Valentine's Day

My main Valentine's activity was baking heart-shaped cookies yesterday with Gregory and his girlfriend, Sierra, who came home in the afternoon from their CU dorms to bake with me. And then today I made my first-ever yarn pompom for my first-ever knitted hat; afterward I strolled up and down the hallway outside my office wearing my hat and looking expectantly at passersby in hope of garnering a few compliments, which I did. I don't know that pompom making has anything particular to do with Valentine's Day, but I did fall in love with my hat, so maybe that counts.

I also wrote a Valentine's Day poem, as part of my ongoing poem-a-day project. This one was a gift to me from the Valentine gods, in the form of an article in today's Boulder Daily Camera:

The Edgewater Pointe Estates in Boca Raton hired professional male dancers to attend their Valentine's Day ball. "At home, I dance with a broom," said Victoria Schabel, a 90-something resident. "This is better." - Associated Press

Dancing with a Broom

A broom is too skinny, for starters.
I like a man with a little meat
on his bones. And after thirty
years alone, I'm tired of leading.
For just a few minutes, I'd like
to follow someone, be held in strong
arms, his head bent toward mine,
his eyes gazing at me as if
I were forty again, or even sixty.
Oh, I'm good at pretending, that's
a fact. But it's harder if no
one else is pretending back.

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody!