Valentine's Day, Georgia

"Stop the car around the next bend," I said. "By the lake. I need to to get a picture of this sunset."

He arrived home with Vosges chocolate, two dishes of gelato (raspberry cheesecake and mint tea), red roses, a chocolate-covered strawberry, and stories about the barrage of poor men rushing for Whole Foods to pick up last-minute gifts. They had the best deal for roses there--two dozen for $19.99, which has been advertised on billboards all over the city for the last three weeks.

We went to a Caribbean restaurant for dinner, but when we arrived, the people were lined up liked Communists for Levi's 501 Buttonflies. We asked a couple sitting in their SUV with an electonic buzzer how long the wait was, and they laughed in our faces. We took that as a sign to move on. We trekked on to Ted Turner's place, Ted's Montana Grill, where we shared a Delmonico, my favorite cut of steak, onion rings, grilled shrimp,and a couple of beers.

The coffee shop and book store, of course, were our next stops and I picked out Penelope Hobhouse's _The Art and Practice of Gardening, A Gardener's Journal_, _The Literary Garden, Recreating Literature's Most Beautiful Gardens in Your Own Backyard_, and _Country Wisdom and Know-how, Everything You Need to Know to Live off the Land_ (the last of which my husband chuckled at me for). My italics aren't working, sorry. I had made the promise just the day before that I would not buy ANY MORE BOOKS until I'd read at least two from cover-to-cover, a fact that he called to my attention when I sauntered up to the table with more books tucked underneath my arm, but I took convenient exception because it was Valentine's Day. I sipped at our sugar-free hazelnut latte while he read business magazines and I read about how to make my own birdhouse and bird feed that will attract songbirds to our yard.

He thinks I'm "cute" for this. Under pressure, I would have to agree.