Valentine's Day, according to Facebook

Schmoozer's BF took a girl to dinner that he had been seeing for a month. She got him a card, a couple bottles of wine, two wine glasses and a wine aerator. He got her nothing.

Mel's boyfriend sent her a beautiful bouquet of flowers to work. They did not see each other, but they scheduled a date for the next day.

Jenna and Government Mule posted hearts to each other's timelines. No usual check in for a date.

Harvey and her husband totally stole Abe's and my date last year and went to Waffle House. Date thieves!

Katie cooked a meal of heart-shaped ravioli and chocolate-covered strawberries. People kept commenting that her boyfriend should propose. He did not respond.

Abraham gave me a single red rose at midnight, the same as he did for our anniversary. He then gave me a pound of Reese's peanut butter cups. I gave him a smaller gift, a giant bacon magnet for his refrigerator.

The next morning I walked to my car to go to work. Sitting on the driver's seat were the remaining 11 roses of the bouquet and a card. The message was simple, which is very Abraham. The card also stated that he would take me to the spa when we go skiing on vacation. When he got home, Abraham received his beard wash and another funny t-shirt.

That night we met up with his roommate and her boyfriend. The four of us grilled steaks and made s'mores by the backyard fire. I didn't mind sharing my date with other people that I loved. All in all, it was a perfect night.

Take the Cake

I'm not a big fan of Facebook chat. Mostly the incoming messages startle me while I'm creeping on my news feed. I think the main problem with Facebook chat is that it's never someone you actually want to talk to.

Yesterday it was Christopher. I hadn't heard from him since last Valentine's Day when he sent me a friend request. I had sat on it for a week, accepted it, and then forgot about the whole thing.

His time stamp said he was in Puerto Rico. I'm not sure if you can hack time stamps, but I was wary. He talked about his vacation a bit.

"I see u have a dude. cool," he wrote.

"Yeah! Long time now!"

"Oh yea? cool. Will You let me buy you an awesome ice cream Birthday cake to make up for that birthday I had no money to buy you anything cool? you have to pick it up lol"

Christopher never got it. It was never about the money or not having a birthday cake. Just read the posts if you haven't. He didn't know where I lived. He proclaimed to my 10 closest friends that he just wanted to be a rich playboy. He told everyone he didn't love me. It was his treatment of me that caused me to end things. It was never about the money; it was about me feeling unsupported and alone.

I paused. That was a weird request. Christopher had moved out of the state a long time ago. His current time stamp reads Puerto Rico. It's not my birthday. Why order me a cake?

"That's all water under the bridge now," I typed back. "Besides I'm working out really hard and don't need the calories."

"Too bad you have one ready for pick up tomorrow after 5. I didnt personalize it so your bf wont freak or anything. You can tell him anyone sent it like ur dementia grandma lol"

"I don't keep secrets from him." The truth was Abraham already knew that Christopher IMed me. Abraham knows the story about the terrible birthday.

"That's weird," Abraham wrote to me.

"I know, right? We aren't eating cake right now and there's no room in your freezer, so I guess I'll just dump it at my apartment?"

"Wait. You're going to pick it up?" he asked.

Yes, because free cake? That's where my mind went.

"He doesn't live here anymore," I told him.

"Message me when you get the cake," Christopher wrote.

***

After work I headed to the gym. Christopher messaged me again.

"Did u get ur Birthday present?"

"I thought it was tomorrow after 5? I'm still at the gym."

"no tonight after 5 my dear"

"Ah well I'm not going to have time until tomorrow. I'm sure it will still be there."

Christopher: "no it has an exploding flavor flav clock on it"

Christopher: "u ruined it all"

Christopher:" u need it tonight!!!"

Christopher: "thats bs"

Christopher: "get ur fin cake lol"

Christopher: "If u dont get that fin cake im gonna flip out!!"

Me: "Dude. Chill. They're going to close before I can get there. Look at the convo. You said tomorrow."

At this point I was getting scared. I haven't spoken to him in years. I don't know if the Puerto Rico time stamps are real. Maybe Abraham was right. Maybe he ordered me a cake to get me to a specific location and time.

Christopher: "Not serious..Im on the beach drinking a pink umbrella drink..but darling Happy Birthday!"

Christopher: "Drinking a Nopalae drink with vodka..tyhis dude needs s breast reduction wtf"

Christopher: "itds pitch dark and i got stung by about 20 jelly fish"

Christopher: "]its kinda fun now when i dont"

Christopher: "im just putting them on my head now
numbing my brain"

Christopher: "sarah write a book about my life..lol"

Consider it done.

For Love or Money

Every year Abraham goes on a ski trip. As soon as he got back from the last one, he informed me that I would be going on the next one.

"The trip this year is going to be in February," Abraham emailed me and attached a long string of planning correspondence.

"Yeah. Sure. No problem."

I didn't really think anything of it other than my fear of powdered snow. I learned to ski in the South, which consisted of my middle school teacher attaching me to skis and then pushing me down a hill covered by a fake grass mat and a garden hose. I've been skiing a few times in North Carolina, but even that was fake snow. I've never been in powdered snow.

When Abraham added me to the planning emails, I started understanding the cost of things: the plane ride, the rental SUVs, the ski chalet. It would cost $800 just to get out there, not including food and rental equipment and lift tickets or any activity we actually want to do in the Rocky mountains. This was a $1,200 vacation, and we weren't even going to Europe.

I looked at my bank balance. I could afford it. I could write a check for it. But then I wouldn't be able to afford the bedroom furniture I had been saving for when Abraham and I move in together. And when I move in with him and his roommate, it's going to be cramped enough as it is without factoring missing furniture where I was planning to store my clothes. It would be another two or three months after I move in before I could order the master dresser.

While Abraham was sitting on the couch and looking at cabin rentals (minimum requirements: 5 bedrooms, ski in/ski out on the mountain, private hot tub), another email arrived:

"Sorry, guys. Looks like flights went up again since we last checked."

I gritted my teeth. This was getting expensive.

"What's wrong?" Abraham asked.

"I don't go on vacations like this. My vacations are weekends away at friends' vacation houses. Or a $250 cruise. I'm not used to spending this much money."

I dropped my head. "This was my furniture money."

Abraham knew how much I wanted the new furniture. It matches my current bedroom suite and is seemingly only available on the Internet because it's a few years old. The only reason I didn't buy it earlier is because it wouldn't fit in my apartment's tiny bedroom.

"I want you to have a good time and not worry about the money," he said. "I don't want you to not participate in things because it's too expensive. I invited you on this trip; I'll pay for lodging and whatever activities you want to do while we're there."

It was a lovely gesture, but I was embarrassed nonetheless. He's paid for hotels when we've gone to his friends' weddings, and he paid for my airfare when we went to meet his family, but this is different. This is a vacation.

I've always supported myself. My parents never paid a single bill of mine. If I couldn't afford something, I wouldn't go. I'd complain to my mom that I was missing out on things with my friends, and years later I found out that my friend's parents still support most of them. They couldn't afford it either, but did it anyway.

I value my independence. I'm proud of my independence. So it makes me uncomfortable to accept Abraham's money. He jokes that it will soon all be mine anyway. Which does raise a valid point: soon there will be no his and mine, but ours.

In the meantime Abraham pays for certain things and won't accept money from me. I'll write him a check and he won't cash it, so I've resorted to dropping the money in his PayPal account without telling him. I don't want him ever to feel like he's carrying me or that I'm a burden.

Never be rude to your mother

I was laying on Abe's bed when the phone rang. It was my mom. I rolled my eyes. We had already spoken three times that day, and Abraham just got home from work. I wanted to visit with him.

I picked up the phone and sighed. My mom prattled about the movie she had just seen. She had recognized the actor from a previous movie.

"Why are you quiet?" she asked.

"I dunno. That was a scintillating story." I replied.

I was being a sarcastic butthole and I knew it. I didn't want to talk on the phone again. And if I let it go to voicemail, she'd just call every two minutes.

Instead of joking back with me, my mother's feelings were hurt. I was crushed.

About five minutes later the phone rang again. Just when I was finally able to talk to Abraham about his day. It was my mom. Again.

"Oh my god!" I shouted frustrated.

"Hello this is Cindy. I'm a nurse. You're mom's been in a car accident...

She continued with the details, but I couldn't hear them over the sirens of the firetrucks and ambulances.

"... she's being taken to the hospital."

I got off the phone and started looking for my shoes.

"You're going now?" Abraham asked. "We don't know what's wrong yet."

"My mom's going to the hospital. I'm not leaving her there by herself."

That's the difference between men and women. Men help by action; women help by caretaking.

Abraham drove me to the hospital. It was a rainy Friday night. The emergency room was filled with weirdos. We were ushered to her room.

"Is this because I was mean to you?" I joked as I entered the door.

She didn't answer me. She was in pain from the airbag and steering column. My mother, who I had been horrible to, had blood on her favorite sweater. There were droplets of blood on her brand new leather handbag she was so proud of. I picked up the bag, spat and wiped it clean.

"Was there blood on it?" She asked.

"No."

My mom doesn't know what happened. A car appeared in front of her and she t-boned it. She doesn't know the type of car it was. She doesn't know if the other driver was hurt. She was trapped in her car.

An officer entered the room. He must have been straight out of boot camp He issued my mom a ticket for running a red light. She argued that she was traveling with the flow of traffic. She had never received a ticket nor been in a car accident. He was curt and ignored her pain.

"He could use some improvement on his bedside manor," I observed loud enough so he that could hear me.

The accident was at 5:45 pm. We left the emergency room at 1:30 am. It took that long for one X-ray and one visit from one doctor. My mother was fine. The car was not.

Abraham drove my mother and me back to her house. I still had to get my dog and pick up my medication so I could stay with her. And then I had to find an all-night pharmacy. It was after 3 am when I got to bed.

Lesson learned: never be rude to your mother.

***

Abraham came over to the house for lunch the following afternoon. With him he brought a bouquet of flowers and a get-well balloon.

"My mom told me to bring flowers with me. I said the flowers wouldn't heal her, and my dad agreed, but she was so insistent that I told her I would say they were from her," he told me.

Once again, the difference between men and women.

"You set the bar high. Now everyone's going to feel like a jerk when they show up to visit without flowers," I kissed him.

My mother asked for Abraham's parent's address so she could thank them properly.

"My parents said they got a letter from your mom," Abraham told me a week later, somewhat embarrassed.

"Did they tell you what the letter said?" I asked.

"No."

"It said as thankful as she was for the flowers, she was more thankful for the person who brought them. She told your parents to be proud of you and that they must be wonderful people to raise someone like you."

Abraham beamed from ear to ear. I'm not sure I'd ever seen him smile so fully. It reminded me of a child's smile after she gets a certificate for perfect attendance in school. That simple, unabashed joy.

He was right to be proud of himself. My mother's words were true.

Ring in the New Year

On New Years Eve, the girls and I sat around a table while the boys watched a movie.

"2013 is going to be a big year," I smiled.

"I want to be the first to get engaged. Oh damn, we're out of Jello shots," announced Jenna. She looked at her sister Katie. "I hope that doesn't hurt your feelings, but I want to be first."

"Well you've been with Government Mule longer than we've been with our boyfriends," I sympathized.

"Yeah but he says he doesn't want to get married while he's unemployed," she frowned.

Government Mule has recently passed the one-year mark of unemployment.

"And that's perfectly understandable," chimed in Harvey.

"Abraham and I were updating Facebook all Christmas Day to see if you got engaged," I told Katie.

She frowned and shook her head. I couldn't read her expression. I don't know if she was disappointed or just didn't like talking about it or something else. But usually she's the most vocal about wanting to get engaged.

I don't really like talking about it. People's questions about where I want to get married and how soon do I want to wait before children make me uncomfortable. I'm not engaged. Yet. Nothing to get excited about. Yet.

And maybe this is where I sound like a brat, but I'm also the most confident in my relationship over Katie's or Jenna's. Katie's boyfriend has agreed to go ring shopping, but he still threatens to postpone engagement every time she talks about it. I'm not even sure Government Mule is doing everything he can to look for a job.

Meanwhile Abraham just flew me up north to meet his bubbie and to get her blessing. Which she did abundantly. She spent so long telling Abraham to hurry up and get married that he picked a pretzel out of her dish on the coffee table and slipped it on my finger. The day after he spoke to my father, I caught Abraham looking at pictures of engagement rings (I couldn't contain my squeal that time). Abraham's mother just asked him how big of a wedding I wanted.

My time is coming. I am quiet in my confidence; to be anything else would feel boastful. So I didn't tell the girls about Abraham speaking to my father or looking at diamond rings or about our families' excitement. When the attention is turned on me, I change the subject.

"So if you get engaged this year, will you also get married this year?" I asked.

"Yes," Jenna and Katie both agreed. "Before football season."

Maybe I'm superstitious after all.

Things I wish I didn't overhear on Christmas

• I was laying in bed at 10:30 pm in Washington DC. The flight didn't go so well. There was so much turbulence that the insides of my stomach had become the outsides of my stomach. Twice. And there were no barf bags on our row of the airplane, so Abraham and I were the collateral damage. The airplane steward meekly handed me a wet paper towel. To make things worse, the traffic circles of DC had me resting my head out the window of Abraham's sister's car. So I was laying in bed while the rest of Abraham's family was visiting in the living room. I heard two words very distinctly, "Propose" and "Christmas," followed by an exasperated Abraham, "SHHH."


• Propose... Christmas? But Abraham is Jewish. I knew he wouldn't propose on Christmas in front of just one half of my broken family. My mother didn't put up a tree this year. My father told me no one else was coming to his house on Christmas. I put the thought out of my mind, and, frankly, I forgot about it.


• We had finished Christmas at my mother's house and I began the hour-long drive to my father's. Abraham was pretty insistent that I find a gas station to stop at so he could buy some beer. It struck me as odd because my mother makes him more nervous than my father does, and he didn't even drink at my mother's. Abraham got beer and began drinking it immediately at my father's house.


• By this time we had been traveling extensively for the past 6 days visiting our different families in 4 different states. I was fatigued. My head drooped into the couch pillows with my cosmopolitan in hand. I was fighting a bad cold. Abraham said he was going outside to visit with my father while he grilled the steaks. Abraham is shy and has never spoken to any of my family one on one, but I wasn't being any worthwhile company myself.


• In the car while we were driving home, Abraham announced that my father wanted to meet his parents. Apparently my father even offered to drive halfway up the East coast to meet them. My father is a very outgoing person, and I was a little surprised I didn't hear my father say this five times at the dinner table. I never heard him say it at all. 


• Abraham's mother kept phoning him. Once when we were at my father's house, once in the car as we drove home and once again when we reached his home. The only person to call like that is my mother, not his. Abraham walked out of the bedroom and closed the door behind him. Usually he talks to his mom on speakerphone.


• And then it hit me: the beer... talking to my father alone outside... my father wanting to meet his parents... his mother's incessant phone calls... the secrecy... propose... Christmas... 


• Abraham had asked my father permission to marry me.  

DDF Revolve 400X Micro-Polishing System

For most of my twenties, I was able to eat whatever I want and fall into bed with a full face of smudged makeup without any skin repercussions. This is not true anymore in my thirties. I’ve had to invest in night cream and a skin cleanser and a skin exfoliator.

Products are expensive. I went to one of those in-home product shows and was introduced to a skin care line that cost over $230. Trying to be polite I asked the consultant if she only had one product to sell, which one would it be.

“All of them,” she smiled.

“Let me rephrase this,” I said curtly. “If you could only afford to buy one item, which would it be?”

“All of them. It’s such a great deal.”

It’s not a great deal. It’s $230.00 for crap I didn’t know I needed before entering the room. I’ve stayed with the basics, my skin cleanser and skin exfoliator.

Doctor’s Dermatology Formula, or DDF, is a Proctor & Gamble company, the parent company over many of your favorite personal care brands. DDF is releasing into the competitive skin care market its new cleansing system, called the DDF Revolve 400X Micro-Polishing System, which, get this, is a skin cleanser and skin exfoliator in one.

The premise behind the device is simple:

For deep cleaning, use it once a day with the cleansing brush.
For exfoliation, use it twice a week with the foam exfoliator and polishing crystals.

The device adapts to your skin’s sensitivity needs. Just change the rotation speed. To discover your personalized recommended skin care regime with the DDF Revolve 400X Micro-Polishing System, use the DDF Skin Consultation Tool.

That stupid skin consultant lady said her skin care line cost $230.00. Competitors’ cleaning systems retail for $120.00 – 150.00. DDF is running a special offer on the DDF Revolve 400X Micro-Polishing System. From now through January 31st, enter code DDFMICRODERMA and get the system for $45.00 US, including free shipping. This is over 50% off the retail cost! The system includes the DDF Micro-Polisher, Cleansing Brush, Foam Exfoliator and a tube of the Polishing Crystals.