It's Valentine's Day.  Either you completely loathe this day or you absolutely adore it, depending on a number of factors: your level of love for all things chocolate, your current relationship status, or your stock holdings in Hallmark.  I personally appreciate any holiday that centers around candy.  At any rate, this year on Valentine's Day I have learned a few things:

1.  My child is a genius.  Ok, perhaps we already knew that.  BUT.  We purchased Rock Band 3 today (we are fond of bonding by making complete idiots of ourselves as a family) and a Mana song was chosen for us by the game.  I'm on the keyboard, Military Man is spazzing out on the guitar (expert!) and I'm playing the keyboard.  I wasn't even aware of what song we were playing, since I couldn't hear anything over the sound of my husband's seizures/guitar smashing and my own AWESOME, but suddenly I realized that Emma was singing in some language other than English.  And as far as I know she isn't bilingual.  I asked her, with disbelief in my voice, if she was singing in Spanish, and she waited for a pause in her verse to blurt "apparently so!" before continuing to speak in tongues.  I laughed so hard that tears were forming in my eyes but I STILL MANAGED 97% ACCURACY ON THE SONG.  You may worship me now. 

2.  My husband is also a genius, especially when it comes to ordering flowers.  Last year when he was in Iraq he ordered me roses for February 14th, and I forgave him when they came in a box and I had to assemble them because he was so proud of how much money he saved. When they lost that "just came out of a box" look they were actually quite beautiful!  I was even amused and took photographic evidence of the assembling process to post about it here.  (And I never posted it.  Oops.  Well I was a little distracted, considering that my HUSBAND WAS IN A WAR ZONE so you'll please forgive me.)  This year, can you guess how my flowers arrived?  IN A BOX PEOPLE.  And I assembled them myself.  My husband is so romantic. 

3.  Valentines' Day lunch will never again consist of fried pickles, spicy garlic boneless wings and a drink containing Jack Daniels.  Let's just say that my eyes and throat burned even more the second time I made my lunch's acquaintance.

In all seriousness, today is the anniversary of a little friend who left my life on this day last year.  She and her family have been in my thoughts all day, just as I celebrate my own special relationship with my daughter and husband.  I almost feel a bit guilty being able to enjoy sneaking into my ten year-old's room to tape paper hearts all over the door while she's asleep and to share a box of See's candy with the man I most love.  There were plenty of posts on Facebook today among my friends and family vowing their hatred for this day, and maybe it's easy for me to say this because I have a great marriage and the world's best (and bilingual!) daughter, but part of me just wanted reach through the computer and say HEY! Today isn't just about whether you have a SPOUSE or a BOYFRIEND to love. Remember all those other people who love you: your mom or your dad or even your crazy Aunt Gertrude.  I witness a great struggle between life and death every time I head off to work and sometimes as I'm driving home after twelve hours of it it just hits me how LUCKY I am to have the people in my life that I do.  I am surely not the first nurse to feel this way, but it's just so UNFAIR that someone like me - surly, dysfunctional me, the woman who can't make up her mind about whether she believes in a god that lets much-wanted babies die and drug moms constantly reproduce, a grumpster always ready to pick a fight with those DAMN ARMY WIVES - is able to hold my little girl today and others - people who deserve to hear their kids sing in Spanish on Valentine's Day - are today putting flowers on the graves of their own children.

And now that you're totally depressed by my blog: HAVE A HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY DAMMIT.  Because you're most likely one of the lucky ones like me.