Heart Day

I slept until ten o'clock this morning which is unheard of but I did and I don't feel guilty. I was dreaming that I was waiting tables in a restaurant with three stories, stairways everywhere. The owner/chef was so very nice and she gave me cocaine, even though I did not want it. Just a little bit. She also fed me before service started which was when the real problems began.
I had no idea of where anything was or how anything worked. May was working there and other sweet people but everyone seemed to assume that I could figure everything out on my own. I couldn't! May had to show me where to get ice water. I had a table of five older ladies who finally lost patience with me when I took forever to get back to the table with their receipts and change. I had no idea how to run a credit card! I promised a table of people who were obviously sick and tired of reading their menus that I would be back to check on them in a minute. 
Check on them? They didn't even have their beverages!

Thank goodness I don't have to support myself by being a server. I've done it before and it's one of the hardest jobs on earth. A good, professional server is a skilled worker and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Throw in the miles you have to walk in a shift, the heavy trays, the way people treat you, the fact that you get blamed for everything the kitchen doesn't get right, and it's a wonder that anyone does it. And if you don't have a mind and memory like a steel trap you are fucked. 
Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE should have to wait tables at some point in their lives. I think about all of the servers working today for Valentine's and I feel as if I should go light a candle for them. First of all, the people they're waiting on are, by definition, quite possibly assholes because...covid.
Secondly, everyone wants and feels they deserve a romantic and magical experience on Valentine's and if they don't get it, guess who they're going to blame?

This is really not what I came here to talk about today. 

I have no idea what I came here to talk about today.

So yes, it's Valentine's Day. A day that we somehow always seem to spend with Lon and Lis which is always wonderful. We share Sweetheart's Day so happily with them. So many sweet memories. Lis and I talked on the phone this morning and giggled at some of them. It's so hard to believe that it's been a year since we've seen those beloved people. That was our last outing before the pandemic. 

Sigh.

Today was different, of course. 
It's been raining and chilly and still eternally grey. I found a little heart with a hand-written note on it beside my coffee cup when I did finally get up. Mr. Moon told me that he'd been checking on me to see if I was still breathing. I made us a fine breakfast and then spent hours on the crossword and he took out the old exhaust fan above the stove because believe it or not, my new stove may possibly get installed this coming week. When I could take my kitchen back, I made him a chocolate cake in heart-shaped pans. I don't really bake sweets very much anymore but I wanted to do that, at least, for my love. He said he wanted "fluffy" chocolate icing on it and I did my best. He sliced the layers in half so that there are four layers and I made enough of the hopefully fluffy-enough frosting to make me laugh as I piled it on the cake. As always, my cake looks like a child made it. I first started making cakes when I was a child and I really haven't progressed much.

"If you want presentation," I told my man, "Hire Lis Williamson."
And it's true. 

I'm rather amazed that the layers haven't all slid apart. 

Funny how when you've been married as long as we have, you can still do things that let your love know you love them. You just do things like take out range hoods instead of buying jewelry. Probably if you'd told me that even ten years ago I might have rolled my eyes so hard they threatened to fall out of my head but now it makes perfect sense. 

There are all sorts of lovers' gifts and we have given some nice ones to each other today. The beginning of stove replacement, a very chocolatey cake, and other things. 

I do not need more jewelry but I can never get too much love. 

Sweetness to all of you. 

Love...Ms. Moon