Valentine's

Happy Valentine's Day. It's funny. We have never celebrated this holiday other than declarations of love, decorations in the house and usually a conversation about when we met. Michael is an extremely generous man, too generous, and any gift given was never during a holiday when it was expected. It was always at unexpected moments. I rather like that. Tonight's romantic dinner? I am making fish tacos for the first time and, oddly, we are both excited about it!

Last night, we wound our way through Friday night city traffic to deliver a hot dinner to British Don right on time. He loved it all. He ate it all! He had lost 30 pounds during his quadruple bypass/rehab, looked 10 years younger and was so very happy to be home. His cat, Fella never left his side. The dinner conversation included such horrible topics of death, funerals, ways of dying, cardiac rehab, being old and medications. Ah, we are of a certain age! We also laughed a lot. We left Don is good spirits and well fed with fresh, heart-friendly food.

It is going to be 70 here on the coast today. All week we have heard on the news, "Take your sweetheart to the beach. It will be a beautiful day." Yikes! Lots of traffic and tourists and drama expected today. Speaking of tourists, mom and I were in the parking lot after buying a pound of Peet's coffee beans when the Ospry helicopters flew over our heads on their way to Stanford from San Francisco. Guess who?

The weather was so mild yesterday that mom and I wanted to walk one of the avenues, mom chose the ones nearest to her and we set out in search of a lunch place. There is a famous place known for its pastrami, was featured on a Food Network show, is always packed by noon and we stumbled upon it just before its opening at 11:30. HERE My mom does not ever eat fat. She has been a bit of an anorexic most of her life and is very careful with food. We split the Reuben Sandwich featuring their lean small chunks of not very salty pastrami on rye bread. It was the perfect Reuben. She ate every single bite. Plus a side of cole slaw. We drove back to her place and she beat me at cards. No, it was a slaughter.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. Lots of love.