The One Where Romance Was Not Dead

Did happen to mention how much I love Valentine’s Day? I suppose I am this weird mix of logical and romantic… this morning while I was sorta kinda pretending to myself that I was sleeping in, DK came in and jumped on the bed, and said, “Which is more romantic…French Toast or” at which point I cut him off, with a very rude, “NO FOOD. Food is not romantic!” Yes, I turned down breakfast in bed. Rudely. Then I placed my cell phone in his hand and said, “But if you’re going downstairs, you can plug this in to charge. It has been beeping.” Good sport that he is, he took the cell phone with him, remarking as he went, “Romance is not dead.”

And he was still nice to me as he left for work. I must have had some good juju stored up from awhile back...way back. Tomorrow being February 14th, it will be 25 years to the day that DK and I got engaged. There have been some romantic moments.

Our first Valentine’s Day together (the year before we got engaged), DK had to work, but he designed me an animated Valentine that played on the computer. That was back before computers even did stuff like that, and had a heart-shaped pizza with everything, delivered from Brick Oven Pizza. I was totally in love, and my mouth is watering right now. I thought that was probably as good as it could get. I was wrong.

When we had our first baby, he spent a week in the Intensive Care Nursery. The reasons for keeping him there were becoming more and more unreasonable, and I, having been at home without my baby for five days, was becoming more and more despondent. On the seventh day, DK drove to St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital in Orange, parked in the multi-level garage and left me in the car. He then went to the financial clerk and paid cash for the baby (we sold our Apple stock to pay the $6,000 bill) and then took the elevator up to the nursery. He presented them with the discharge papers from the financial clerk, and then, although he had never even held a baby before that week, he dressed Josh in multiple layers of clothes for the cold, picked him up and walked out to the parking structure where I sat crying in the car. I always knew he would be a cool dad, but that was the first day I realized he was a hero.

When I was 29 years old, I had five little boys, all under eight years old. It was honestly fun most of the time, but the idea of having some alone time was about the most heavenly thing I can think of. How many times, over the years, has DK looked around as he was about to leave for the office, and said, “How about I take Dillon to work with me today?” Or Ethan…or Cambria… and he packed up a toddler, with a little backpack full of crayons and coloring books, sometimes even a little TV with videos, and took him to his office and out on appointments to see clients, so that I could have a little time to myself? Truly, romance is not dead.

Then there was this year, when I told him I decided I was going to make a music album. Instead of asking whether I thought maybe I should have consulted with him before making that kind of decision, he immediately started researching the best music recording software online. He is always strangely happy when I decide to do crazy, creative things, and always seems proud of my compulsively entrepreneurial ways. If that is not romantic, I don’t know what is.

Well, DK just called. He said he is bringing home a Top Chef-style food challenge…he is either bringing home octopus, shrimp, ground beef, filet mignon or lobster tail. It is definitely not ground beef. That would not warrant a phone call. It is also not octopus. I would cook that if he brought it home, but I would not eat it, and he knows that. So I’ve got to go dust off my frying pans and signature recipes…and see if I can’t repent of that “food is not romance” comment…