Valentine's Schmalentine's.

Today is Valentine's Day; a day in which you are supposed to shower the one you love with gifts and kisses (or at least, as Hallmark and Nestle would have you believe, with cards and chocolate). I think Valentine's Day is a silly and annoying "holiday". When I was single I remember feeling especially sad and lonely and loser-ish on Valentine's Day and when I wasn't single I always felt like a big cheeseball buying a gift to demonstrate my love just because the calendar says so. For several years in my 20s, in fact, I celebrated Anti-Valentine's Day with my roommate...I cannot recall for the life of me what we did on that day, but I distinctly remember that we were especially crotchedy on Feb 14th.

In keeping with tradition, my tiniest Valentine (this guy)

picked up the reins in helping me to celebrate Anti-Valentine's Day. He started off by whining all morning, then he got really into it and accelerated his attempts when we went to the mall by shrieking at such a volume as I attempted to try on swimsuits that when we came out of the dressing room, a store employee was standing there and asked "Is everything ok?". Seriously. Shopping trip aborted. Later on, Max capped off the celebration by hurling his entire dinner onto the kitchen floor and walls and then wailing until his Dad got home, at which point he turned on the charm and acted like a perfect little angel.

(I did, in fact, get a perfectly lovely gift from my Main Valentine, along with a fabulous steak dinner, but I'm going to stick to my guns and continue to assert that Valentine's Day is for the dogs! Just ask, Bailey...she clearly loves it)