Vaginas, Groundhogs and Hearts

Caught you off guard by the title of this post? Let me explain by telling a little story.
Once upon a time I moved from my very broke (as in no money) little life in the south to a starkly different country called California. I was just getting settled in, and I missed my home, my food, my family, my friends and pretty much everything in the south.

And then my Southern friend, Karen, said she was coming to visit me in California in February! We drove to San Francisco and stayed in a little hotel and spent three days intensely enjoying that city. We did the usual touristy stuff, like Lombard Street and Haight-Ashbury. We visited the Paul Frank store, went to the restaurant where one of the scenes in the movie "When a Man Loves a Woman" was shot, drove by the house where 90210 was filmed, did some shopping at the mall, rode on the trolly, ate at Bubba Gumps, and walked for miles.

The Vagina Monologues was in town, and on a whim we decided to try to get tickets. Yeah, right. Sold out. So we sat, looking sort of like homeless people, with hand-made signs that said "We Need Tickets" as others filed past us, tickets in hand, to the not-so-nice guy in the ticket booth who told us we could try to get tickets by making a sign, and then proceeded to try to make us move from our spot . Guess what? A guy walked up and offered to sell us his tickets. And they were, I think, second row seats! The show was great!

While we were in San Fran we found out that Boy George was going to be at Virgin Records, and we wanted to be there just to say we had seen Boy George. And get this, while we were meandering around we walked into a record store and happened to find a couple of Culture Club albums for maybe $1. We took those with us so we could get them autographed. I'm not sure what happened to my album, but I still have some old photographs of us getting those albums signed.

Our trip was packed with activity, and I'm so glad we did all of that. On the way home we stopped off at the Jelly Belly factory for a guided tour. It was such a great time.

So this time of year always reminds me of The Vagina Monologues, and Groundhogs and hearts. And Karen! She has been such a great friend to me for so many years.

I've never been a big fan of  Valentine's Day as an adult. Way too much pressure, but I love to decorate a little and celebrate it as a fun holiday for children.