clearly i'm getting too many breaks today at work

Speaking of Valentine's Day...

I have a girlfriend this year. Certain things are required.

1) Flowers.
I thought "A dozen red roses, I'm good to go." Not so.
The thing is, Camila is very pretty. When she was younger, she was a fulltime model for about 10 yrs. That plus being Latina [generalization alert] contributes to her being more overtly feminine* than some other women might be. She has a sunny disposition, she smiles a lot, she loves to laugh.
Guys are enchanted with her -- in fact, she gets hit on just about every day. Guys make contrived conversation at the bus stop, at the grocery story. Men hand her their business card, guests at the hotel where she works offer to "take her away from all this", etc. She's used to it -- she likes it, but she knows how little it means, and she blows them off gracefully (or not gracefully, depending on how obnoxious they are).
One of the other things guys occasionally do is give her flowers. This week someone left a boquet for her that must have cost at least $150. It's gigantic. It's beautiful. And it means I wasn't going to be able to get away with any 12-roses-from-Safeway nonsense. Or at least that's how I saw it.
So I bought half a dozen different bunches, and put together a big boquet even better than the one she had. She loved it, but the chap that left her the boquet this week owes me some cash, that's what I'm thinking...

* I know: feminine is whatever a woman decides it is; I'm using it here in the traditional sense. Sorry, Gloria, sue me.


2) A gift.
I was looking at a pair of earrings for Camila last weekend. In the end, I decided not to get them because they were too expensive. Not that I begrudged the money, but because:
a) If I get the earrings, I'll have to get a matching bracelet later. Then the necklace. Now we're talking serious money. I'd rather get her cheaper earrings and take a vacation, and I think she would, too.
b) This is the first Valentine's Day we've spent together. If we're lucky and end up together, I've just set the bar for every subsequent V-day gift for potentially the next 20- or 30-odd years. Better to save something to work up to, rather than have her say 10 yrs from now "Back when you loved me, you used to get me..."
Is that cynical male over-use of logic, or what?