This is one of those weeks during which I don’t have a lot of time to write blog posts—or energy to think up topics. So I’m declaring today “Open Mic Day.” What do you want to talk about today? What questions would you like to ask me (about me, about my books, about writing, or whatever) or other readers of this blog? Let’s get some discussion going—it’s been awfully quiet around here the last couple of days!
Another article I wrote for that magazine-writing class, at my instructor’s request due to the depressing nature of the article I posted yesterday (even though she gave me an A on that one.)
Admit it—just hearing someone say “Valentine’s Day” sends chills down your spine and makes you nauseated. Why?
Let’s see if we can figure out the root of the single adult’s hatred of this over all other holidays by looking at some commonly held views on Valentine’s Day.
- 1. Valentine’s Day is all about “couples”—probably as many people get either married or engaged on this one day as the rest of the year combined.
2. Valentine’s Day is all about romance. If you don’t have a “significant other,” it’s hard to continually be bombarded with romantic images.
3. For weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day, the first thing anyone says when entering a conversation is, “What are you doing for Valentine’s Day?” or “Do you have anything special planned for Valentine’s Day?”
4. Valentine’s Day is just a marketing ploy made up by Hallmark cards, FTD florists, and Whitman’s chocolatier, to bilk the American populace of millions of dollars in one day.
5. The whole point of Valentine’s Day is to remind me that I’m alone in this world.
If you found yourself agreeing with one or more of the above statements, you’re not alone. We’ve all been there—some have been there for a LONG time.
This year, I decided that I’m tired of giving in to Valentine’s Day negativity. I decided that I wouldn’t let Valentine’s Day have control over me any longer. I decided that I’m going to enjoy Valentine’s Day.
So, I came up with a list of ways to enjoy Valentine’s Day. It wasn’t easy. The negativity toward the holiday is engrained in my brain. Since you might have trouble coming up with a list for yourself, here are eight ideas to get you started, ranging from simple and free to complicated and exorbitant (hey, we can all dream, can’t we?).
1. Call up some other unattached single friends and plan a movie night. Bring your favorite comedy, action, horror, or suspense movie. Try to stay away from the romances—they’ll just depress you.
2. Have a “Hair and Makeup Night” to go along with (or instead of) your movie night. Get all the gals together (guys, umm, maybe this one wouldn’t work for you, but hey, whatever), buy a few boxes of hair color and pool your funkiest colors of eye shadow, lipstick, and nail polish and have a ball. Go to Waffle House afterward and see if you blend in with the crowd.
3. Pull out your favorite book from childhood and reread it. Then write a letter to the author and tell him or her why it’s your favorite book (even if the author has been dead for a long time). If your favorite book from childhood is a 1,000-page novel, you probably won’t have to read the whole thing in one night.
4. Grab that book off the nightstand you’ve never gotten around to reading, draw a hot bath, pour yourself a glass of wine (or whatever you like to drink), put in that Dean Martin or Yo-Yo Ma CD (you must have something that doesn’t shake the dust off the rafters in your collection), and RELAX. There’s nothing good on TV on Valentine’s Day anyway.
5. If you live in an area where there is guaranteed to be snow on the ground on February 14, get all of your friends together to build snow forts and then have a snowball fight. Warm up afterward with homemade hot chocolate and marshmallows burned over a fire (or over candles if you don’t have a fireplace).
6. Plan a scavenger hunt. In Nashville, we have a great downtown area where there are multiple restaurants, clubs, and other entertainment places that draw crowds at night. This can also be done at a mall, amusement park, or other place where people congregate. Gather up two or three digital cameras to send out with the teams and make sure the batteries are new for the items on the list which will require a picture for proof. Other items can be gathered and brought back with the pictures. Then come up with your items. Some suggestions are:
- - Picture and autograph of someone who can juggle
- A flower
- Picture of a man (not a team member) pretending to propose to someone on the team
- Four business cards—from different people
and so on.
7. Take the day off, jet down to the Florida Keys, and indulge yourself in a day of the royal treatment at one of the many exclusive spas down there.
8. Go to the florist or the grocery store and buy flowers and a vase. Go to your favorite place to buy candles and buy at least two tapers along with candlesticks (if you don’t already have some). If you don’t have any nice dishes, go to Target and purchase a nice plate, bowl, and glass from their open stock tableware. Buy some cloth napkins and a tablecloth, too. Call your favorite restaurant. Ask them if they do carry out orders. Order your favorite meal. Dress your table with the above items, arranging the food attractively on the plate. Sit down and enjoy your favorite meal. Then watch Fatal Attraction to remind yourself that there are worse things than dining alone on Valentine’s Day.
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I’ll actually be working (editing or writing) and watching the Olympics this Valentine’s Day. What will you be doing?
What does Valentine’s Day mean to you? E-mail me your answer (up to 100 words) by 10 p.m. CST Wednesday night, and I’ll include it in Thursday’s blog post. Be sure to include your website or blog address or Twitter feed or Facebook page if you want people to be able to find you online.
In “honor” of Valentine’s Day being Sunday, following is an article I wrote in 2002 for a Writing for Magazines course I took in college.
Me next! Me next!
Have you ever experienced that feeling? It’s an emotion I associate with P.E. class in elementary school where we all stood in a line while the two team captains for kick-ball chose their teams. Every time a name was called, I hoped to hear mine next, but it didn’t usually get called until after everyone else was chosen. After a few years, I gave up on the idea of being chosen anything but last—not just in P.E., but in life. My mother always told me that one day, when that “special someone” came along, I’d get to experience what it’s like to be chosen first.
I’m still waiting on my turn. The disappointment associated with the “my turn syndrome” was learned early in my life, although, it doesn’t usually bother me that I’m still single at my age. However, I start to feel the onset of the “my turn syndrome” as soon as Kroger takes the Christmas candy and decorations down and replaces them with heart-shaped boxes of chocolate and oversized teddy bears.
In second grade, I remember the shoeboxes we decorated for the annual Valentine’s card exchange. Each child was given a list of names of all of the children in the class with a note on the top to instruct our parents that we were to bring a card for each child in the class. I got Mom to take me to Safeway where I picked out a box of small cut-out Looney-Toon cards. When I got home, I dumped them on the table and sorted through them, setting aside the potentially embarrassing ones to give to girls and the more innocuous ones to give to boys. I had to be very choosy because there was one little boy I liked; his card had to be just perfect.
The next morning, with all of the cards sealed in their little white envelopes, I found it hard to concentrate during the morning, too excited about the party I’d looked forward to all week. I eagerly hoped to find a special card from that same little boy with maybe an extra little note written on it, like I had done on his.
Party time finally came. I was excited as I went around depositing cards into every classmate’s box. We weren’t allowed to open the cards at school—we had to take them home. I could hardly wait. Had he given me a special Valentine? For the second time in as many days, a box of Valentines got dumped on the dining room table as soon as I got home. I counted them… twenty-three. But I had prepared twenty-eight cards last night, one for every other student in the class. One of the five that I didn’t get was from him… the little boy I liked.
This was my first experience with the “my turn syndrome” and the first time I realized that everything I had been programmed to believe about Valentine’s Day wasn’t true. Of course, childhood disappointment is offset with the hope that my turn will come in the teenage years.
Since most TV shows in the 1980s showed romance blossoming when a girl was in high school, I hoped my turn was soon to come. In eleventh grade, I was assigned a locker in the “locker corridor” in my large public high school. It was where all of the important and popular kids had lockers. It was too crowded to try to get to my locker between classes, but it allowed me to learn where the locker of the boy I had a crush on was, and he knew where mine was. We spoke to each other occasionally in passing, and I hoped he liked me, too.
Surely now it would be my turn. By lunch time on Valentine’s Day, the first time I was able to get back to my locker since before first period, almost all of the lockers surrounding mine had some kind of flower—some were roses, some were carnations—stuck by the stem into the vents on the locker doors. Mine did not.
I consoled myself with the thought that maybe my turn would come later. After three and a half years of not having my turn in college, I went into the work world and realized that the chances at getting my turn were becoming fewer and fewer.
The next thing I know, my thirtieth birthday had come and gone and I’m still waiting for my turn. During the days before Valentine’s Day, I avoid the Seasonal Products aisle at Kroger between January 1 and February 14. I change the channel when Hallmark commercials come on. I try to refrain from making the finger-down-the-throat motion when the girl in the next cubicle at work talks about the romantic evening her boyfriend has planned for her. I roll my eyes and change the subject when someone mentions Valentine’s Day. I turn my head when the flowers and balloons are delivered. I camp out at home rather than endure the humiliation of attending the church Valentine’s Day Banquet alone.
Valentine’s Day is the holiday that feels like it was designed specifically to remind me of everything I don’t have instead of giving me the hope that someday it will be my turn.
So what can I do to save myself the cycle of negativity and anxiety that I associate with Valentine’s Day?
When I asked my pastor this, he pointed me to John 15:18-19: “‘If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.’” (NIV)
At first, I thought, Gee, thanks for reminding me that the world hates me, but then I read further and deeper. The point wasn’t that the world hates me, but that, in fact, I have been chosen. My turn came almost two thousand years before I was born.
Therefore, this Valentine’s Day when I see the red hearts, I will think of Jesus’ heart that was broken for me. When I see the beautiful roses, I will think of the crown of thorns He wore for me. When I see others receiving boxes of chocolate, I will think of how sweet my Savior’s love is for me.
Thank you, Jesus, for giving me my turn.
First things first, congratulations to Faith McLellan, who suggested the name Phoebe for Zarah’s sister in Love Remains. Faith will receive the first signed copy of the book when it comes out later this year! Final results of the poll can be found here.
Now, for anyone who’s been hanging around this blog for a while, you know that I have a “thing” for Food Network and certain celebrity chefs. So I thought today (since I’ve promised a few people that I won’t spend all the the Fridays this spring blogging about this week’s episode of LOST—either because they aren’t caught up and don’t want the spoilers or they don’t care) I would count down my top five favorite celebrity chefs.
5. Rick Bayless—This chef entered my consciousness first as a guest judge on my absolute favorite cooking show, Top Chef (Bravo TV) and then as a contestant himself on the Top Chef: Masters season. Rick Bayless, unlike a lot of celebrity chefs, is very soft-spoken and quiet, unusual in a career that seems to draw big personalities and even bigger egos. Raised in Oklahoma, Bayless majored in Spanish and Latin American studies in college—even pursued his Ph.D. in Anthropological Linguistics. He and his wife lived in Mexico for six years, which is where Bayless developed his passion for cooking traditional Mexican cuisine. For the past two decades, Bayless has championed traditional Latin flavors while creating a unique cuisine that I would love the chance to sample one day at one of his restaurants.
4. John Besh—As a premiere chef in New Orleans, John Besh’s name is one that I’d heard for several years before he showed up on my TV as a contestant in the first Next Iron Chef competition in 2007. Besh grew up in Slidell, Louisiana (on the northeast side of Lake Ponchartrain from New Orleans), and enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserves after graduating from high school. He saw ten months of active duty in 1990–1991 during Desert Storm and participated in the capture of Kuwait International Airport. After he returned, he enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America. In 1999, he was named one of the Ten Best New Chefs in America by Food & Wine magazine, and in 2006, he was named the Best Chef in the Southeast by the James Beard Foundation. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Besh returned quickly to New Orleans and, in addition to helping coordinate efforts to clean up and rebuild his and other restaurants, he cooked and served food to relief workers and participated in several fundraisers around the country to support the relief efforts. Besh came in second on Next Iron Chef and didn’t make it to the final round of Top Chef: Masters, but he’s definitely a Top Iron Chef to me.
3. Chef Bobby Flay—Are you ready for a Throwdown? It wasn’t so long ago that Bobby Flay was some redheaded upstart with a grilling show on during the midday segment. Then, all of a sudden, he had three or four shows going. Then he became an Iron Chef—and he was indestructible. Flay started early in the restaurant industry, getting his first restaurant job at seventeen. In 1984, he was a member of the first graduating class of the French Culinary Institute (NYC). He opened his first restaurant, Mesa Grill, in 1991, and it was named Best New Restaurant in 1992 by New York Magazine restaurant critic Gael Green. In 1993, he earned the Outstanding Graduate Award from FIC and the Rising Star Chef award from the James Beard Foundation, recognizing him as one of the country’s most accomplished chefs under 30. With more than half a dozen restaurants across the country (and the Bahamas), and almost as many shows on Food Network (it seems), Bobby Flay is one of the most recognizable chefs in the United States. And even though he does have the big personality and big ego that are typical for big-time executive chefs and restaurateurs, he has a good sense of humility to go with it—which makes him seem like he’d be a fun person to hang out with. And there are very few things I’ve seen him make on TV that I wouldn’t want to eat.
2. Chef Tyler Florence—For anyone who’s looked at the casting post or heard me talk about the inspiration for Menu for Romance, I know you’ll be shocked that he’s not the #1 chef on this list. A 1991 graduate of Johnson & Wales University in South Carolina, Florence worked in Charleston for a couple of years, then moved to New York City to work as an executive chef in a succession of acclaimed restaurants, winning awards and acclaim for himself. While working at Cibo restaurant, he had his first opportunity to appear on a program on the fledgling Food Network. By 1999, he was employed full-time by the network, hosting the shows How to Boil Water and Food 911 (the show which led me to start thinking about a certain character named Major O’Hara). Katie Couric once called Florence “the sexiest man to ever pick up a chef’s knife.” At one time, I agreed until . . .
1. Chef Robert Irvine—My favorite celebrity chef started his culinary career at age fifteen when he enlisted in the Royal Navy. He served as a cook aboard Her Majesty’s Royal Yacht Brittania. His first “Dinner Impossible” happened when the yacht was called to provide relief efforts during an uprising in Yemen in 1986, when he was twenty-one years old. He was informed that more than 4,000 evacuees were waiting for transport on the beach and needed to be fed. With no mobile kitchen and only the food stores available on the yacht, Irvine had to improvise. “There were undisguised elements of the story of the loaves and fishes in this challenge, and I took some of my cues from the similarities.” After taking inventory of the food available, and pulling out what he could cook in bulk (beans and rice) he needed something to cook them in. “In those moments, it helps to break your problem down to the absolute basics. Need very big pots. Metal. What’s big, can hold lots of food, and is made of metal? Wait for it . . . garbage cans.” Yes, he found half a dozen brand-new aluminum garbage cans in the hold of the ship and used those to cook all that food and feed those people. And these kinds of challenges seem to have been the theme of his life, leading him to finally find recognition and fame as the chef who takes on impossible catering challenges every week on Dinner Impossible. Aside from the fact that he’s the sexiest man to ever pick up a chef’s knife (gotta love those tight black T-shirts!), and despite the British accent, what I love about Chef Robert Irvine is the way that he can get things done without alienating people.
Sure, he yells, sometimes, but then he makes sure the non-professionals helping him understand what he needs done without making them feel stupid or belittled (unlike how Gordon Ramsay does it on Hell’s Kitchen, which is why I won’t watch that show and why Gordon Ramsay isn’t on this list, even though I love his shows on BBC-A). Plus, Chef Irvine has a great sense of humor, about himself and about life in general, it seems. He also has a big heart to go along with those big “guns.”
Addendum: I can’t believe I didn’t think to add this video last night when I wrote this. After watching the following video last fall, I sent my mom an e-mail telling her I wanted to go to Robert’s house for Thanksgiving instead of home:
I had just set my bowl of soup down on the table beside my chair. The local news broadcast informed me that all of the schools in Nashville and all surrounding areas are closed again tomorrow. And someone knocked on the front door. My heart hammered a little bit. Who would be knocking on my front door at dinnertime—and after dark? (Well, it was almost completely dark.)
As it turned out, it was my very cute, very sweet UPS guy, running about three hours late (he’s almost always here by 3 p.m. whenever he has something for me—maybe once or twice a week) because of the icy road conditions. I was very surprised, because I wasn’t expecting anything from any of the publishing houses I write/freelance for, and the only thing I’ve ordered recently is a new office chair—and I only ordered that yesterday. And from the size of the box, I knew it definitely wasn’t the 50-lb.-shipping-weight chair.
As soon as I bade Mr. UPS good-bye and entreated him to be careful, I brought the box in, extremely curious as to what was inside—especially once I saw it was from Barbour.
To my very great astonishment, I opened the box to see this:
A case of Little Whispers of Comfort for Busy Women, a gift book I compiled for Barbour last year!
LWCBW is one of those projects that comes along every so often that’s not only fun to work on but an uplifting experience at the same time. I thoroughly enjoyed the hours I spent at the library surrounded by huge books of quotations and poetry, lyrics, and prose as I found those that were both inspirational and comforting to me personally. Here are just a few samples:
So I’d like to do another drawing (unfortunately, the three lovely ladies who just won the previous contest are going to have to sit this one out, just to be fair to everyone else—you can still participate by posting a comment, your names just won’t be included in the drawing).
Share one of your favorite inspirational/comforting quotes—one that you have posted on your mirror or beside your computer or written down on a piece of paper stuck in your Bible—by midnight tonight (Central time, of course), and I’ll draw FIVE names to receive a signed copy of Little Whispers of Comfort for Busy Women. Be sure to let us know where the quote comes from (who said/wrote it, what the Bible reference is, etc.) and why it means so much to you.
Comments made on this post before midnight PACIFIC time (1 a.m. Mountain/2 a.m. Central/3 a.m. Eastern) will count toward the contest!
It’s been snowing all day in Nashville. Originally, they forecast us to be on the snow/ice line—which usually means we get what looks like a dusting because it’s all sleet. Well, it was supposed to start as sleet/freezing rain around 11 a.m. this morning (according to local forecasters/TWC) as sleet/freezing rain and then change over to snow in the afternoon, with accumulations in town (I live six miles from downtown) of two to four inches, and six to eight north of town.
Knowing it wasn’t supposed to start until later in the morning, I went ahead and put in an online order for a prescription I hadn’t realized I was about to run out of, thinking I’d pick it up around 10 a.m., before the “major winter weather event” happened.
Well . . . this is what I discovered when I was ready to walk out of the house at 10:30 to run to Kroger to get my prescription:
So I didn’t think it was worth the risk. But at two o’clock, when my UPS delivery came, I noticed that the street didn’t look nearly as bad, even though it had been snowing steadily all day:
So I made a Kroger run and got my ’scrip, along with milk and bacon, because I was going to run out before the weekend was over (and no milk means NO COFFEE—which is NOT acceptable). Between 6:30 and 7:00 p.m., I could hear that the precipitation had changed over to sleet, but the forecasters were saying that it would only last a short time before changing back to snow. And by 9:30, when I went out to capture these photos, it was a mix of sleet and snow:
And with the flash turned on, you can see it’s still coming down!
