My Valentine’s Day got off to a spectacular start. I answered the door midmorning, in my yoga pants and tank top in our toasty old radiator-filled apartment as usual, and a delivery guy stood outside, snow swirling around him, with a vision of the tropics in his hands. My parents had sent me my favorite flowers, and they were almost too good to be true.
There’s nothing like picture-perfect orchids next to our snow-filled neighborhood. To top it off, Grandma Barr sent us a box of Malley’s Chocolates (mixed nuts—so delicious!). It was already one of the best Valentine’s Days ever.
I picked Daniel up after he got out of class, and we headed to quaint Kerrytown for tea for two at the TeaHaus. I had been wanting to do this for ages, and it was better than I expected. We were presented with savory and sweet delicacies, as well as all of the tea we could drink. Everything was delicious.
I can’t even remember everything we tried. There was brie and fig, black pepper salami, egg salad, cucumber sandwiches, cherry chocolate scones, clotted cream and lemon curd, strawberry and lemon macarons, and crepes filled with strawberries and whipped cream. It was like all of the best things in Europe in a two-hour tasting.
I think we had six pots of tea between us: vanilla, mascarpone, chile chocolate, Indian chai, ginger orange, and bossa nova hazelnut.
After we waddled out of the tea shop, we spent a couple of minutes in a dusty bookshop before commencing part II of the evening. Daniel had, adorably, pilfered my Pinterest crafting wishlist and picked up some supplies. We had a couple more items to get, and as we drove by the store, we noticed a thrift shop next door was open. We decided we’d spend a few minutes browsing. As we were walking inside, a lady leaving with a shopping cart stuffed to bursting asked us if we had a coupon. We didn’t, we said, so she handed us one for 50 percent off our entire purchase. In a thrift shop, that is better than gold. Suffice it to say we made out like bandits. Daniel found two pairs of shoes that number one, fit him, and number two, looked awesome. Like, $100 dress shoes awesome.
My crowning achievement was a navy blue party dress with silver detailing. I’ll probably never wear it, but who could resist?
Then we still had presents. I got Daniel a how-to book on massage, with the promise that I am going to learn how to give massages as well as he can. We’ll see. I also made him a little framed print of the lyrics to our wedding song, which actually ended up being one of the crafts he had planned for the evening (downside to pilfering my Pinterest). I think we might just make another one anyway. His version is much more elaborate and fun.
Daniel’s boxed gift was a cookbook from our wedding registry (clever, clever). It’s a collection of the best recipes from the last 150 years of the New York Times. The font is beautiful, and I’ve already found a typo. My kind of book. (Is it weird that typos make me like a book more sometimes? There’s something about other copy editors being fallible that comforts me, especially when they get one of those glowing thank-yous in the acknowledgments like I tend to get from my self-publishers).
Daniel’s other planned craft: silhouettes made from pictures of us. We painstakingly cut out pictures, traced them onto black construction paper, cut them out again, and arranged them. Not bad, right?
