Apparently it’s been 11 days since the last post; I assure you, it has not been 11 days since I’ve run.

Last Saturday, we ran for 2 hours on not so great terrain.  And by ‘not so great’ I mean I face-planted on the way back.  Thankfully, since it was so cold, all the Michelin Man attire padded my fall which my running buddy swears looked like a Yeti doing a “penguin” in Sochi or some such thing.  Thankfully also that liar can run.

This morning we knocked out 17 miles in a much more graceful and less eventful manner.  The sun was out; the snow was sparkling; the spirits were high.  My hips and calves are out of love with me presently, but my insides are busy at work, negotiating a falling back in love strategy solely on the basis of this Riesling. 

Ah, love.  Let me tell you about my Valentine’s Day.  First you should know that I abhor Valentine’s Day, Sweetest Day, Bosses Day, Neighbors Day, Grocery Store Clerk Day, Freemasons Day, and every other made up Hallmark Holiday.  Now, if there was a Sarcasm Day, I would fully expect my mailbox to be overflowing with cards (which, side note:  I much prefer over flowers – unless they are Blue Orchids.)

Made up holidays are for suckers and, I suppose, the bon vivants of the world.  If we are in love with someone, we ought to show that love all the time, each and every day, day in and day out.  AND, might I add, certainly not in the way society tries, despite itself, to demonstrate:

“Kanye Gives Kim 1,000 Roses for Valentine’s Day.”  I could give a rat’s ass bigger than hers.

“Kanye Gives Kim an IQ above her Louboutin shoe size and some make-up remover” and I might read the article.  Nah…never mind.  Who am I kidding.

My Valentine’s Day was spent 2 doors down having dinner with two twice divorced women friends.  (I’m having a Sesame Street moment whereby the number of the day thing is happening in my head.  Good lord it’s a miracle I can focus and get anything at all done, even in the course of a post; i.e. this Riesling is delightful).

Olivia received flowers and a card on our front porch yesterday, which I retrieved per her instructional text.  Her social calendar/conscious decision to never be close enough to me that we share the same airspace rendered her unable to bring them in the house herself, so what’s a mother to do?  I mean, really.  It’s only the 4th year in a row she’s received Valentine’s presents and I have received…instructional texts on what to do with them. 

Unconditional love.  It’s why I was (and forever will be) able to find a vase, carefully open and mix the flower power food and lovingly fill the entire thing with water.  I didn’t mind.  It makes her happy, and that makes me happy.

Sometimes even when we aren’t getting what we want, what we were expecting, or what we think we deserve, doing the right thing for those whom we love unconditionally brings incalculable joy. 

Someday.