Valentine's Day

I am not a Valentine’s Day sort of person. No, it’s not that I have something against the commercialization of the day or will spew some sort of phony line that smugly asks why we need one day to recognize a feeling we should have all year long.

It’s that, over the years, I have had a number of bad things happen on Feb. 14th. Also, try as we might, my wife and I have never really been able to pull off a great celebration. And we’ve tried. I won’t go into details.

I will say, that 20 years ago, we celebrated Feb. 14th in Rio during pre-Carnival and it was great. I don’t recall anything special regarding the day—folks in Rio need no excuse to celebrate anything—but it was no doubt a day on the beach just being part of the scene.

This year does not bode well for a major blow-out. The night of Feb. 14th begins the “Yahrzeit” of my father in law who died 10 years ago. We will be at our synagogue at a brief service during which my wife will recite the prayer of remembrance. I am thinking a Luby’s dinner afterwards. We sure know how to have a good time.