just right

some years we celebrate valentine’s day and some years we thumb our noses at commercialism. in the past, i’ve kind of hoped that mr. happy stuff would be able to figure out on his own which kind of a year we were having (read: what kind of a valentine’s day i was hoping for–how selfish of me!), but i’ve learned how silly (and fruitless) those thoughts are. so this year, a few weeks before valentine’s day, i asked him if we could celebrate valentine’s day this year and he said, “sure!” (he’s so nice and accommodating!) so, the surprise of whether or not he’d remember was (hopefully) taken care of and i could simply look forward to the surprise of how we’d each interpret the holiday. in case you’re curious, we both (apparently) equate love with fine chocolate. beyond that, mr. happy stuff received a dvd compilation of 100 “classic” cartoons (with heavy emphasis on betty boop and popeye and a bunch of unknown cartoon characters) and for me, he bought this beautiful vase with a cute little rose. he made sure to let me know that he knows that roses are not my favorite flower, but that he thought it looked cute in that vase and thought i’d like the vase. what he doesn’t realize is that i only don’t like roses if they are purchased as the “default” flower. especially the kind you get from the bucket at the grocery store that are packaged with sad wisps of baby’s breath and ugly fern and that you buy when you’re picking up a gallon of milk because “oh crap, i forgot i was supposed to buy flowers” and it’s the last one left in the bucket. this little gem, cut short, combined with shiny leaves and in a spunky vase is not your average valentine’s rose. i love it! thank you, mr. h-s, for a lovely valentine’s day!

p.s. we also had a wonderful dinner at a “not-to-fancy” restaurant–one i’d never been to–which i was thrilled to discover had delicious hot and sour soup, egg rolls and sweet and sour chicken and super yummy curry dishes that mr. h-s enjoyed! the sweet and sour chicken was different than i’d ever had before–the chicken wasn’t breaded and deep fried and there were more vegetables on the plate than just giant chunks of onion and raw green pepper with a few token pineapple chunks. we may have found a way for me to get my “chinese food” fix (i put it in quotes because although i know it’s not authentic, the meal listed above is my standard order on our rare visits to chinese restaurants) without having any sacrifice on mr. h-s’s part (he’s not so fond of soy sauce based dishes–they do bad things to his innards). hooray! double hooray for valentine’s day!

note added later:  the restaurant mentioned here is vientiane (not sure if that’s spelled right)