The Holtonian

Valentines in Atlanta

Valentines has come and gone, and for the first time in our marriage I think we got to spend it sans kids. Yes that's right, without children. I think just about every year we have baby sat other couples allowing them to go get wined and dined (and made a killing in babysitting $$). So we left the baby with the Crabbs and I took the wife out to a nice romantic restaurant... our new house.

I learned a valuable lesson in trying to prepare the meal at the house, don't ever be in a hurry in Atlanta. I left work at 4, stopped to get some flowers on the way to my car, called in an order to Carabas up near our new house. Drove there, took maybe 20 mins, got lost (add 5 to 10 minutes), picked up the food, took a few wrong turns (add another 5 to 10 minutes), finally settled with getting back on 285 because the alternative wasn't looking much better. Took 30 minutes to go from Cobb Parkway to Veterans/Howell/Bankhead (our exit off 285 like 3 street names). Then went to Publix near our house to pick up a bottle of Pinot Grigio (the wife's favorite wine), and some Strawberries (wife's favorite fruit).

Forgot my wallet in the car so I had to run back to the car.

Then in the check out lane, got behind an illegal alien (she didn't have any US ID) paying with food stamps at Publix. Which that was a whole mess of a long time. She pulls out $100 bills to pay for some food and what not, and then food stamps for baby formula. I could add my commentary on the situation but why bother.

Then drove to the house, ran inside, the bag with the food in it broke, the wife's calling wondering where the heck I am (its 6:15 by this point... i left work at 4), so hide the food in the kitchen (we're not supposed to be in the house, its not ours yet). Hope no workers are there and eat the food and drink the drink.

So I 'kidnapped' the wife, tried blind folding her but the fact is its a left,right,left,right,right and you're in our subdivison from the crabbs house and so it was obvious where I was going. And then her blind fold fell off and she said, "We're going to the house aren't we...?" I wanted to drive around a bit to throw her off but It being 6:30 and we needing to get back by 7:30 to put Anna-Kate to bed, I just had to bite the bullet and drive strait there.

But we had a nice picnic in the new house with some calamari, which was dang good and some Rigatoni Martino which was danger gooder. We ate it all up and downed the Pinot. Had our friend Jason Harrod playing on the laptop to set the mood. We talked about the house, and the exciting times we have in front of us and just how grateful we are to have each other.