A Valentine’s Day to Remember (by Jim, Annotated by Amy)

Happy Valentine’s Day everybody!  For me, this was certainly one to remember.  It began, like most Saturdays, with my making pancakes for the kids.  This is one of the few culinary endeavors where my ability actually exceeds Amy’s.  This morning I nailed it again, blowing the kids’ minds, with the most fluffy and tasty pancakes this side of the Mississinewa River.  Oh yeah. (I hate to disillusion Jim, here, but I believe that my pancake skills have actually exceeded his. Since this is one of only two things he used to be able to say he could make better than me, the other being milk shakes, I won’t tell him that the children are only being polite and secretly like my pancakes better than his. Poor man.)

After breakfast, I took Bailey to his basketball game, where his team, the Longhorns, played the Golden Hurricane.  Who won, you ask?  Nobody.  Bailey plays in the Upward league where they don’t keep score.  The stated rationale for this is that it encourages fellowship and learning the game, but everybody knows that it’s to discourage parental hysterics and abuse of the referees which is so common in such leagues.  Funny—when I was little, it was us kids who needed to be restrained, not our parents. (What Jim isn’t telling you is that he knows full well that Bailey’s team lost because he is one of those parents that keeps track of the score despite the “Everyone’s a winner” attitude of the league.  Not only does he know the score but could probably give you a play-by-play account of this and every other sporting event any of our children have competed in.  Sad but true.  Just like the pancakes.)

After Bailey’s game, we headed over to Lowe’s to pick up a new shower nozzle.  Our old one was leaking and badly needed replacing.  (Again, Jim fails to give the whole picture here.  I am beginning to feel unsettled by his lack of full disclosure.  Does he mention that I have been pestering him for well over a year to fix the showerhead?  Does he describe my “temporary” solution of tying a washcloth around the pipe to keep it from spraying water everywhere?  It actually worked really well, maybe even better than his solution. Just another area where I surpass him.  It’s actually sad to see how blind he is to his own competitiveness.)  The kids were thrilled about the new nozzle, which has both spray and massage settings.  This is the first time we’ve ever seen them want to take a shower. 

In the afternoon Amy and I officially celebrated Valentine’s Day by going to see Slumdog Millionaire together.  This wasn’t just the highlight of my day—this was the highlight of my life as a filmgoer, at least since I first saw American Beauty and perhaps even going as far back as Pulp Fiction, which I recall watching with Amy before we were an “item.”  Like those films, Slumdog Millionaire weaves a redemptive theme through a lot of suffering and wickedness.  (Kind of like my life with Jim.  Despite his delusions about his culinary skills and his ultra-competitiveness, especially when I am so obviously superior, I choose to endure.)  In Slumdog, Love triumphs over evil, but without any Hollywood clichés or patronizing—partly, I’m sure, because this isn’t a Hollywood film.  We both wanted to watch it again as soon as it was over.  Pure aesthetic joy.  Kind of like my life with Amy, now that I think about it.  Happy V-Day, Honey-Bunny.  (That’s actually really nice.  Maybe I should take all that other stuff back.  Everything except the part about the pancakes, that is.  Happy V-Day, Pumpkin.)