La Saint-Valentin

Happy late Valentine's Day! We kept it low-key here in Paris for the day of love.

I like Valentine's Day. In kindergarten we'd give valentines to each person in our class and I would always hope that there would be something from the boy I had a crush on. In third grade I got a cut-out school photo with jagged edges. Clearly he couldn't use scissors. I also hosted a Valentine's Day party and followed the party instructions to a tee out of American Girl Mag. I remember there being a lot of Red Hots and people bringing their dolls. That was when there was only Felicity, Kirsten, Samantha and Molly! I had Samantha.

In seventh grade, the guy I was "going with," or whatever the term was then gave me roses and a love note that actually had the word "love" in it. I broke up with him later that afternoon because the love note scared me.

In ninth grade, I was coming off a really bad hair year, a really bad skin year and was still waiting for boobs (still am) so there weren't too many boys waiting in the sidelines. My friend and I decided to wear all black. My outfit consisted of a long, stretchy black skirt from Express accompanied with a black, puffy vest from Gap. All I needed was an American Eagle performance fleece but they never make clothes in black. Clearly I was still in a bad fashion year.

I bought Sir Lancelot a weird card that has scented paper. The shopkeeper at the card store was quite proud of this paper. I wanted to tell her about scratch & sniff stickers but refrained. I wanted a card in French and this was the best one. The other option was, "I have you under my skin" which was engrained in leather. Even weirder. And this is a pretty normal card shop.

Ironically yesterday when I was running around to a million different stores to get everything for dinner, I saw a sign on the card shop. "Closed for the afternoon." ONLY in France would the card shop (this woman's only form of income) be close on the afternoon of Valentine's Day - one of the top holidays for buying cards. I'm sure there must be some Frenchman rushing home that forgot to buy a card for his wife until the day of.

I contemplated buying Sir Lancelot a nice gift but then realized that a box of chocolates is all he needs! It's his own box. He can eat them whenever, wherever and how many he wants at one time without me saying anything. I think half of the box is left.

The man at the chocolate shop in our neighborhood was so sweet to me and we only spoke in French! But he had long, black hair and a bandana and the music in the shop sounded like the soundtrack of Willy Wonka when they go through that terrifying tunnel.

All in all, V Day was a huge success here in Paris and stress-free...which is exactly what we needed. I hope you all had a wonderful day as well - filled with love!