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Happy Valentine’s Day to Everyone! We thought we might give a list of romantic stuff we did this year. No, it won’t be a complete list, I don’t know you people that well.
My favorite romantic gesture this year from Jon, has to be the fuzzy stuffed toy black plague bacillus from Giant Microbes. Why is this my favorite? Because I didn’t know they existed, and because Jon knows how much I love scary cute stuff. You gotta love a fuzzy black microbe with huge blue eyes, and a tag that has an electron microscope picture of the actual organism. Our personal trainer, Keath, was here that day, and when he saw it, he said, “Way to be romantic, Jon.” (We’ve helped him improve his sarcasm skills.) I was hugging and kissing Jon, so I had to come up for air to say, “Romance is all about knowing your audience, Keath.” Then back to kissing.
{Jon Here} My favorite Romantic Gesture is a more distributed one. I love it when Laurell pays attention to me and actually listens to me prattle on about some bizarre, tangential and/or unrelated gaming fact/story/thingie. I am a gamer. Laurell knew this when she met me, and still married me. The fact that she listens, and even remembers some of the stuff I yammered on about means so much to me. It still amazes me that she lets me talk and talk about things that hold little interest to her. In a recent White Dwarf magazine article, there was a list of things to get/do for your gamer valentine. One of the items on the list was to listen to them talk about their hobby. This is a good bit of advice for anyone. If you really do love them, then spending a little bit of time listening to them talk about something they enjoy isn’t a hardship. You might even be surprised and find it more interesting than you expected. {Back to Laurell}
How can I not listen to him talk about gaming, when he lets me talk endlessly about dogs. Not only does he listen to me, but he’s actually absorbed some of the knowledge. Just as
I can now talk semi-intelligently about Warhammer, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Halo. It helps that I gamed years ago. As it probably helps that we have four dogs.
{Jon again} A more traditional romantic gesture that we have both done for each other is, for no other reason than we love each other, we have gotten roses for each other. No special occasion other than a day ending in “y”. It helps that both Laurell and I like getting flowers. {Back to Laurell again}
We’ve also gotten orchids for eachother. One of our favorite romantic gestures that we do regularly is still reading to eachother at night. Cuddling down together in bed, and listening to the voice of the person you love read some wonderful story to you, what could be better. Well being naked while you do it, but then that’s a given for us. (This only works if you lock your bedroom door. You are adults and deserve your privacy. Do not let your children invade it. Or at least it would drive me mad. And one of our goals in life is never to have Trinity walk in on us when we’re doing anything we would have to explain.)
Our jacuzzi tub fits two, and I love to cuddle with Jon in the tub. Of course I like the tub when it’s just me, too. Baths are always a nice way to end the day, with or without company. (Yes, we have covered the bath water in rose petals. Romantic, sensual, but skim the petals out before you pull the plug on the drain. You do not want petals in your drain, your pipes, or other parts of the plumbing.)
This hits the romantic highlights that we’re willing to share on the blog. Romance for us is made up of a thousand small gestures all year long, not just one day of the year. It is Jon’s arms sliding around me when I’m feeling down, or the feel of his breath against my neck as we fall asleep. It is dividing the kid duties so it all gets done. It’s forgiving eachother when we’re grumpy, and loving eachother even when the day was a scramble, and bed time just means sleep and nothing else, because we’re too tired or too sick. Romance is what you do everyday to remind eachother and yourself, why you chose eachother. Real romance means that a smile across the dinner table in the midst of a hectic family meal can mean more than a roomful of roses.