2018 Life Logs, Day 45—Happy Valentine’s Day
Date: Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Weather: Sunny and Cold; High 49, Low 37 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
It is not only Valentine’s Day, a day when we do special things for the people we love, it is also National Random Acts of Kindness Week. Who knew? Well, now I do and so do you. It ends on Saturday the 17th, so you have three more days to do random kind things that will make others smile. And the experts say that when you do something nice for someone else it boosts your mood because it makes you feel better about yourself. So, send a card, compliment others, help someone in need, clean up someone else’s mess, or just do anything else you can think of for someone else that is unexpected and kind. After reading about this, I sent flowers to my 102 year-old Aunt Ethel who is still healthy and able to live alone in her own home. I hope the red azalea I sent will brighten her day. I also sent a little money gift to Justin and Jo for Valentine’s Day fun as another random act of kindness. Tonight I got a wonderful thank you text from Jo. She promised that they will spend the money to have fun together as a family and she described her Valentine’s Day. Evidently Justin has his father’s romantic tendencies. This morning Justin used his chain saw to carve a slab of wood into a heart for Jo, and when he came home this evening, he had chocolate covered strawberries for everyone. Jo’s parents from England are visiting, so I’m sure they all really enjoyed that treat.
I had a lovely evening with Heather and family. My act of random kindness for them was to provide a sushi dinner which we all enjoyed. After dinner, I had offered to put the boys to bed and stay with them so Heather and Jed could go out for a Valentine’s Day evening together. But after dinner, they ended up working on my computer and phone issues. By the time we finished, Heather opted to stay at home, have a glass of wine, and watch the Olympics. We didn’t get any of my technical issues resolved, but we made some progress. So, thank you, Heather and Jed, for giving up your ‘romantic time’ to work on my computer. Once it was decided that they wouldn’t be going out for the evening, I headed home and followed Heather’s formula. I had a glass of wine and watched the Olympics. I really enjoyed watching the figure skating pairs’ final competition. There was so much talent, but I do think the right team won the Gold. While watching this, I got an email from my good sailing friend, Chris, in Australia. It was great to hear from her, but she ended her email with special thoughts about the school shooting in South Florida today. It breaks her heart, as well as mine, to think that children can’t go to school without the fear that something like this could happen to them. This DOES NOT HAPPEN anywhere else in the world. We are obviously doing something wrong in this country, and we need to get that righted. I can remember having a conversation with Chris and Geoff sometime in the past few years where they explained to me that there was a mass shooting in Australia in 1996 that immediately resulted in very strict gun regulations. Basically, the Australian government bought back all guns from individuals and there has not been a mass shooting there since—not one. So, there is something that we could do. But we, the people, have to have the resolve to make sure that our law makers make changes. We have to take control and stop letting the NRA make the decisions. Those who say that we just need to get better at dealing with these situations are just wrong. That is like saying that we need to deal with heart disease by prescribing more drugs. What we need to do is look at the root cause and deal with that. And with mass shootings, guns are the root cause. My opinion.
