A Valentine's Eve Tiz List

I was thinking of putting together a list of things I loved for Valentine’s Day. But “love” is a really strong word. When you use it properly, it’s the kind of word that is supposed to be used for people, not just stuff.

So, since Valentine’s Day is hyped as the day of love, but this is only Valentine’s Eve, I decided to go with a list of things that I just really like a lot. In no particular order. These are simply things that make me happy on one level or another. (Fourteen of them, since Valentine’s Day is on the 14th, obviously.)

1) Peanut butter. On a spoon. Dipped in Nestle Quik. (Yes, that’s all one thing.)

2) Sunny days – regardless of temperature.

3) Hostess apple pies.

4) Playing "stair ball" with the pup. (I stand at the bottom, she stands at the top. She drops a tennis ball down to me, I toss it back up to her. It's part of our morning routine. It *might* have contributed to one or two mornings when I got to work just a hair late...)

5) Buttercream frosting.

6) Canned black olives, and green olives (with the red pimiento) out of a jar.

7) The word serendipity.

8) Facebook. (Okay, this is a love-hate situation. But I do enjoy seeing updates from people I know – or knew – I just wish they would quit mucking about with it.)

9) Fast food. Yes, I’m all for a really good meal at a really good restaurant, but I grew up 35 miles from the closest McDonald’s. Fifty-five miles from the closest Long John Silver’s. Panda Express didn’t exist when I was a kid, Der Wienerschnitzel and H. Salt Esquire Fish & Chips were things we got when we visited my grandparents in Los Angeles, and Burger King was my “taste of home” place when I lived in Paris. I totally crave fast food from time to time. And I’m okay with that.

10) Insurance.

11) Disneyland. And Walt Disney World. Both kind of equally, but for totally different reasons.

12) Really comfy sweaters.

13) “Curl up on the couch with a book or a bad movie and order in food and not move” days. Preferably with Christopher, but I’ll be honest and admit that I do this when he’s not around, too. When he's not around, though, I usually also have a phone close by. Just in case - and so I don't have to get up at all.

14) Books. Yes, they’re awfully decorative, but I also just like them for the sake that they’re books. They’ve got weight to them. They’re ideas with heft. Dreams with substance. Fantasy with force (especially when flung). 

Happy Valentine’s Eve! May you spend it doing something you like well enough.