My Valentines

Okay, SHOCKER: I have never had a boyfriend/friends-with-benefits/hook-up/gentleman-caller in my life on this oh so auspicious day of love. It's just never played out that way for me. I guess February is my down month? (Ha.)

The point of this is that I've never had the regular old "Valentine." My Valentine is always someone who loves me, whom I love, though we are not IN love. It's worked out okay for me thus far. 

In the name of John Cusak and High Fidelity, here are Olivia Murphy's top five all time best Valentines.

5. Lamby, the dog my parents let me adopt when I was 13. He was a Bichon-Frisée mix and he looked like a puppy his whole life. He was white, fluffy, my little mutón. He got me through many a sad middle school Valentine's Day.

4. Tim W, my "boyfriend" in 7th grade who I completely forgot about when I wrote the beginning of this blog post. The only man to ever give me anything on Valentine's Day, he sent me a singing candy gram to my History classroom. The chamber choir sang "Hanging by a moment," by Lifehouse which was a custom chosen song he asked them to sing to me. I think it cost extra to pick something other than the five the choir had already learned? I was so overwhelmed. In the best way.

3. Ali W, my friend from college. She and I took a cross country road trip in February of 2010 and we happened to be on the road for Valentine's Day. We agreed that we'd each do something for the other on February 14th. We both ended up doing silly hand made inside joke cards and exchanging them in Florida.

2. Miss Mona Mae, the love of my life, my only wife. Whether we were drinking apple cider on the hood of Velma or pouring each other wine at The Manor, she's always been my number one gal, my main lady. If I do live until I am officially a spinster, I don't doubt she'll let me live in an apartment above her garage and scare her children.

And the number one slot goes to:
1. Lawrence Jay Probstein, my grandfather. 
Rampah was the first thing in my mind this morning when I woke up, because this is my second Valentine's day without him. My grandparents sent us cards every year, and at the bottom Rampah always asked me to be his Valentine. I remember his loopy handwriting in an even line at the bottom of the card, signed "your Rampah." It didn't matter to me that I knew he asked Tesssie too; my Rampah, my big, successful, clever, kind hearted, warm Rampah wanted to be MY Valentine and I always wanted to be his. I feel like a lot of people say "Be Mine" on this day and I don't really think many of them mean it. My grandfather meant it.  He asked me every year, and he always meant it.