Valentines Day

Coming from Germany, S has always had mixed feelings about Valentines Day. Around the same time it occurred to him that--even though it's a commercial holiday invented to line the pockets of Hallmark--he could nonetheless score points with his American wife by celebrating it anyway, I gave up trying to make something of the day. And so it went for several years.

Then, last year, we decided that we could do something festive around Valentines Day without going the commercial route: we cooked dinner for one another. While we eat pretty well in general, we rarely go out of our way to wow one another with food the way we did when we were wooing. It proved to be quite the romantic evening, so we've officially made it a tradition by repeating the activity tonight.

On this year's menu: Tomato soup with fried lemon parsley and homemade croutons; roasted red pepper and goat cheese tartlets with caramelized shallots and fresh basil; endive, watercress, and spinach salad with blood oranges, candied pecans, and shaved peccorino romano in a lemon vinaigrette; and tiramisu.

While we were cooking, I said (as I might have said 20 years ago), "S, since we have this time to get acquainted, tell me something about yourself that I don't already know."

"I look at shoes," he said.

I tutted. I knew that already. We can't pass a shoe store without S pausing to drool at the window displays.

"It's not like you think," he said. "I mean I look at shoes. I look at shoes people are wearing, and I judge them."

"The people? You judge people based on the shoes they wear?"

"Yes," he said.

"Goodness. What do you think of me when you look at my shoes?" I asked. About the only thing I like less than shoe shopping is clothes shopping. With the exception of running shoes, most of my shoes are either hand-me-overs or ten years old.

"I think 'there's a person who doesn't like to buy shoes,'" he replied, carressing my shoulder and giving me a kiss.

That worked for me. But the next time he has a late-afternoon meeting with the executive committee of the graduate faculty, I will have to ask him what he thinks of the dean.

The mall

Through a combination of jetlag, a quicker than expected oil change, and a need for a new duvet cover, I found myself at a mall at 9:50 this morning. I walked past the food court, drawing suffocating breaths of vaporized sugar and frying oil into my lungs, nodded at the happy, aging mall walkers in their sweatsuits, and arrived in front of Macy's. There, nine other people were already assembled, gazing beyond the closed glass doors into the still dark store. It suddenly dawned on me that for the first time in my life, I was one of that special class of American shoppers who wait, salivating, outside consumer meccas until the first-shift manager slides the doors away, turns the lights on, and beckons us in.

While I waited for the clock to strike 10:00, I read signs. Outside Macy's was a sign warning people they could be kicked out of the mall if they didn't follow the Mall Rules. The first dozen rules were sentence fragments, such as Rule 1: Behavior that threatens the safety or well-being of other mall shoppers, and Rule 7: Illegal drug use and drug paraphernalia. The grammar police clearly have their work cut out for them.

The Mall Rules sign stood near the now-quiet remains of a Santa photo-op display. Artifical trees decorated with starched handknit balls grew on astroturf next to Santa's little hut, surrounded by giant drifts of polyester stuffing and sparkling plastic fluff. In the spirit of holiday cheer, a laminated sheet of paper taped to the white picket fence barked, "NO LEANING ON THE FENCE," then, as an afterthought, added, "NO TOUCHING THE SNOW."

The local Macy's has much in common with Freiburg's Karstadt, but rather than noticing similarities this morning, I noticed differences--in the color palette, in the clothing sizes, in the sprawl of perfume and cosmetics, and in the territorialness with which brand name corporate giants hold sway in different parts of the store. While my needlessly wide automobile with its pudgy steering wheel sat outside in a generously large space on the surface parking lot, I was inside Macy's, riding up an escalator wide enough for a healthy family of three.

The only duvet cover I found was the single floor model. Americans do duvet covers about as often as Germans do top sheets. So rather than buying locally from a national chain, I went home and bought online from Land's End.