Whachoo talkin' 'bout?

I once dated , fell in love actually, with a man, who spoke seven languages. All of them fluently. Except mine.

He knew more three syllable, four, even five syllable English words than I did. It was what we heard that made us stumble.

We met in the drive through teller lane. Me, twirling my hair, blasting rock in roll in the five o’clock lane, and him passing out doggie treats ,receipts, and lollipops through the vacuumed canister. He was working his way through school. I was doing the nine to five. On overtime.

We went out for dinner.

Followed each other.

Me with a diapered Haley in tow. Him, with his broody eyes, listen-to-me-lips, and that accent. Every word musty, ending with a curly que. I fell hard.

On the Tuesday before Valentine’s day he called and said we would probably go out on Friday. Probably go to the Club on the River, dine and dance. I told him I probably wouldn’t be there when he arrived.

I hired a babysitter and got dressed. Turned on the outside lights. Sat in the Gray Grand Am and put the car in reverse every time I saw a pair of headlights. He was five minutes late and just caught me backing over the little rock garden at the mail box.

He was beaming and I was fuming. We rode to the River in silence, me twirling my hair, and him humming to the crackly music on the radio. His knees fidgeting. Cold I guessed. I couldn’t have cared less.

A block from the restaurant he pulled over. Pulled a thorned wild rose out from his shirt. “Jesus, could you just smile so I can give this to you?” he whispered. “It’s Valentine’s Day…..”…..
“Well, I could smile” I started to blabber, "but hell, you were only probably coming to get me, and I might have probably had plans, and I really don’t know how you probably caught me in the drive-way, because I totally wasn’t going to only probably be your Valentine!”

And suddenly we knew, " probably” was “definitely” in his world, and “if you only knew” in mine and that if we were ever going to understand each other, we couldn’t assume we did. We had to ask….

Deja Vue…..

Cupid Ain't Stupid, that's for sure.....

It's in the air. I know I'm holiday hoppin' here, but I mean to. I want to jump from one "feel~good" to the next, and nope, I'm not racing through 'em... I'm racin' to 'em! It's kind of like getting a good seat on the sidewalk for the next parade, you gotta get there early.....

So here it is, St. Valentines Day, parked right around the corner. Pretty soon I'll have to trip over giant red hearts in the grocery store just to buy beer. Helium balloons the size of space ships will be hovering overhead, their bobbing ribbons tickling my hair while I shop for macaroni and cheese. The jewelry stores will all get together and come up with some new" have-to-have": a ring, a chain, a bracelet, that will brand any woman without one on the morning after as ......well.....valentineless, or soul mate to a poor man. A million red roses will be sacrificed for the moment, bundled and jumbled and sold for a fortune. The writers at Hallmarkwill collapse from exhaustion, worn out from feeling the love and padding their pockets.

Here in Hippie Holiday Land, we do it a little bit different.

"Patty cake
Patty cake
Baker's man,
Role em' and a dole em
and throw 'em in a pan".....

Ta! Dah! Love beads everywhere!

You wanna feel the love? Email your postal and I'll bop a string in the mail to you! Yeah, Cupid Ain't Stupid, she's got blonde hair and wears hand me down jeans....





Here's mine, almost twenty years later.....We started with three little beads, peace, love and hope, and they grew.... The colors and stories have changed, but I still feel the love.....remember the night we sat at the table a lifetime ago, Skinny and I, making love beads, saving the world......

Secret Valentines.....

You couldn't walk into Winn Dixie to buy toothpaste without having to swat through a curtain of irredescent strings. The weightless kite tails to bobbing heart balloons. Gypsy tents were popping up in abandoned parking lots, giant red and white teddy bears stuffed with sawdust plopped on the pavement. "Be my valentine". This hocus pocus holiday was raining on our parade. Three chics. No valentines in the making.

We were silly. A little creative. A little brave. And a little bored.

And then we decided to fix that.

Einna, Pia, and Scarlet O' Dare Ya. Yup, those were the names we decided on. Skinny rented the post office box after explaining in detail to the "Pack and Ship" manager the need for annonyminity, the need to be able to slip quietly into the building, and exit gracefully, without getting busted with the keys in our hands. It took a little cajoling, but finally he was in cahoots!

So here was the plan. If we weren't going to be getting Valentined, probably a lot of other folks weren't too. So we sat at the kitchen table, beers in the left hand, markers, paintbrushes, and cigarettes in the right hand, and started to make a list..... But who wants a pity party card? Hell, we didn't even want one of those. Nah, we had to come up with a better idea. "O.K., girls, this is the deal. We're each going to send out 10 valentines, to 10 guys we don't know."

And we did. We made our list, checked it twice. It's technically not all that easy to valentine people you don't know. We had to do a lot of research to find out the plumber's helpers name, the name of the guy in the third row of Skinny's economic class, Annies upstairs-three-doors-down neighbor's name . The name of the insurance agent, that we didn't buy policies from, arrived on a follow-up letter just in time to be included in our mischief. And the list goes on. The billboard boys, the thirty-something doctor with an attitude, the lonely boy, the pompous Cosmo Boy with his picture on the glossy pages, etc, etc, etc....

We stuffed the giant red envelopes with Colored cards, puzzle pieces, and all that glitters, everything a Valentine should ever be. Cupid ain't stupid....

And bopped them in the mail.

And waited.

And waited.

Skinny would sneak to the front doors of "Pack and Ship" and the night manager with his night eyes would just shake his head. "not today, girls".

We waited.

And then they came. Mountains of makeshift cards. Hallmark hellos. Penned and penciled valentines. There were dares and scares and "I don't know who you are, but I love you"s. There were confessions, proposals, and "why are you stalking me"s. There were pictures and postcards. But most of all, there were smiles.

In the end, we got busted by a few of them. Dated two of them. Had to hide from one of them.

Sometimes, even secrets make you smile.....

Happy Valentines Day!