In my post yesterday I kept trying to find a way to abbreviate ‘Valentine’s Day’ (besides just leaving off the ‘St.’ like everyone else). After all, we abbreviate ‘Christmas’ as ‘Xmas.’ But how would we abbreviate Valentine’s Day?
Expressing it as ‘VD’ just doesn’t sound right for a holiday that celebrates love.
Still, it wouldn’t make the holiday nearly as trampy as Halloween.
You can identify all of the people who wish to be in love but currently are not by their ‘I hate Valentine’s Day’ posts on Facebook, the poor blighters. If they were happily single or just ambivalent, they wouldn’t have anything to say. How many posts have you seen from me on the topic of National Peanut Butter Day (January 24)?
Yeah, I know some of you, both in love and out, see it as a scam cooked up by greeting card manufacturers, but I feel no more compelled to do something I don’t want by Valentine’s Day than I feel constrained from doing something I do want by that whole, ‘forsaking all others’ part of our marriage vows. Heather and I see it as simply an excuse to go buy something nice for each other, which we might normally do anyway. When you celebrate as many days as we do together (first date, first kiss, Hanukkah, Friday, 17 1/2th anniversary, National Peanut Butter Day), Valentine’s is just another opportunity to express being happily married.
It’s funny, and somehow very telling, that the Roman Catholic church has 25 patron saints of unhappy marriages, but only one saint of happy marriages (I’ll let you figure it out).
As you probably know, I like to try new food, even when its served from a truck. As I was on my way out to get a gyro, I saw the Cajun Cabin truck. They serve what you would expect from a cajun food joint: gumbo, beans and rice, and jambalaya. I had seen them before, but I’m not usually anxious to buy something I know I can make well.
As I passed the truck, I noticed that they offered free samples. The guy gave me a little 1oz cup with a tiny spoon. One bite and I was hooked. I had the sausage and chicken jambalaya, and it was amazing.While it didn’t need it at all, it was extra awesome with some Frank’s RedHot.
If you happen to be on Hospital Hill (24th & Holmes) between 11am and 2pm most weekdays (check their schedule), I highly recommend them. You can catch them online at cajuncabin.org
In the February 2007 Spline Cast, Spline Doctors Andrew Gordon and Adam Bergen interviewed Brad Bird, where they posed this question:
SD: On that kind of same path, what is it that separates good CG animation from absolutely amazing CG animation, in your opinion?
BB: Well, you know, are we staying purely on the topic of animation, or are we talkin’ about films?
SD: Um, you know, like, where mostly I think animation students are going to listening to this.
BB: Okay, so I won’t say the top five things, which is story, story, story, story, and storytelling. There’s also storytelling. And story. And storytelling. And story. And telling the story well. And story.
“Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.”
“Don’t hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.”
It is difficult to cull from Theodore Roosevelt’s vast store of brilliant quotes. I was barely aware of him outside of Looney Toons caricatures until I read James Chace’s 1912, about the 1912 election between Woodrow Wilson, Eugene Debs, William Howard Taft, and Theodore Roosevelt. It was clear from the book who the author’s favorite was.
Later I read Candice Millard’s River of Doubt, about TR’s ‘vacation’ float up an undiscovered tributary of the Amazon river. When I was telling my pa-in-law about these, he told me that in his grandfather’s eyes, Theodore Roosevelt ranked right behind Jesus. He later gave me Christmas gift of Edmund Morris’s Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, which chronicles TR’s life from birth to the end of the vice presidency.
All three books were excellent. However, no matter how cynical you think you might be regarding American politics, you will find you probably aren’t jaded enough.
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