Valentine’s Day. A sweet-spirited idea spoiled by commerce. Well our first V-Day will be memorable, for sure. In fact, were still recovering from it.
Henrik recently went to a tech conference in Palm Desert where he met some friends who were planning to have dinner together in San Francisco on Valentine’s Day. They invited him and he thought it would be extravagant for us to go for a day.
Unfortunately, on Valentine’s morning he woke up feeling sick and by the time we arrived in San Francisco he was feeling even sicker. We took a short nap and had a wonderful dinner with his friends at a trendy Thai placed called Koh Samui & The Monkey on Brannan Street. Back at the hotel we had a piece of chocolate cake and hot Lipton tea. Woo hoo, right? Well I must digress.
As we were going through the *(%$! security checkpoint at Seatac Airport I was stopped by a TSA agent who wanted to examine the contents of my Victoria’s Secret bag. I was not in the mood for investigation so I sort of snapped at him to not let Henrik see what was inside the bag. The agent seemed like a nice enough guy as he examined the contents without letting Henrik see and then he gave me the bad news. The bottle of wine that I brought as part of Henrik’s gift was larger than 3 oz. I didn’t have time to go through checked baggage so I had to leave the wine behind. I pouted for at least three hours. I even almost cried. They took my wine and ruined my gift. Bastards. Henrik tried to make me feel better about it (which didn’t work at first) and then he kept laughing about it. He thought it was pretty funny that I seem to have an ongoing problem with TSA agents and liquids. I was able to laugh about it — the next day — and even felt bad for snapping at the Seatac agent. I have a feeling he would have let me sneak it through if he could and I should have happily given him the wine and told him to enjoy it with his Valentine. But I was being small and I missed an opportunity to share the love.
Well the next morning we decided to delay our flight so we could enjoy the sunshine and tour the city. Henrik had not really seen San Francisco before. We walked from our hotel through China Town through North Beach and Little Italy to Fisherman’s Wharf through the Embarcadero and back through the business district to our hotel. And since we planned on leaving that morning we didn’t pack any walking shoes so halfway through the day we were not only sick but limping and gimping because we both got big blisters on our feet. I took Henrik to a Chinese Herb shop where he was a doctor and was prescribed three days of herbs that I would cook for him when we returned home. It was a lot of fun and I wish we had more time to spend there. I really wish we had better shoes. Won’t be making THAT mistake again.
Oh before I forget, we saw the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill. They were adorable, I loved that!!
By the time we arrived home that night Henrik the flu bug had devoured Henrik and he was laid out in bed for two full days. I was laid out next to him but thankfully I resisted more heartily so was able to take care of him. As for the herbs, he plugged his nose to drink them to avoid gagging. THAT was funny!
We’re on the mend now and should be de-flued by this weekend.
Here’s some pictures from our Valentine’s Day in the City By The Bay.
