Feb 14th

I don’t know how or if you celebrate this silly Valentine ’s Day thing… But Angel and I have come to a decision. Heck with it. We’ve decided to have a nice at-home dinner, steamed shrimp. Steamed shrimp is how we celebrate everything else, Birthdays, anniversary, tax refund day, pretty much any excuse we think of… A simple thing really, Get a couple of pounds of shrimp at a reliable, but not extravagant place, grocery, whatever.. Boil up a big pot of water drop the steamer basket in and let the magic happen. Of course, back at the point when you started the pot boiling you also tossed a couple of taters into the oven, conventional or microwave.. and of course you’ve piled up a pretty sizable salad, the point of which is merely to pretend that the big salad will fill you enough to not eat all the shrimp or the entire potato… This has never actually worked.
As the steaming part begins, you melt butter, for dipping the shrimp. Garlic and lemon are optional. You may substitute margarine for butter, though I don’t recommend it. Yes, it’s a bit fattier, but remember, the salad will keep you from having too much.
Classier people would discuss the wine choice at this point. Our wine tastes are pretty simple; we like chardonnay in a box. But that has nothing to do with this meal. We don’t drink wine at meals, we save it for a night cap, generally around 9pm, with a light snack since according to Angel, “ . . eating something with wine doesn’t count as eating.” She’s never explained the logic or reasoning and I haven’t asked since she’s pretty smart and she does not lie.
Anyway, to really punctuate the shrimp, which will be served on a tablecloth of the day’s newspaper to catch the drips and peels, we will have beer. I don’t know which kind yet, it depends on whatever they’re giving away to those of us who have opted to park inconveniently. Perhaps a light Bud Select, or hopefully Mule Kick Stout. Mmm.
I will point out again that though I work for a beer company, I do not drink a lot of beer. I think, in fact that I’ve only had two in the last three or four weeks. At the Super Bowl party where it was, once again, free. So if I have to buy beer, I generally don’t…. If we have beer in the house I’ll have one with dinner, and that’s it.. Sorry, I’m just not a guzzler. Angel’s the same way, though it’s quite possible that she may throw back a dozen or two during the day without me knowing it. I really don’t pay much attention to that sort of thing, and if it helps ease the pain and woe that she surely slogs through each day as my spouse, well so be it.
Anyway, we chatted, I stressed, about Valentine ’s Day… She’d already declared “No chocolate” Which is her way of declaring a lack of willpower. “You don’t want chocolate, you think flowers are silly because they’re already dying once they arrive, cards are a waste of money, Jewelry a bigger waste of money that you have nowhere to wear anyhow, what’s a hopeless romantic such as myself supposed to do?” I screamed.
“How about Shrimp?”

Okay, I know you are tsk’ing out there… about how a girl says “I don’t want a gift” and the dude doesn’t get her one , and then she gets all weepy, cause she really DID want something… Nah It’s not like that.. I don’t think… Nah, no way. We’ve been together nearly twenty years. If she wanted something she would have said so. She doesn’t lie.