V-Day

Vivian and I were able to have a lovely, romantic Valentine's Day weekend together. I surprised her at work with lunch and some flowers on Friday, and then we went to the Jitterbugs' Pink Party that evening. I always wind up scrounging for vaguely pink thinks to wear, and this time decided to go with the red dress shirt Vivian gave me for Christmas with a white tie. Eric surprised us with a romantic "I love you" metal sculpture he got in the Old Market. That particular hand sign has become a trademark of Vivian and me.

The pink party featured a couples dance competition, which David Trietel and Anna won fairly handily (though we had some very talented runners-up). David had Anna show us some of their blind-folded, Jedi-style swing moves at Village Inn afterward.

(Above left photo comes courtesy of Onion Boy's camera.)

On Saturday, I took Vivian out to see Avatar in 3D at the Twin Creek theater in Bellevue. She'd been dying to see a 3D movie, and I hadn't seen one since Captain EO back in 1985. The movie was fun to watch, but the obnoxious "nature good, military bad" theme got a little old after the first ten minutes. By the time the movie ended around ten o'clock, every restaurant in Omaha seemed to be closed. This surprised me, since I thought at least someplace other than Denny's would be open late on a Saturday night, but after trying four restaurants that had their doors shuttered, we stumbled upon Margarita's on 72nd Street. Famished, we stuffed our faces with gooey carbs before going home.

On V-Day, I took Vivian to breakfast at Cracker Barrel and presented her with a pair of tickets to see Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood from Whose Line is it Anyway at the Holland Center in May! Colin was Vivian's favorite performer, so I snatched up the tickets as soon as they went on sale. That night, I made Vivian a special Valentine's Day dinner — heart-shaped meatloaf! I had secretly borrowed a heart-shaped cake pan from Donna the other day and managed to whip together a fairly tasty meatloaf (considering it was the first time I'd ever made it).

The next day, Vivian and I took her parents out to celebrate their anniversary. We ate at Spezia's, a lovely little Italian restaurant on 72nd Street, and we continued both our romantic weekend and carb binge by dining in style for one more night.