Poetry Wednesday, Vol. 105

So I spent the last four days working at my favorite Chicago flower shop for Valentine's Day.  It was lovely.  Not lovely in an I'm in the movies and prance around whilst artfully placing sweet little flowers into vases which just happen to be resting on the latest designer desk and pausing between each blossom to step back and admire my work kind of way.  More in an I'm in the basement slamming flowers into vases placed on hollow doors which are placed on workhorses while WXRT blares in the background so I can hear it over the noise of the four cooler compressors which also happen to be in the basement with me.  I did that for three days, then spent the fourth upstairs, blinking like a day blind troll and slamming arrangements into the hands of impatiently waiting men who are sure that I am ripping them off.  Hey, buddy, I told you to get the tulips, you choose the dozen red roses, not my fault you buy into what the commercials are selling you.

Speaking of commercials, I listened to commercial radio for the first time since, well since last Valentine's Day.  I really enjoy the music on XRT, but the commercials I do not enjoy.  Listening to all these commercials really opened my eyes and taught me about myself.  I realized that I have been going about this all wrong.  I haven't maximized the potential that is The Most Romantic Day of the Year.

I realized that if I, and by extension the husband, was going to be truly happy, that I would need fleece leopard print pajamas with a hoodie,  Twilight Breaking Dawn on DVD, hand painted Fannie May Chocolates, and something, anything, from Meijer and Jewel-Osco.  So of course I told the husband.  I told him that if I was  going to be truly happy on The Most Romantic Night of the Year I would need ALL of this stuff.  And if I didn't get all of this stuff, then I wouldn't be happy, and then he wouldn't be happy, in the Romantic sense, if you get my meaning.  In fact one of the commercials had told me to have him sleep on the couch all week if he didn't come through with the Twilight DVD and a bottle of wine.

If I have learned one thing during our short time of married bliss, it is that the husband responds well to threats. So I threatened with no Romantic happiness and lots of couch time, then left him to decide how to proceed.  Proceed he did.  And in grand fashion.  I won't go into lots of detail, lest all you ladies get jealous and threaten your husbands with loss of Romantic happiness and extended couch time, but lets just say it involved a home made heart, lots of watching the children while I worked, rearranging his schedule to make my life easier and no complaining that my days of work made his all ready busy schedule that much busier.  It involved packing up kids and taking them to and from his parents house, making sure the kids had some valentines to open from the both of us, rubbing my hands after a long day of work, listening to me blather on about whatever instead of sleeping, and making me tea in the morning.  It was perfect.

Happy Valentine's Day to all of you.  I hope it was your version of perfect.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am posting a musical poem, that makes me smile every time I hear it.  It makes me think of the man who introduced me to Billy Bragg, and that man makes me smile.  (It's the husband, in case you were wondering.)

(here's a better video, my favorite, but it would not allow me to embed it - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Goxm0x4dTw)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~