Valentine's Day challenged? I'm here to help
In my newspaper column today, found online at http://www.post-trib.com/news/davich/index.html, I shared notes about a few couples I noticed in public - at a bar, in the grocery store, etc. - and how they treated each other when they figured no one was watching. I wrote this Cupid's Day column not to reveal public glimpses about the couples' slings and arrows, but to discover private glimpses about ours.
I also promised a blog bonus: A list of my all-time favorite, top-notch, can't miss romantic gifts and gestures for the Valentine's Day challenged. Maybe it's you. Maybe it's your partner. Maybe you both can use a few ideas or suggestions. If so, here you go.
Happy Valentine's Day.
*Start the day with a long, passionate kiss, the kind you two used to give each other before the - yyaaaaawwwnnnn - peck-on-the-lips-before-leaving-for-work kind of smooch.
*Write an old-fashioned love letter, complete with fond, heartfelt, and detailed memories of your first date, first kiss, or wedding day. Use fancy paper, put it in a fancy envelope, and seal it with wax drippings from a red candle with your initials carved on top.
*Empty one of her nearly empty perfume bottles (or his cologne bottles) and fill it with sand. Then peel off its label and replace it with a label of your own saying - "Extra Time" - something you never have enough of together, right? To top it off, use sand from a favorite or special beach in your past.
*While she's at work, fill her car with various sizes of red balloons. The cost is minimal, except for the hyperventilating from blowing up so many balloons. But this way, you can get winded on the same day you take her breath away.
* Make a personalized CD of his favorite songs and secretly insert it in his car radio that morning before he drives to work. Then turn the radio on. This way, when he starts his car he has no choice but to listen, and appreciate you.
*Sneak home from work an hour early and prepare a bubble bath for her, complete with scented lotions, rose petals, her favorite music (not yours), a sexy snack and a warm towel fresh out of the dryer. THEN, go out to dinner, after all the other lovers leave eateries for a movie.
*Use a whole pad of tiny Post-It notes to tell her how much you love her and leave them EVERYWHERE you possibly can - her car, her job, the diaper bag, the medicine cabinet, etc. If you're lucky, real lucky, she'll miss a few and find them later this summer.
*Meet him at the door after work with a s-l-o-w dance to "your song."
*Take your partner on a short tour of the places where you both first met, first kissed, first dated, got married, (got pregnant?!) and so on, complete with a map as a Valentine's Day 2008 souvenir.
*Ask a few high school kids who are in the marching band to shadow you when you surprise your mate at his workplace. Nothing says "I love you'' like "76 Trombones'' and a dozen Hershey kisses.
*Leave a dozen mushy phone messages on his workplace voice mail immediately after he leaves for work. He'll first think he's swamped with business calls, only to realize he's just swamped with you.
*Shamelessly flirt with your mate in public until they either beg you to quit or beg you to leave and go home with them.
*Write something romantic with soap on the bathroom mirror, his car's rearview mirror, or her vanity mirror. And lighten up, Mr. Neatnik. It washes off.
*Take your man to test drive a 2008 Porsche or some other totally out-of-reach car. Cruise through a couple of drive-thru fast food joints, stop by that snobby neighbor's house, and then take lots of photos of you both in the car and mail them to every single person you've ever been jealous of.
*Call each other off from work and play hooky, just like you did in high school.
*Make a ransom note-style love letter by cutting out each word from a newspaper or a magazine and gluing them on a white (or pink) piece of paper. Tell him he better cough up the dough for a candlelight dinner or the relationship gets it.
*Make a heart-shaped ANYTHING and leave it at his job. No note. No explanation. No nothing. See how long it takes him to figure it out.
*Frame a gift that he's given you, or your marriage license, or her first love letter, or a photo of you both.
*And for you meat-and-potato guys out there who scoff at anything even remotely mushy, try shaving, combing your hair, washing your hands, putting on a clean shirt and simply saying, "You know, I DO love you.'' That should impress your wife of 26 years who thought you forgot how to say it.
*Personally, for starters, I'm going to give my wife, Cherie, a new pocket dictionary with pink-highlighted words that describe her best qualities, like "loving," "giving," "sexy," "goofy," and "fun."
(You can use this idea too as long as you don't tell her it's coming.)
