Because I couldn’t find one that said, “Oh, sh*t!” and was too lazy to make one.

Wow. It’s that day again. That holiday that shall not be named at my house. We rarely, if ever, say the “V-Word” out loud. It’s not because we’re bitter, or single, or eyeing divorce court. On the contrary; our relationship is solid, and married life is good. Frankly, we’re simply intimidated. If you are a relatively new reader of Random Musings, you may not be familiar with the background of this total avoidance of February 14 at our house. THIS is the original post that explains the history.

Today’s entry is coming to you live (which is kind of an over-statement) from my recliner, where I’ve pretty much been parked since mid-day Wednesday. I didn’t really give it much thought when I came home with some kind of gastrointestinal curse two days ago; my biggest concern was the ability to get to the house without incident and be within ten seconds of my bathroom. In fact, it didn’t even click until last night, when Johnny pointed out the date.  After all, we had no occurrence of accident, injury, or illness last year, so we really didn’t give it much thought this year. I think because we were knee deep, 12 months ago, in researching and comparing weight benches and squat racks we had enough going on to fly under Cupid’s radar.

In ten years of marriage, we have only had two blessedly uneventful February 14’s. I’m not sure why we didn’t slide through this year. It’s not like we didn’t have anything going on. The big headliner was the 1-2 punch winter storm system that barreled through the southeast U.S. this week. We’d gotten somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-5 inches of snow on Tuesday, which is a pretty decent amount for our neck of the woods (we live about 45 minutes east of Raleigh). None of the snow stuck to the sidewalks or roads on Tuesday and it was just pretty; a benign snowfall, to be sure.

Not something you see every day (or winter) around here…

On Wednesday, the flakes started falling in fits and spurts as I was headed to my car just before eleven o’clock. It took me all of about ten minutes to get home from the office, and in that short time it was snowing hard and covering the roads and sidewalk.  By the time I got into my jammies and slippers I looked out the window and had to grab my phone and take a picture out the front door. The photo to the left is what it looked like just under an hour in.

Meanwhile, just up the road in Raleigh, one of my besties (whose identity will not be revealed for her own safety) was snow-dancing her ass off and had yet to see a single flake in her neck of the woods. Bless her snow loving heart! She’d been snow-dancing all week long, and she was really ready for a good snowfall. Be careful what  you ask for, Babe; you just might get it. At this point, nobody knew what was just an hour or so away.

After getting settled in with a huge cup of hot tea, I started seeing my North Carolina friends posting their snow pictures all over Facebook. Many of them live in Raleigh, where traffic became a total nightmare. My sister posted some pictures from her car during her four-plus hour drive from Cary to Raleigh. The roads looked like parking lots. I think, for the first time ever, I was almost grateful for whatever gastric demon had sent me home from work early. After having seen all the pictures, and then watching the news, I was more than a little glad that I was stuck home in the recliner. (Y’all have to remember, this is The South, and we’re not nearly as used to these snow events as our friends up north.) On the other side of the coin, I was missing out on one of my favorite things – snow! (Okay, and food, and lifting weights.)

A picture turned up of the cars and mayhem on Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh that has kind of gone viral, given the fun people have had Photoshop-ping various characters into the original image. It’s not funny, but yet, it IS, at the same time. One, in particular, is my favorite:

This sums it up – StayPuft, snow, and disaster. 😉

While more than a little on the dramatic side, this crazy photo pretty much contains all the elements of the past week or so. From the use of the StayPuft guy (how I feel I look during my bulk cycle), to the snow (that I couldn’t get out to play in or photograph), to the ultimate culmination of the disaster (that is more often than not, the summation of our usual February 14), I am pretty over this week.

Shortly after starting this blog entry, I got a PM from a very good friend of mine wishing me a happy…well…you know…and I replied, “Don’t ever say that to me again!” Apparently the poor guy was unaware of Cupid’s Curse, as we call it around here. (Sorry, Lar…I promise that I thought you knew and were being facetious!)

My oldest friend, Ally (Larry’s wife), sent me the following image, which I am sharing with you, as it pretty much says it all:

I wish better than these for the rest of you. 😉

Until next time…