Lethal Valentine

I bought a dozen roses, a bottle of wine, and some ham yesterday. Since we're both sick (not sure if it's cold or flu) we didn't drink the wine yet but we'll go out to dinner tonight if our health allows. The poor snow-person below doesn't have that option. No heart = no going out.

It would be difficult to get more cynical than the person who created these snow folk... but it is an amusing picture with which to illustrate a St. Valentine's Day entry.

I wonder how the tradition of romantic love being associated with St Valentine's Day got started. I read the Wiki entry and according to it, there was a gap of over 1,000 years between the martyred saints (c. 197 AD - 267 AD) and the first known reference to Valentine's Day as a romantic time by Chaucer (Parlement of Foules) in 1382.

Maybe we'll have that wine tonight but I think a toast made with cough syrup is more likely. :-(