Mediocre Valentine's Day

 On Valentine's Day, the love of my life is my kitty, Jimmy.

There is a lot of social stigma against cats. Since I am deeply insecure, I wonder, "Am I dumb or trashy that I have and love a cat?"

But one of the best things about Zoom school has been seeing other people's cats. And if my fellow grad students have and love cats, it seems the stigma is unwarranted!

Yesterday I saw Jimmy chasing his tail, which is rare for old cats to do. And then I sat next to him on my bed, and he put his paw on my knee.

Of the nine holidays I formally celebrate, Valentine's Day is my least favorite. I'm not the "I'm so bitter because I'm single" kind of person, but in many ways I do feel like it's irrelevant to me.

"But," you say, "there's other kinds of love, like your family and friendships." True that, but those are things we have all year. 

My Valentine's Day playlist is my shortest of all my personal holiday playlists (only 22 songs), because there aren't a lot of seasonally appropriate songs. Whenever I see "Valentine" playlists, they're mostly full of generic love songs that we hear every day. That's no fun!

As I have said many times before, Valentine's Day is all about the candy. This week, I did another Taste Off kit, this time with local chocolates, that most iconic Valentine's gift. Our favorite was the heart shapes from Chocolate Covered Wagon, and everyone else agreed, because they ended up winning.

I have various categories for holiday treats, and chocolates are category 1 for February 14, since they are iconic. I have counted sugar cookies as category 3, because only the shape and colors are seasonal; they taste like sugar cookies from any other time of the year. But as I thought about it this year, I decided to make them category 1 for Valentine's Day. They seem to show up more often in February, and I have many memories of decorating heart cookies at home, in school, and at church. So I think they are sufficiently iconic. (They were already category 1 for Christmas.) 

I'm halfway through the day, and this is just a mediocre day. We are having our traditional pizza dinner in commemoration of the worst Valentine's Day ever. But I guess it's OK for it to be a mediocre day. School is my major focus right now, it's Sunday, and we're in the middle of a pandemic. And Valentine's Day is just mediocre anyway.