One romantic evening...

...in February, in chilly-cold New England, a certain girl's husband treated her to a surprise sushi dinner, complete with a birthday greeting card from the small hound and a Dove bar for dessert (that her husband ate!) and beer. How about that? My birthday is not until Thursday, but I will be flying to California for a long weekend and so we celebrated Saturday night.

The last couple of days we warmed up to the freezing mark and so Mike was thrilled to have such balmy weather to ride in for a change. The fact that he's still riding outside in Boston in February is pretty amazing, huh? The fact that the first big snow storm of the year is forecasted to touch down when I am heading West is amazing too, though in a different way. (Sigh...)

I actually went shopping on Sunday---venturing out to the "not too far from home", Arsenal Mall. There's a Gap outlet, Filene's Closet, and a few other retail outlets.The cool thing about the Gap there, is that the prices looked good on the price tags---but they were discounted even more, up to 40%! The Mall is right next to the "Arsenal building", an old brick Military base. Very New England in an old kind of way. And in a very typical way, the Mall was full of teeny boppers hanging out at the electronics outlets and older folks hanging out at the Dunkin Donuts. I eaves-dropped on the conversations.

"Didja hea about Mahvin's mahtha? It was herh bahck! Benn that way fer fohty yeas o so" or "Check it out Linder! It's wicked fast! Come hea!" The accent is starting to grow on me, though it isn't one I can replicate very well. When I got home I blared the Cowboy Junkies and rode my bike in basement, dreaming about California and warmer days. To really get into the feel of my "dreams" I sweated like crazy (Our basement is the warmest part of the house as it is), and finished my ride just as my guy finished his. He stepped out to get some stuff at the drugstore and came home with piles of sushi, beer, dessert and a card from The Scrapper with a Scrapper on it!

There are many things in my life that I wonder if I did the right thing, or that I learned from and improved upon later on, or "wished I'd done better"...but Mike is that "face in a crowd of strangers that lights up just for me!", not to be improved upon!

California here I come! (Pray for the weather to not snow on my parade---like it is forecasted to!" Happy Monday!