Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Happy Valentines Day!

I love this holiday! I suppose it’s for several reasons. First, I am a hopeless romantic and I can’t think of a better holiday than February 14th. Second, it marks 3 more days until my birthday. In food terms, that makes Valentines Day the appetizer to a great meal.

Lots of my friends prefer to call today “Single Awareness Day”. Of the +2 dozen Valentines I’ve celebrated, only 3 were with whatever boyfriend I had at the time. Despite being single the majority of years, I love this holiday because of one person: Mama Mia.

I don’t remember a Valentines Day where she didn’t give us cards or some sort of treat growing up. When I was really little, she would use red food coloring in the dinner. This meant we might have pink pancakes or pink mashed potatoes or pink lemonade. A few years later she started making red Koolaid ice cubes to float in Sprite. Makes a great red fizzy for a special dinner drink. She has even made pink scrambled eggs. Mama Mia really makes this holiday fun for everyone.

Now, when I was in high school, I didn’t always appreciate her style of fun. I was already embarrassed that my family couldn’t afford the cafeteria food and I had to bring a sack lunch everyday. Something about having more than one child in school makes it impossible to afford the $1.25 lunch…or allowance for that matter. I typically grabbed a few items on my way out but one particular Valentines Mama Mia surprised me by packing my lunch. Imagine my horror when I opened the sack to find my tuna sandwich on pink bread. P I N K bread! Was this some sort of sick joke to ensure I never made more than 3 friends? I couldn’t believe it. I was so insulted I didn’t even take the sandwich out of the bag. Instead I broke off small pieces and quickly shoved them in my mouth so no one would see the weird food I'd been subjected to. When I got home, I was so upset. I told Mama Mia how embarrassed I’d been. She said, “You didn’t take the sandwich out? That means you didn’t even notice I cut the bread into a heart shape."

HEART-SHAPED?! Am I 5?! I vowed never to be cheesy like her when I grew up. However, anyone who knows me now realizes I’m even sillier than Mama Mia. And I guarantee that my kids will get pink, heart shaped sandwiches.

Happy Valentines Day Mama Mia. I Love You!

8 comments:

Miss Sarah in Georgia said...

Pink tuna on a heart shaped sandwich sounds like something my mom would do. My first day of high school she put a note in my lunch that said "Don't let any of those freshmen bother my girl." The thing that killed my brother and me in elementary school was the St. Patrick's Day my mom made green egg salad sandwiches for lunch. Yeah...they sort of looked like snot.

Charlotta-love said...

Oh yes. We had that too. What made it worse was that I had the egg sandwich just in a paper sack in my locker. In the Texas heat. That was a mighty powerful odor that hit me during class breaks. How did I not get food poisoning? lol

the MILKY way (Chrissy) said...

I can totally see your mom doing that! That is so funny. Thanks for the laugh! And cute picture.

Mama Mia said...

You are one step ahead of me today. I didn't read your blog until after I went grocery shopping. Among the groceries... fresh red strawberries, red cranberry juice (100% juice too!) and potatoes that will appear pink tonight. Happy Valentine's Day to my favorite 27 year old daughter! Love You!

bec said...

I think my mom made green eggs once, but it didn't have to do with a holiday. I think it was a lesson that we had to go along with reading green eggs and ham.

Kelly said...

Mom would make meatloaf into a heart shape, but that was pretty much the extent of our Valentine's Day Celebration!!!

Anonymous said...

i seriously could not stop laughing when i read this and everybodies comments....remember when she would stick "i love u" notes in the sandwiches too? ..so when u took a big bite u almost choked to death?

Shankar said...

Cute photo. You ought to use that as your profile photo.