V-Day recap

I wanted to spend Valentine's Day with the family so I asked them to go to the horse races with me. My youngest son was very excited, my oldest son--NOT SO MUCH.

It was a good day. Actually I won $77 off a $10 horse. We won't talk about the next bet and how much I didn't win, though. LOL

The whole point of the day was spending time with my boys. Rader (my youngest) was so into the math side of betting. He was constantly picking horses based on their odds. He didn't like to go for longshots (30:1 or so) but he did like 7:1-15:1 odds a lot. And he did surprisingly well with his method.

By the end of the day, Ian's attitude had changed some. Which was a good thing. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten this picture.

A Mangled Love Story

He warned me. I've been thinking a lot about Valentine's Day, like all of us, and one in particular. And the bottom line is, he warned me. But I went ahead and fell for him anyway. It worked out.

I had been dating Ahmed for less than a year, both of us insisting we had no interest in a long term or serious relationship. We were both full of it, of course, but it feels somehow empowering at the beginning to tell that lie, doesn't it? After four months he finally broke down and admitted he was too jealous to date me unless we both agreed to be exclusive. No long term strings. No promises of forever. No declarations. Just exclusive. And after I agreed, in a long and very serious conversation, he looked at me very steadily and warned me not to put too many eggs in his basket. I, of course, lied just as quickly as he had done and promised I was in want and lust but had no plans to stick around longer than things stayed fun and exciting.

What a couple of idiots we were.

Then he said "I know I am going to end up breaking your heart. I can promise you I will."

All serious. Like a bad movie on Lifetime. What melodrama. What nonsense.

Fast forward to Valentine's day, another five months later. Ahmed rarely gets sick, but like all male doctors, when he does he's a bit of a big baby about it. On Valentine's day that first year together he was sick, sick, sick as a dog. His oldest friend called me to tell me not to come for our date. "He's really very sick," Tobin explained.

I was healthier then so I ignored his warning, drove in to his townhome, and found something vaguely Ahmed shaped groaning in his bed. All the lights were out, all the covers bundled under his chin, and his wonderfully sexy voice sounded like it was being passed through a garbage disposal. His eyes (those pretty cognac eyes!) were rimmed in flame and he was swampy with perspiration. He growled at me to leave, an arm flung across his face.

"I'm going to make tea, soup, and change the bedclothes while you sit in your chair for a bit. Don't argue."

He argued. Complained. Moaned. Barked at me to get out. I made soup, delivered his pot of Earl Grey with honey and lemon, and changed the sheets. He wheezed, coughed, and growled.

I was putting him back to bed when, for the third time in that not-a-relationship, everything changed. Four words. That was the day it stopped being an experiment, an obsession, something without a name. That was the instant I knew I was already in love with him, and he was with me, and we were both lying, lying, lying like the cowards we were.

I bundled him back into bed. I'd probably been there four hours, and had heard nothing but complaining the entire time. He was trying to convince me he wanted me gone. Years later I guess it was just instinct that made me stubborn about it. As I left him a mug of soup and a box of tissues he kept staring directly at me. I turned to go and he asked me to stay "just until I fall asleep."

Really, it was so little-boy-sad what could I do? While he drifted off I sat beside him and pushed the damp hair off his brow. Neither of us said anything til he was just a few breaths from sleep. I said I was going to go, and would call the next day. He finally (twerp!) thanked me for everything and, as I paused in the doorway, said "what would I do without you?"

"I thought you were planning to break my heart?"

If I'd kept walking I'd never have heard it. Gravelly, rough, muffled with sleep, he answered me. I'm not sure if he really meant for me to hear him mutter it.

"I've changed my mind."

It's not "you are my world." It's not "I worship you and can't live without you." But it was the beginning for me, and the end, and all of the bliss and bother to come. Four words muttered in a fevered stupor changed everything.

He's said prettier things. But those were the words that set my path to forever. Until that moment I was in love without knowing it. Until that moment I could have changed the course of my destiny. He was THE ONE, but I could have blown it, or decided having a someone forever was not "my thing." I could have walked out before it was too late, which had been my plan all along.

But I changed my mind. :)

Happy Valentine's Day.

Great Couples

In keeping with our Valentine's Day theme, today's topic is about your favorite fictional couples. Think back on all the books you've read, which blossoming romances were your favorites? And why?

Maybe they were reluctant, and at first claimed to hate one another. Maybe they were funny. Or sweet. Or they beat all the odds. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that they had amazing chemistry and you rooted for them throughout the entire book. You laughed during their highs and cried during their lows. And maybe even fell a litle in love yourself.

Here are just some of my favorite couples from books:

Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

Well, if that single man is the Mr. Darcy , you can bet that the readers will root for that wife to be the most worthy heroine of all.

Like many girls, I totally want to be Lizzy Bennet. She's so witty and smart and rather unconventional for her era. And Mr. Darcy? *swoon* Put off by her mother's vulgarity and the ditzy behavior of her youngest sisters, at first he's unable to see Lizzy's worth. But in time, he falls in love and his struggle to suppress those feelings, eventually ending in not one, but two, proposals is the stuff of magic.

Maddie Springer and Jack Ramirez


Adorably ditzy Maddie is a shoe designer with a penchant for stumbling across dead bodies. Ramirez is the sexy, tough detective assigned to investigate the crimes. Gemma Halliday writes fantastic sexual tension and you find yourself just as frustrated as Maddie when Ramirez keeps getting to the crime scene in the second book just as they're about to get romantic in this series. And add in a potential love triangle when tabloid reported Felix keeps snooping around and you've got the makings of a deliciously fun romantic comedy.

Lady Julia Grey and Nicholas Brisbane
The most conventional of her very eccentric family, wealthy young widow Lady Julia Grey is extremely unconventional for her time. She's smart and sassy, and holds opinions that would shock most of her set. So it's not surprising that when she discovers that her husband did not die of natural causes, she decides to find the murderer. Enter the sexy and enigmatic Nicholas Brisbane, a private enquiry agent who her late husband had engaged to find who was threatening him. Is he the right man to make her consider a second chance at love? But this is the Victorian era, after all, so their relationship progresses at a maddeningly slow pace...but the tension is smoldering hot.

Amy "Bugaboo" Haskell and Jamie "Poe" Orcutt
In the first two "Secret Society Girl" books, Amy Haskell's nemesis in Rose & Grave was a senior (and later, recent graduate) codenamed Poe. He was sullen, moody, and incredibly disagreeable. Not even worth Amy's acknowledgement, particularly when there are so many other hot guys around, like the delectable George. But author Diana Peterfreund was a literature major at Yale, and an avowed Jane Austen fan, so "the sudden, startling transformation of a mysterious Rose & Grave patriarch from sheerly evil to utterly...appealing" is not exactly terribly shocking. But it's still really fun to read!

Amanda Brice and Mr. Brice

Oh, wait...they're not fictional. ;)

So those are a few of mine. Who are yours?

Some Valentine's Facts

3% of people who buy flowers for Valentine's Day are men, while only 27 percent are women.

About 1 billion Valentine's Day cards are exchanged each year. That's the largest seasonal card-sending occasion of the year, next to Christmas.

About 3% of pet owners will give Valentine's Day gifts to their pets.

Alexander Graham Bell applied for his patent on the telephone, an "Improvement in Telegraphy", on Valentine's Day, 1876.

California produces 60 percent of American roses, but the vast number sold on Valentine's Day in the United States are imported, mostly from South America. Approximately 110 million roses, the majority red, will be sold and delivered within a three-day time period.

Cupid, another symbol of Valentines Day, became associated with it because he was the son of Venus, the Roman god of love and beauty. Cupid often appears on Valentine cards holding a bow and arrows because he is believed to use magical arrows to inspire feelings of love.

In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling.

Happy V-Day Week

This week is Valentine Week here at Fictionistas, so get ready for some love, love, love. Or really intense like. Or lotsa hearts. Or maybe just some pink. Either way, you'll see a theme in this week's posts, so be prepared.

Speaking of love...have you seen my cover for BITE ME!? No? Yes? Well, either way, I'm posting again, because it is true love on my end.

I ♥ my cover.

I really don't know what to talk about this week. I have a love/hate relationship with Valentine's Day. I am a huge gift giver. Always have been. I love sending cards, giving trinkets, doing little things that show people how much I care. And as long as the gifts are appreciated, I am happy. I don't even need anything in return--most of the time. (Every girl likes to know she's thought about and appreciated. Gifts are welcome and encouraged!)

I like to give gifts throughout the year. Holidays like Valentine's Day feel so commercial and forced that oftentimes the meaning of the gift is lost in the forest of all the pink hearts and chocolate candies.

By the way, I do not subscribe to the 'it's the thought that counts' train of thought. It's all about the effort to me. If you're going to bother giving someone a Valentine's gift, (or any gift) make it mean something. Don't just run out to the grocery store and pick up the last available dying bouquet and a box of stale candy. Plan ahead a little. Some of the most appreciated gifts aren't the expensive ones. And sometimes the right card says more than a trinket ever would.

Make your gifts count.

Have a great V-day week!