Fat Tuesday and Valentines day crap

I'm now all like 'bah humbug' in regards to Valentines day now that my Valentine went into the hospital. Its a rather short story, but we'll talk about it later.

Anyway, I like to buy single flowers for my patients on their birthday. So, unfortunately, I went to the store to buy a single rose on the day before Valentines day...

First off, the single roses were incredibly hard to find.  I even went inside one of those new stupid tent things that are for desperate men that really don't want to go into the store.

They didn't have any there.

So I had to go into the store.


That's right folks- that single rose was $6 (*bleepin*).99!!!  That's ridiculous!  I buy roses all the time and at certain times of year you can buy a dozen for less than $10.

The sadder thing is, I actually bought it.

I really liked this Kroger store.  As I was forced to look all around for these roses- I found

My favorite flowers!  They're even complete with the little red tips.  I love sweetheart roses and they are hard to find in a bouquet like this.  Mostly they try to sell them as a bush.


So pretty!

I thought about buying some for myself and decided that was a wildly pathetic move.  So I didn't.  Besides, my absolute favorites are Stargazer lillies (the really big ones!)- but those are just as hard- if not harder to find.


Happy birthday patient!  I have no idea how this picture came to be.  The flower was resting on my leg- which I'm pretty sure is not reflective- but what a gorgeous pic!  I usually buy my patients a yellow rose (friendship) with red tips- my favorite rose, if worst comes to worse- it's me sharing a piece of myself with them.

So, after, I decided to try a new thing I saw at taco bell.  I was like, "all right!  It's an ice cream cookie sandwich".  It was listed as cookie sandwich.  I was totally floored when they handed me a WARM cookie! The stuff in the center is like oreo cream (but fluffier) since I'm already not a fan of oreos- the cookies were delicious and the cream was smeared onto something else....

 The store had some other interesting alternatives.

  Why have just a flower when you can have a flowery cupcake!!  It's a rose and a cupcake in one for all your diabetic needs!

I also absolutely adore the mexican grocery store (seriously, I do).  It's a cross between a ghetto walmart and K-mart.  It's like the only exclusively grocery store that has a tiny aisle for pants, shoes, socks- why can't you go to Kroger and buy work boots?

 I was undecided if I should include this on this blog or the one I was planning for the weekend.

It's one of the reasons I became so upset yesterday.  It wasn't a bad thing, exactly.  It was the opposite, it was an incredibly wonderful thing.  I had brought another woman to tears of absolute joy.  But it was based on a lie.  

Ok fine, I'll just tell it....

So I went to visit one of my every-other-month-supervisory patients.  Her daughter was usually there.  She had as many, if not more, health problems than her mother.  As we were talking, she ALWAYS asks about my dating life.

This time was different (from the past year) because I was actually dating someone.  I showed her pictures of the 'interesting' (couldn't think of anything) guys in my life- one was of the ex- some wedding photos transferred from the other phone.  Anyway, she told me 'you can do better, can't you?'- yeah, thanks.  I love people for different reasons than most.  I see such wonderful potential in people, usually that they don't see within themselves.  This is really bad.  Mostly, it means I love too easily.  It's not usually a problem- I love my patients.  I love my friends.  I love the guys I'm dating- and I'll be alone forever because of it.

I digress.

In the midst of our conversation, she said something like, "take it from a girl that has never received flowers from any man, flowers are important on Valentine's day".  (~I had told her I hadn't received flowers on Valentine's day in years).  

Something hit me.

It actually broke my heart.

And I'm still not entirely sure why.

As I sat in my car, it absolutely consumed me.  In high school, I would go out of my way to buy flowers for ALL of my friends and even people that I figured wouldn't get one.  Some years I would spend almost $70 ($1/piece carnations).  Usually I would get one or two- one always came from Mom!

Had I been so selfish that I couldn't count my blessings from prior years?


Then I got an idea.  I am technically dating someone (that's the guy from the horrible bowling date last week- we haven't actually spoken since).  I drove to two stores and thought about what to say.

I sent John a text that apologized for using his name for something.  I did tell him it was nothing bad- but it had to be from a man...

I purchased two dozen red roses and a pure yellow one (her favorite).  I wrote a little letter that said that I had talked to John on the phone.  When I explained to him everything and how I felt, he told me to give her "not one rose, not even one dozen- but two dozen red roses and one of her favorite".  On the card that "John" gave her it said, "All women deserve flowers- from John".

When I first arrived, all she could say was, "what did you do?!"  When I explained to her (and it was written on the card), that I couldn't take any credit for it- she started to cry.  We talked about how every woman deserves flowers from a man- especially on Valentine's day.  I held her while she cried for awhile.  She said no one had ever done anything like that before.  I was supposed to tell John that he earned alot of brownie points and thank you and hugs and stuff.

Initially, I felt wonderful.  Within an hour, I was contemplating where I went so wrong in life (funny how city driving can screw with you).  I knew it wasn't in John's personality to do anything remotely close to that.

And I was right.

When I talked to John, his first instinct was to be mad and panic.  He thought that this crazy woman was going to hunt him down.  When I explained that I only used his first name, he said that it didn't count and really didn't involve him at all.  While that is completely true, I had given it to her with his thought in mind (did that make sense?).

And my heart broke more.

I'm sure there's more Valentine's day craziness to come (almost guarantee it).  None of this happened on Valentine's day either.  I also never mentioned Fat Tuesday.

Fat Tuesday -
nothing really happened.  I didn't go anywhere or see anyone.  Just ate some cookies and junk, felt sick all day because of it, and mapped out my plan for Lent- another entry for later.  I think it was the way Fat Tuesday was supposed to be.

So happy Valentine's day to everyone.  It may not seem like it, but I love holidays full of love- like Christmas!  If we could only lose the commercialism and high prices.  Lots of love to you!