A Funny Valentine

It's the day after Valentine's Day. A day some would say is the most romantic day of the year. Romantic schromantic, I say. Not that I don't love love - I am a romance writer after all. But more than a single grand gesture, I think real love shows itself in little ways every day. The opening of a door, cooking a meal, sharing a look or laughing about something silly that happened.

Since we're talking about Valentines this week I thought I'd let you in on a little secret: although he's romantic and serious plenty, some of my favorite times with Radio Man (aka, the husband) are marked by our laughter. We're not naturally stand-up-comic type people. Just ordinary. But we get into more silly situations than we probably should...and I think it's a testament that those situations (still) make us laugh until we're about to pee our pants.

A few of our Greatest Hits:

* We were dive-bombed by a flock of mutant flies while he was proposing. At sunset on a beach. Pure romance, lemme tell you.

* At our wedding, our best man had no pants. Seriously. They delivered the tux sans trou. Thankfully, the pants were delivered pre-walking-down-the-aisle.

* My grandma used to call him just to chat. About her bowel and incontenence issues. And sometimes to ask him to pick up a gallon of milk. This began approximately two weeks into our dating.

* While living in Nebraska he decided to ride a bull to impress me to raise money for a charity. But left his keys in his pocket so when he landed...well, lets just say there was a very deep bruise in a very sensitive area for about a week.

* We once had alternating, loud hiccups (he'd hiccup, then me, then him, then me) in a very quiet church service. The harder we tried to hold them in, the louder the hiccups. We left before the minister really got going.

See? If we didn't laugh we'd cry. Or yell and scream and break up. But instead we laugh. I think laughter is one of the great gifts love gives us - the ability to laugh at ourselves, at circumstances or at one another (not in a mean way, in a 'i get it' way). And laughter finds its ways into my favorite books - the books I write and the books I read.

So, to my valentine...here's a little music from probably the best female singer. Ever. Miss Ella Fitzgerald because...well, I still have a little crush on you: