First of all, let’s all pretend that the cat isn’t usually allowed to sit on the kitchen table and stare at a cake.

Pets aside, Valentine’s Day is a tricky “holiday”.  It’s not really a holiday, but if one is not careful, it can get the hopes up just far enough to dash them year after year, like a small wooden (heart shaped) raft bashed against the rocks of reality, over and over and ouch and ouch

Oh, sorry, I don’t know what came over me.

I am having a happy valentines day, because I have f-i-n-a-l-l-y let go of all loaded expectations for the day.  My beloved gave me exactly what I wanted — he fixed up an old, dilapidated cuckoo clock that used to hang in my grandma’s house when I was little.  The bonus gift is that he actually hung it in our home, even though it does not keep time, and it gongs every 15 minutes, and, well, it cuckoos.  Enough said.  That is love.  I’ll take that in an envelope, hold the chocolates.