Valentine's Day

This morning, the Queen surprised me with a horse from Build A Bear. She said her knight in shining armor needed a horse to ride in on. But what really choked me was that she'd put a T-shirt on the horse containing the planets of the solar system. If you'll recall, this has a meaning between that stretches back to high school and her shirt that she got from the Smithsonian containing the planets as well. It also signifies her position as Queen of the Universe. It was perfect.

She also fed my desire to collect Star Wars figures by giving me a Padme Amidala figure wearing the dress she had during the tense love scene with Anakin from Episode II. The collecting of Star Wars figures is an addicition. I try to avoid it myself, but I always enjoy getting figures from her to add to my collection.

She had also done some shopping for the Princesses of the house. Each received a Webkin frog that is pink with hearts all over it. We delivered them when we woke them up this morning. Sassy Pants was immediately up and chanting "boing, boing, boing" as she bounced the frog around the house. The others were just beside themselves over these frogs, and they were sure to get them online to get their Valentine's gifts today from Webkinz.com. Even the Queen likes playing on that site (for Sassy Pants, of course).

What could I do to top this? In my typical wisdom, even though I'd gone out last night to swap some stuff at Blockbuster, I failed to get the flowers I always get her. Now, I'm at work and powerless to go anywhere because she has the car. I'm going to be the bad guy if I don't do something. She will still smile and be understanding, but that's not good enough for me. She shouldn't have to "be understanding." That's a bunch of crap.

I was looking out the window of the building where I work and saw a strip mall across the street. Surely, thought I, they would have a flower shop. I can't go out empty-handed, and asking her stop somewhere so I could pick something up is nothing short of tacky. So I decided for the first time in months, I would take a quick break and run across the street. I hit a couple stores until I ended up in a gift shop that also did not sell flowers and asked. She pointed me over to a place called KaBlooms on the far side of the center (of course).

I walked in and asked how the roses were. They gave me the dozen price...yeah, I couldn't get a dozen. I pondered for sometime how many singles I should get. In the past, I'd gotten one for every year, but we're up to our eleventh Valentine's day, and why the heck are specialty stores so over-priced anyway? At Wal-Mart, I could afford a dozen. I decided I would go for three.

Why three? Yes, our three girls is one thought that fits, but three for us is more significant than that. One song that we share in part is Meat Loaf's "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad," but we use it to say 3 out of 3: I Want You, I Need You, I Love You. Yeah, Elvis has a song of that title, but I like Meat Loaf more. We're approaching our ninth anniversary (a multiple of three), we're up to our third car together, our youngest children are three years apart, we collectively have three siblings (she has one and I have two), and I'm sure if I continued to think of stuff, I could keep going (ok, that's kind of obvious, sorry).

So I have the flowers, and I need to do something else. I sent an ecard to show I was thinking of her during the day and that I wasn't forgetting what day it was (I know she thinks I forget about her during the day). Even added a cool little message at the end to further personalize it and give more warm fuzzies.

At the end of this, our eleventh Valentine's Day together, I feel better than I did this morning. She deserves everything I can do for her, and I don't do nearly enough.

To my Queen: I love you more than any words or gifts could possibly express. I'm the luckiest geek ever to have you to spend my life with. Here's to an awesome Valentine's Day and many more to follow.