Monday, February 15, 2010

Will you be my valentine?



It was thanks to the stomach flu that David and I got to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year. We’d booked a room at a charming bed and breakfast in the Berkshires in November for my birthday but when the day of our romantic getaway finally arrived, David found himself unable to leave the bathroom. Stomach flu, big time. So the B and B kindly allowed us to postpone our trip until this weekend. And what a weekend it was.


On the agenda was


Sleep

Food

Sex

More Sleep

Crappy TV


Basically, I don’t do anything on vacation that involves getting out of bed. Leaving the bed is a dealbreaker. Occasionally I’ll read the newspaper or a magazine. And I can talk on the phone. But that’s really the extent of it. It’s heavenly.


But on Valentine’s Day, David forced me to leave the bed in order to eat. We went to the restaurant in the B and B, where we’d made reservations, a nice enough place with good, affordable dining. But we’d forgotten about the dreaded Valentine’s Day Prix Fix.


“What the hell is this?” I asked David, when I looked at the menu. “I thought our dinner was included in the price.”


“This looks like a special Valentine’s Day menu.”


“Its $100 per person!”


“It is five courses.”


“I don’t care how many courses it is, I’m not paying this much money for a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. I don’t pay this much for food in MANHATTAN/”


When I start shouting about MANHATTAN, you know some truly offensive snobbish-ness is sure to follow. Beware.


“Well, where are we going to go? Its Valentine’s night.” David pointed out.


“Oh, I’ll tell you where I’m going, I’m going to eat a DELCIOUS dinner of Domino’s pizza and cheesy bread for under $20 – IN MY BED!”


David convinced me to at least take a drive and see if there were some other more appealing options, though cheesy bread was sounding pretty damn good. And that is how we ended up at Brew works, the local brewpub -- me, drunk off of one glass of Pinot Noir, and David wishing he had let me stay in bed. Because I am a loud, not-entirely-nice drunk.


David put it best when he told me on the way home that he felt like he was trapped in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”


What especially embarrassed him is that I’d make my most private pronouncements exactly as the waitress came around:


When she brought the food: “Why don’t you ever tell me how BEAUTIFUL I am??”


When she took the food away: “I gave you the best years of my life! And now I’m OLD!”


When she brought the check: “Did I ever tell you what REALLY happened that night in the hot tub?”


I’m like a gremlin. Don’t feed me after midnight and never give me a glass of pinot noir.


But, all in all, a great trip with lots of rest and plenty of conversation.


When we got back, the children were elated. They couldn’t wait to report all the things their grandparents had done wrong and tried to cover up.


“Nonnie told me not to tell you but she let Seconda eat junk food ALL DAY LONG!” and “We watched all the TV we wanted!”


When I tucked Primo in last night, he said, “I feel more safe when you’re here Mommy/”

And I said, “Me too, honey.”