy through the living room window and changed his plans a bit -- he reached in his pocket, pulled out a watch I'd given him, smashed it against the front door, and stormed back to his car, where he sat parked at the curb for the next twenty minutes, either composing himself or waiting for me to come out and talk to him or both. Romantic, eh?

The following year, I was in Japan and my boyfriend was in the States, so for Valentine's Day, I was expecting a phone call. Apparently, he was one of those guys who doesn't like making a big deal of Valentine's because the phone call never came. When I did finally talk to him three or four days later, he told me there was some other girl who didn't live 7,000 miles away from him whom he had feelings for. Also very romantic.



So since then, I've been a little, well, cynical about Valentine's day. This year, as the 14th of February was looming on the horizon, I was trying to pick up cues from Stretch about his take on Valentine's Day. We'd only been dating a few months, and though things were going well, he had been very low-key about both my birthday and Christmas, so I was pretty sure that Valentine's Day wasn't going to be big on his list of priorities.


Luckily, I got a little help on this one from his cousin. We were down in Chicago visiting him in January, and he mentioned something about their Valentine's Day tradition, which they then explained to me -- a trip home to St. Louis and a Blues game with the boys.

So that cleared the question up for me. No romantic Valentine's Day plans this year. Whew!



But the story doesn't end there. A week or so later we were out having dinner with my sister, and I teasingly mentioned something about how I was going to be abandoned on Valentine's Day since the boyfriend was going to St. Louis.

"No, I'm not."

"You're not?"

"No, I'm staying here so I can take you out for Valentine's Day."

"... Why?"

"Because I want to."

"O."

So we left it at that for the night. This was not, after all, the first time Stretch had done something to surprise me.

I started to think about plans for the 14th, whether we should go out to dinner and where or whether I should cook or whether he'd want to cook... and while I was doing that, he was finding a ski resort and making reservations at a hotel up north. This from the guy who claims he's not romantic.

So we spent our first Valentine's Day on the snowy side of a mountain. Not everything went smoothly, of course. I took a few hard spills when Stretch convinced me to attack a black diamond, and he tragically lost his keys on the mountain, but despite the bruises and the inconvenience, I think I may have shaken the Valentine's Day curse. We spent all day skiing and got "suited up" for a nice dinner in the evening, and the following day we drove up to the bridge to see the straights all frozen over and have a hot breakfast in the UP before our long drive home. A pretty romantic Valentine's Day after all.

Spring Break! Phase I

Dating a college student comes with a unique set of complications. While other women get hurt and huffy when their menfolk work 'til 5:30 or 6 (primarily because dinner's gotten cold), my Mr Right is in class until 10:30 in the evening at least twice a week. Other days, he's home before noon but barricaded into a corner by Statics & Structures, The Physics of Soil Composition, and fifteen volumes of Basic Real Estate Law. Leaving work at "the office" is a laughable impossibility. When he does make an honest attempt to get everything done at the library, he ends up in the library until midnight. If he brings it home, he spends all day Saturday hunched over the my Mac typing papers or doing the infamous CAPA problems. In short, it's not really the boozin' good time that I remember college being. This isn't exactly Boyfriend's fault. Given that he's completing six years worth of study in four years worth of all-nighters, he does a pretty remarkable job of managing a cumbersome load of responsibility, but he does stray precariously close to the All-Work-No-Play Zone on a regular basis.

Just when I think I can't take it anymore, he gets his Spring Break.



Spring break is a time-honored festival for high school and college students alike. They shake off the winter doldrums, go to Cancun, and spend a week throwing back shots of tequila diet Cokes*, listening to Jimmy Buffet, and getting sun-burned.

At least, that's my idea of a proper spring break, especially when it's still snowing in Michigan at the end of March. (Curse you, Global Climate Change! shaking fist at ozone layer)

Of course, Boyfriend's idea of a proper spring break is 180° different from mine. He insists on spending the week on the side of a snow-covered mountain, with brief but frequent breaks to play poker and drink brewskies. Nothing about this strikes me as "springy", but I go along anyway because I'm a pretty respectable poker player and I really do love to ski.



The fine art of downhill skiing is a new addition to my little Bag'o'Tricks. I went for the first time last year, but I haven't gotten in much practice this season due to the lingering effects of The Sickness. In the last couple of months, I've finally been feeling 100% and hearing the sweetly tempting call of The Slopes.

Skiing is the perfect sport because in it one finds the delicate balance between ecstasy and terror. On the one hand, you zip downhill with the wind in your hair and the snow crunching under your skis, all your being focused on carving your sassy way down the mountain. On the other hand, you could be killed or maimed at any moment. For a rookie skier, every run presents at least a dozen obstacles that might lend themselves to your untimely demise. If I had known how awesome it was, I wouldn't have waited so long to try it.

It's my duty to report that on this particular trip, I conquered my first Double Black Diamond -- a steep, narrow run lined by trees and littered with jumps (both excellent candidates for bringing Death and/or Maiming). I am told that I have chutzpah. Fortunately, Boyfriend and I both managed to cheat Fate and return home with all appendages attached, brains safely stashed in skulls, and only a few bumps and bruises.



After his brief sabbatical into the Land of the Living, Boyfriend is now buried back under his pile of books, and I'm packing my bags again. Next week, I head to Florida for my actual spring break, and I'm looking forward to some much-needed face time with Mr Sunshine.


*Part of my continuing campaign to be a positive role model for the impressionable youth. How am I doing?