Valentine’s Day is my favorite holiday. It brings many of my favorite things together in one place: baked goods, flowers, and pink things.
I opt to play the holiday silly. Dozens of long-stem red roses are better sent on a random Tuesday in November. Dinner in a restaurant surrounded by other mooning/swooning couples eating heart-shaped ravioli in a beet sauce is not for me. No unexpected pronouncements of love are necessary. I did that once in fourth grade and am still sad about the outcome. If anyone knows Hugh O’Connell, tell him it still stings that he laughed out loud with his friends about the Valentines I sent him.
Below you’ll find a bunch of last-minute Valentine’s Day ideas, whether you’re lavishing loved ones, or just want to bring a little sweetness into your own life.
Today’s newsletter was meant to just be about giddy, daft thoughts about Valentine’s Day, but the events at Michigan State University last night have left me angry and reeling. My thoughts on the murders in East Lansing are separated out below. Tread with caution if you understandably need to protect yourself.
Valentine’s Ideas
Easy Treats That Make it Look Like You Spent More Time Than You Did:
Make brownies from a mix. Sprinkle a mix of white, milk and dark chocolate chips on top of the brownies just after they’ve come out of oven. After a few minutes when the chips have turned melty, swirl them about. Let the brownies cool (refrigerate if this is all last-minute), then use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to shape them.
Make Rice Krispies treats. Stir in a few drops of red food coloring to the melted marshmallow mixture and stir. Do not try to cut treats that have set with a heart-shaped cookie cutter. My hand still hurts from that experiment.
Alternatively, you could just cut heart shapes out of radishes. Or make a heart-shaped meatloaf.
Or just buy something nice at the grocery store, because who needs extra stress?
Have a little more time or energy?
Here are recipes you can have ready in reasonably short order
Do you have a favorite Valentine’s tradition? A quick, last-minute idea others can use? Please, share your wisdom.
A few thoughts about the Michigan State tragedy:
Our kids go to school EVERY SINGLE DAY with the thought that their school could be shot up. EVERY SINGLE DAY in classrooms across this country, from pre-K through high school, our kids are given active shooter training. Say those words out loud: “Active shooter training.” Little American kids know those words, like older generations learned the words to “America” or “Miss Mary Mac.”
What is patriotic about that?
Our politicians and the NRA think its okay for our kids to memorize the safety directive “Run, Hide, Fight.” These are the same politicians who say they’re afraid American children will be scarred by reading about Rosa Parks, gay teens, or men wearing Dolly Parton wigs, sequins and false eyelashes.
These politicians and special interest groups have no love or humanity in them. AI and robots aren’t what we should worry about, when we’ve already been taken over by these walking, hopes-and-prayers-talking greed machines.
If the beyond human-and-moral comprehension killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School didn’t instantly reform how our country deals with guns, then I honestly don’t know if we will ever change.
But for the sake of all the children and adults killed in this country by guns (there have been 67 mass killings this year alone and it’s only the middle of February), and for the sake of my kids and their kids and your kids, we can’t give up hope. Common sense gun safety laws have to be possible.
Let’s get to the heart of what makes some Americans so irrationally afraid of their fellow humans that they need to carry a gun to their kid’s ballet recital.
Let’s work to put this idea that gun rights are a Constitutional right behind us.
Let’s work to put this era of innocents being slaughtered behind us.
Share kindness with strangers, hold your loved ones close, and reach out to your representatives and remind them they should be beholden to you, their constituents, and not special interests like the National Rifle Association.
The constitutional right to be able to bare arms is everyone’s right. I have the right to defend myself and my property. No law will stop a criminal from unlawfully obtaining a gun. The gun doesn’t kill but the person does. No matter of by gun or any other object, the person is the one who does the killing. The NRA is not responsible. Quit blaming the gun. The subjects taught in school should be decided by the parents. Govt shouldn’t have their hands on our children. Since the Govt has been, look at the destruction, division, filth and notice how they have removed history and replaced it with a narrative to divide and cause chaos. They don’t want us to know how the Govt is suppose to actually run so they don’t teach civics any more. This is so they can actually keep us slaved and in control. Your opinion is yours and mine is mine but we a country of the United States of the Republic with laws by the constitution of the Republic NOT the illegal US Corporation. No one shall take my guns. Please stick to your recipes
I hope Hugh O'Connell has grown to be the kind of guy who regrets his actions as a kid, and is kicking himself for snubbing an awesome person like you. And I could not agree more with your stance on guns in this country. It's positively shameful that we've allowed it to go this far. We have to do better and demand more from our representatives.