(Early) Valentine's Day roundup

I wrote yesterday that my mother and best friend are coming to town to spend Valentine's Day weekend with me. What I didn't write - but perhaps implied - is that Gideon and I will be spending the day apart, with him tending to his two younger siblings and me gorging on chocolate with my family. He's watching his siblings for his mother who will be out of town and who first asked if he didn't mind because it's Valentine's Day and all.

He didn't tell me his response, but I'm certain it went something like, "No, Sam has already abandoned me for the weekend so I'm completely free." But it's really okay that we won't be together, as I have already given him all his gifts and bought him dinner at a fancy Italian eatery in town. I did these things a week ago, which might prompt you to say, "But Sam, that's so early."

Clearly you don't know me at all. For dinner, we went on a double date with one of our couple friends. This is a new couple and we quickly snapped them up, sorely lacking double date buddies besides Gideon's mom and her boyfriend (they are great but I feel uncomfortable twerking and cursing incessantly around them, and we all know that's necessary for a double date). Gideon had some delicious vegetable-pasta confection and I had spaghetti and meatballs. We also ordered some gorgonzola bread rounds.

It was delicious. If I end up someplace pleasant in the afterlife, this is the food I will be served every two hours. (In my version of heaven, you never gain weight and you eat spaghetti and meatballs six times a day.)

As for gifts, I got Gideon a new wireless computer mouse. He lost his when we were in Alabama and has since been unable to comfortably play his beloved Steam games. While that gift didn't cost much, it has definitely allowed me more time to watch bad television as he tinkers away at whatever that game is he likes playing so much. (Sure I should know what it is by now. But I remember only the important things, like what Kimberly was wearing when she removed her wig on Melrose Place to reveal - dun dun dun - that she had a gnarly scar from a car accident and was likely mentally defunct.)

The big gift, though, was the sonnet I wrote him. Yes, I wrote a sonnet. I would copy it over to this blog but it's not exactly perfect and I might have sneered at it the whole time I was writing it. If you don't know what a sonnet is, I'll tell you.

It is terrible. It is a 16-line poem written in iambic pentameter - which means there are ten syllables per line with a pattern of unstressed/stressed sounds - with a turn halfway through. It has a specific rhyme scheme and you have to repeat the first rhyme in the last two lines, which is called a heroic couplet. It was very difficult to write, taking me almost four hours.

So difficult, in fact, that when I gave it to Gideon (on Monday, about six days early per usual) I said, "I love you. Fuck iambic pentameter."

Happy early Valentine's Day to you and yours! And just remember, nothing says "I love you" like "Fuck iambic pentameter."