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"Bumper stickers...short ideas for people who can't think"

Valentine's Day comes early to London

I HATE Valentine's Day. I'm certainly not against the idea of a day celebrating love (although I'd nominate Good Friday), but for a guy Valentine's Day is a no win day. Men get up on February 14th and hope they don't screw up. It is the expectations game. Men cannot exceed expectations, only meet them and certainly fail to meet them. To avoid all I this, I rescheduled Valentine's Day. It was Friday.

After discussing our dinners options of Italian, French, "Continental Fusion", Chinese, and Indian, Mrs. Expat Teacher and I settled on Persian. We went out to "Simurgh" (pron: sea-mer-guh). I thought the place was Swedish after the chefs (Smurga, smurga, smurga), but it wasn't. The food was luscious. At one point I was talking to myself because Mrs. Expat Teacher was focusing on how her pomegranate duck was melting on her tongue. For dessert, Mrs. Expat Teacher enjoyed pomegranate ice cream and pomegranate jelly.

After dinner, we went to Stomp. It is a show where everyday objects are used to make music. They used brooms, matchbooks, plungers, oil drums, Zippos, trash cans, and (I'm not kidding) the kitchen sink. It was a fabulous! Mrs. Expat Teacher and I were smacking and hitting everything within arms reach on the way home. We aren't Stomp material yet, but we sounded good.

It was a wonderful evening celebrating our love without any of the added compulsion and assumptions that come with Valentine's Day. I didn't have societal pressures and unfulfillable expectations. Most importantly, Mrs. Expat Teacher knows I love and cherish her.

posted by Expat Teacher @ 6:52 AM