Eat Your Heart Out

Once again to the rescue on a special day: my neighbor, Terri, with more baking. There were two more cookies before this photo got taken. Now there are even fewer.

On the warmer days (60-70 degrees) the air is like spring water and I saw stubs of daffodils poking up near a tall building where the earth was a bit warmer. On the colder days (18 degrees, snow) we have mass regional stir-craziness with everybody retreating into their favorite vice because a genuine, hat-and-gloves wringing-wet winter such as we are having, while formerly normal, is now unusual and distressing, we have had several "snow days" and slippery roads, and this year Lent and its fish fries are still weeks in the future.

Is It Really Valentine's Day Already?

Here's my favorite passive-aggressive I-don't-love-you-but-I-won't-say-so-because I'm-cowardly-and-want-to-keep-you-on-my-string-as-a-potential-booty-call trick: Don't contact the person at all in the week before Valentine's Day. This squelches raised expectations and prevents being talked or guilted into any Valentine plans. Then, contact late on Valentine's Day when all cards and roses are sold out and reservations anywhere are impossible, saying you're busy with something deeply domestic, and suggest meeting at their place during the week ahead. If the person happens to contact you in the week before Valentine's, do not respond. This also works for other holidays you do not want polluted by the presence of a person known to be lonely and potentially exploitable: Initiate contact only on January 2, or after midday Monday on a long weekend.

For added vicious cruelty, send a wordless crypto-e-Valentine on February 15: for example, a photo of a cute animal.

Congratulations on succeeding at fooling yourself that another human being is not a human being and that you have slyly crawled beneath their radar without their noticing -- without having uttered one single actual lie!

Snacking on Snowballs

The other day having coffee with a friend I denied myself a pastry from the shop's lovely pastry case and later wondered what kind of person would deny her desire for a pastry when she really wanted one. I decided that was unhealthy. And it awoke in me a desire to live that moment over and choose differently, which gave me the bug for something gooey and sweet. . . So I drove seven miles into town and in the gas-mart's most forbidden aisles where I never go, I in my purple parka shopped among packaged creations spun up from high-fructose corn syrup, white flour, partially hydrogenated oils and artificial flavors -- treats that no Pharaoh or Chinese warlord, no matter how wealthy, ever saw or tasted or imagined. Because I am sensible I allowed only one item. It came down to brown-sugar pop-tarts or Hostess Snowballs, their coconut tops dyed pink for, I think, Valentine's Day. How very festive. I contained myself until I brought them home, and at 4:30 p.m., very civilized, I set them on a plate and had on the side a cup of rice milk in my Kansas State University mug. I think that on one of my birthdays, back in my salad days ("when I was green in judgement") I bought Snowballs and stuck a birthday candle in one. Or maybe I dreamt that. Or it was someone else's birthday. Anyway, please be seated and share this rare and beautiful moment with me.

I'm My Mother's Valentine

"For You, Daughter," says my mother's Valentine, which I received today. On the front it's got ten hearts, each pierced by/giving birth to a sturdy rainbow; the words "For You, Daughter," are in script type and silver foil. She'd phoned me to say it was coming, and added, "Just because I sent you a Valentine doesn't mean you have to send ME one."

Printed inside: "Valentine's Day/begins in the heart.../so every thought of you/ Makes it seem/ like Valentine's Day/ each day the whole year through. Happy Valentine's Day with Love Always"

Now I know I'm gettin' old because this chokes me up. There was a time when the word "family" made me sick to my stomach and I couldn't get away fast enough. It's more than thirty years ago now that I left home, went to school, got married, lived in the city, got single, moved here to the cabin. The only person still sending me Valentines is my mother.

Dear Mom, of COURSE I will get and send you a Valentine. Mom is now 76. Hard to believe, my mother, whose cool and smooth powdered cheeks and lilac perfume I remember from when I was very small and she was in her 20s -- now nearing 80. But she gives as good as she gets; when I fly down to visit she treats me like I am 9. Guess that's love.