Bub on V-day, showing his stripes...

...or his army surplus trench, rather. To be honest, I don't looooove Valentine's Day (which is hard to say in public because people think you're bitter, or single, or counter-culture, or some combination thereof); it's a holiday where you get flowers because someone told your loved one that they had to buy you flowers. And everyone is asking "so did you get flowers and chocolate?" in some strange romance-related one-upmanship that I find unappealing. And if I were being really petty, I'd take it a step further and say that it's an excuse for unhappily-coupled people to lord their couple-dom over singles who for some reason buy into the insanity and feel bad for themselves because they don't have anybody forced to buy them flowers. As a friend from work put it after standing behind a guy in line holding a monkey with google eyes which said "I'm wild about you", that doesn't seem like much of a statement of love as much as a last-ditch effort not to sleep on the couch alone. I'm not bitter, I'm just not tied to this day of all days to tell the people in my life that I love them. My parents went out to dinner and my brother and I had a bottle of wine sent to their table; they sent me Gerber daisies and a chocolate heart and toothpaste (and old joke, my mother never sends me candy without also sending toothpaste), but then again my dad sends me flowers pretty frequently cause he's a kickass dad.

So the point of this post is Bub, who thinks pretty much the same way I do about this, so I thought I was off the hook - no monkeys with googly eyes for that guy. However I get home today and what's waiting for me, but this...

I know you love it. I do. I'm going to wear it with tights and boots and a sweater underneath in the snow, just so I can say I wore it. Now, what to surprise Bub with on February 18th...?