Ugly Valentine Theme Week: The Ugliest Are the Best
14 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
Sometimes the “ugliest” of Valentines are the sweetest.
For example, I gave Dalton a cheap, plush dog one year. He’s been inseparable from that ugly mutt ever since. They’ve shared tears, sleep, vomit, dirt, and urine. This puppy, named “Favorite,” has gone across the nation with us many times. Buying that $5 dog was a last-minute decision I’ll never regret.
Today, I spent the afternoon making heart-shaped cookies with Dalton and Lily. They aren’t the prettiest cookies, for sure, with their blobs of red sugar sprinkles and lopsided humps. And despite the stress of keeping the kids from eating all the dough and holding them back as they wanted to lick the sprinkles from the raw cookies, I love baking with my kids. It makes for one special Valentine’s Day–even if it is a little ugly.
Ugly Valentine’s Theme Week: Presentation of the Gifts
13 Feb 2010 1 Comment
Ugly Valentine’s Theme Week continues at WGL…
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You can always go for classic gifts, such as flowers, chocolates, and teddy bears; however, on Valentine’s Eve, I’d thought I’d share an eclectic mix of ugly V-Day gifts, just in case you’ve waited until the last minute and are looking for something a little different this year:
- Give them a gift they can use all year: The Ex: A Stainless Steel Knife Set
The Ex Knife Set, Available at Amazon
- Send your sweetheart flowers in a special vase.
Pistol Vase Holder, Available at Uncommon Goods
- Go classic, but with a twist: Anti-V-Day Conversation Hearts
Bittersweet Conversation Hearts, Available at Think Geek
If you’ve already got your shopping done, what do you recommend this year?
Ugly Valentine Theme Week: Why I Never Would Have Had a Career as a Marketing Writer
12 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
Because I would have written different headlines for these oh-so-sweet Valentine specials.
Amanda's headline: "Because sometimes love is cheap..."
Amanda's headline: "Because a clean carpet is just what it takes to get me in the mood..."
Amanda's headline: "Love means pepperoni-grease and pizza-sauce kid handprints on my shirt sleeves."
Ugly Valentine Week: Kiss and Makeup
12 Feb 2010 1 Comment
All’s fair in love and blogging…this week is Ugly Valentine Week at WGL. And, while I wrote my post for yesterday, I never did actually post it. So today’s a double-shot of love, WGL style.
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Amanda wrote some endearing and some cringing V-Day snippets. I thought I’d share the sentiment:
Valentine’s Day, circa 2006
I dread going to work today. While I’m fortunate to work in a casual office, mostly with dudes, I know all the girls who are married or dating have a chance at a special delivery at work today. I have a snowball’s chance at any kind of delivery except continual email in my Inbox. I like to pretend I’m not a little jealous. But I’m not that good at lying. I walk past the receptionist desk. I notice a beautiful bouquet, a dozen red roses in a cut-glass vase sitting there. A young girl approaches the desk and grins widely as the receptionist hands them to her. I’m bummed. I get upstairs to my cube and can’t believe it. The most beautiful heart paperweight sits on my desk. The note reads, “Love, Dalton.” It is a gift from Amand’s young son. I’ve moved cubes since then, but the heart paperweight always comes with me. And Dalton and I are still best buds. And that beats red roses and cut-glass vases any day of the year.
Valentine’s Day, circa 2003
I’m a student assistant working on Tech campus. I work with other students, some girls my age, and some full-time employees, women who are closer in age to my mom. About a year before, I’d gone out with one of the full-time IT guys. While that is another post entirely, suffice it to say, after we’d decided to “just be friends,” my interactions with him were awkward. And, if I could help it, limited. So imagine how mortified I was on Valentine’s Day, when he presented all the full-time (and much my senior) ladies, plus me, with a single, long stem, red rose. Still wondering.
Present Day Valentine’s Day
My company has an on-site cafeteria. While the food is only mediocre, the convenience is awesome–if you don’t have time to pack your lunch, no problem. And since I work mostly with dudes, the eye candy is hard to beat. But perhaps the best part of the cafeteria is their signage. They often hang flyers in the elevator and around campus advertising upcoming specials, holiday themes, etc. These flyers provide endless entertainment to me and my coworkers because of their blatant and hilarious typos. Valentine’s Day flyers this year have been exceptional. Here are two shining examples:
- “Get your personalize cookie orders in for that special someone.” Makes me wonder if I ordered any, how would they be spelled? Would I get BEA MIEN cookies?
- “Valentine’s Day is _____. Place your order…” Yep, they forgot a word. And, oh, how various employees have filled in the blank. My favorite replacements? “Valentine’s day is LOOMING.” “Valentine’s Day is EVIL.” “Valentine’s Day is a LIE.”
Ugly Valentine Theme Week: The Fourteenth of February
10 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
Maybe we celebrate holidays a little strangely at the Wild Geese Labs…. Ugly Valentine Theme Week continues….
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February 14, 2000: I’m standing in a one-hour photo lab, wearing my white lab coat. The other three ladies who work in the lab have gathered in the break room, giggling over Becky’s roses. I sit down at the photo printer, pull the negatives through the tiny screen, select density and color settings to print each one perfectly for the customer. Intent on my work, I jump a little when I hear the bell on the door jingle. Becky’s already halfway to the door, though, greeting the flower delivery guy. “Amanda?” he asks. Becky reaches for the flowers, an intense display of colorful flowers, punctuated with white lily after white lily after white lily. “Oh, Manda….” Becky looks at me. I stand, smoothing my lab coat down over my slender arms. I catch my breath as I read the note: “From Paul.”
February 14, 1999: My heart aches as I drive to his apartment. It’s over as simple as that. But, I have to smile through today, I tell myself. Wait until next week to be strong and do what you have to do. I step inside the front room, and he reaches for me. His mouth tries to kiss me, but I do not respond. I know he knows, but he doesn’t say anything. The quiet between us is noisy, but we don’t want to speak what’s going to happen. He hands me a white teddy bear, and I stare into its dead eyes, the cheap plastic circles swallow me.
February 14, 1997: We drive to a restaurant, with no reservations, to learn that the wait for dinner hovers near 3 hours or so. We leave and discuss where to eat, finally settling on an all-you-can-eat buffet with a 30-minute wait. He gives me a white teddy bear.
February 14, 2005: I leave my cube, get in my car, and drive home. I don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day, but I have this pang of guilt–or maybe not–that makes me pull over into the parking lot of the grocery store near my home. Swirls of men carrying flowers, balloons, boxes of cheap chocolate nearly drown me. I walk to the aisle, the one with the red and pink exploding from every corner. I don’t think about it much. The Valentine shoppers look a little mad, in the Edgar Allen Poe sense of the word. I grab it. “It” is a plush dog, gray and white with a pink heart stitched on his ear. I take it home. I give it to my three-month old baby boy.
There Were Balloons. Lots of Balloons.
09 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
Doilies, suckers, and red balloons…oh my! This is the second post in the WGL Ugly Valentine Theme Week. Enjoy!
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As a kid, I loved Valentine’s Day. I had such a great time covering a shoe box with white paper and adorning it with red and pink lace doilies. I remember proudly sitting it on the corner of my desk, awaiting “special deliveries” from my classmates. I also had fun going to the store and picking out valentine cards for my classmates, and I always looked forward to the sweet pink heart sugar cookies my mom made for me to take and share with my classmates.
Fast forward a few years, and, as a teen, I might have still thought pink and red lace doilies were cute for scrapbooking, but I’d never admit it. And shoe box special deliveries were replaced with candy-grams, a school fundraiser where you could pony up a buck and send your BFF, your other BFF, or your secret crush a sucker attached to a corny valentine’s message. These grams were delivered during several different classes, so timing was everything. I never had the guts to send one to my secret crush, but I did exchange them with my BFFs. We banded together to make sure no one went candy-gramless.
And then that brings me to the college years. Valentine’s Day during this time was often marked by goodie packages from my mom and grandma. Other than that, I and my group of friends didn’t really do much in the way of celebrating. Except for one year. One of my college BFFs worked for the local college radio station. While I can’t remember the exact details, the college radio station had a date auction, auctioning off some of their DJs, as some kind of fundraiser. I went to the auction as a favor to my friend–she asked me to go and help drive up the bids. I accidentally won a DJ, though. The prize? Dinner on Valentine’s with a few other radio station people, plus my “auction date.” I figured this was no big deal; I’d helped out my friend and had scored a date for the big night. This started to sound like the beginning of a good romantic comedy. Until, of course, you factor in the fact that the DJ and I didn’t have anything in common. And date night? I arrived at the restaurant on time, and the waitress led me to the table. Every other table in the restaurant was full of couples, gazing into each other’s eyes, whispering to each other. I, on the other hand, was the only one on time. I had to sit at the table, waiting on everyone else, while all the couples glanced at me like I had just landed my spaceship in the middle of the restaurant. And the table? The restaurant had gone all out–they’d tied red balloons to every chair. So, there I sat, alone, on Valentine’s day at the gaudiest table for six. I tried hard to forget that night because awkward conversation is only more awkward when you’re talking to someone with a red balloon floating above his head. But, every once in a while, I’ll see a red balloon and remember how embarrassed I was to sit there, being gawked at by every “in love” couple in West Texas. And while I’m not completely allergic to red balloons, I am certain I have never participated in another auction since that fateful February!
