Happy Valentine's Day?

Valentine's Day for Lizzie and I is generally celebrated in a unique manner. Years past have found us scheduling a love day a week or more after February 14th -- and on the 15th we both raid Target, Walgreens, RiteAid, and any other store that offers deeply discounted Valentine's Day decor immediately after the holiday is over. Why pay full price to celebrate love on the same day everyone else is celebrating it when we can celebrate it a few days later with a bigger party for less money and with fewer people to have to share it with?

That's not to say we don't show our appreciation for each other on the 14th, too. Lizzie hid out in my work parking lot at lunchtime, and when I went out for a bike ride at lunch, she got someone to let her in the back door to decorate my office! Which was fantastic. And if that wasn't enough, she teamed up with some of my coworkers' wives and got some of their offices decorated, too. She was waiting in the parking lot when I got back and walked me in to see my reaction. I thought the whole thing was fantastic! Especially all the Reese's cups.

For lunch, we went to Felipe's, which is one of my favorite restaurants in the city. I would have been happy with Felipe's alone, but to get the office bomb PLUS Felipe's... my cup runneth over!

We had scheduled to do Felipe's for lunch, and Lizzie was really excited to have me make her grilled cheese for dinner. Not fancy grilled cheese, just plain ol' cheddar on white bread.. with lots of butter. She really loves grilled cheese. So I was going to go the extra mile and cut the sandwiches out in the shape of a heart. Unfortunately, I got held up at work too long and didn't get home until about 5:45, and by that time, the house already smelled of grilled cheese -- I was too late. She and her sister already made grilled cheese _AND_ cut it out heart shapes in them.

Ok, so clearly I'm a jerk here. I'm late on Valentine's Day, I screwed up the only thing I had scheduled to do that day. So I decided to make it up by surprising Lizzie with something we hadn't scheduled to do. We had a bunch of shrimp in the freezer and a sack of potatoes that we wanted to boil with them, so I figured I would have a mini shrimp boil as surprise number one. I was careful to measure out the amount of water I put in the pot, as last time I boiled potatoes in crab boil, I managed to pepper spray her entire family by having the pot boil over and the cayenne aerosolized, causing everyone to go into coughing fits. I'm  surprised that they still like me after that incident.

Surprise number two, I didn't measure the ingredients out correctly! The picture is after I poured some water out as it had boiled over -- note the dried salt to the right of the pot. I'm willing to bet that none of you have ever pepper sprayed your girlfriends or wives for Valentine's Day! I can now say that I have. I may form a club if anyone else is interested in joining.

In the end, the potatoes were delicious, the shrimp was entirely too salty, and Lizzie didn't even get mad at me. Not even a little! I must be living right. Note to Lizzie's family -- make sure I only use crab boil outside. Unless you want to work on your pepper spray immunity. In which case I can probably help you with that -- and we can enjoy tasty potatoes together when we stop coughing!