In her lovely blog, “Keep it alive”, Sadie was asking if and how people celebrate San Valentine’s day. I am going to come clean here and confess that the traveling husband and I we celebrate it, but discretely. We contribute to the lucrative San Valentine’s business but only with cards and cakes.

Truth to be told, the cards are not the major priority and, in fact, twice I had received a card that said “to my lovely husband”. I have said nothing and simply assumed the traveling husband had bought it in a hurry at the petrol station near home; the alternative was that he had he mixed up my cards with the one for his partner of his parallel life. Another example of when in a relationship ignorance is a blessing. The cakes, are the real deal of the day! Every year I religiously buy from the local bakery five of their San Valentine’s cupcakes: One for each human of the household and one to share for the dogs, (for the record, the dogs share not because their mother is mean with money but because she likes her carpet, the color it is.). That’s our tradition but, this year , our tradition was at risk because of an unplanned business trip. Actually, the business trip was due on the 15th but because there was some family business the traveling husband had to sort out he left a day earlier we could both share the joy of 4 am start (because it would be very hard to keep sleeping while someone switch on and off the bedroom light and shout at you from the hallway asking where is the blue jacket, that he hasn’t worn for two years but just decided this is the perfect occasion to bring it back to life).

To be perfectly honest with you, I was totally fine with that, but there was one thing that bothered me: There were still be San Valentine’s cupcakes or not? Absolutely yes! After all, he is only one element out of a pack of six and the rest of us were all staying and spending San Valentine’s together. Not to mention that while we were all enjoying those delicious red velvet cakes, he would probably enjoy a fine five course meal in a luxury restaurant in Milan. Still it felt wrong. It felt like the ultimate betrayal of the tradition so hardly conquered and built over our 23 years together. Thankfully, there was a simple escape: we were going to celebrate the evening before and because he arrived home so late from the office by the time we ate the cupcakes it was nearly bedtime and when we got up, the following morning, it was so early that the taste of the cupcakes was still fresh in our mouths and it has been a bit like if we ate them on San valentine’s day. Life has always its way t sort things out!

Even for this year the tradition was safe and nothing else matters, not even the fact that while he was luxuriously dining in Milan I was eating popcorn in a semi-deserted cinema watching an idiotic pseudo horror movie with my youngest child. So who I really missed the San Valentine’s was not the traveling husband but good old Freddy Kruger.

Happy late San valentine’s to you all, and don’t forget: Love is for every day!

Stay tuned , next post Episode 2 of The avenge Of The Tech Man.