Gee, it's gotten boring around here since I haven't had run in's with either a) the law or b) deer. Oh-oh. I think I might have just jinxed the ride home!

"Oh, Man, I do NOT wanna get hit by a flying toilet" The Hub said this morning as we drove down the beltway. I found that perfectly understandable - and also rational, since we were behind a truck with a port-a-potty attached to the back of it....but not real well attached to it. In fact it looked like it was going to break free just about any time. No matter how many deer there are on the back roads, I still feel safer on them than I do on the beltway.

Saturday I really got the blues. I think it has to do with February. I hate February. I've never been able to understand why the month with the least number of days seems so long to me. It's the month when my depression is always at it's worst....

ruling out SAD (seasonal affective disorder) because the days by now are actually getting longer.

Nothing good ever happens in February. There are no holidays, it's nearly impossible to get a day off from work. Except if it snows. If there's going to be a whopping snow strom in this area, February is usually the month for it. It always hits when whatever you have planned to liven the month up is scheduled to happen and cancels it.

And then there's Valentine's Day. You'd think I'd love Valentine's Day. Somebody who really wants to know what IS so funny about peace, love, and understanding should really be into Valentine's Day. Anyone with such a serious chocolate addiction as I have should really look forward to it. Alas, I'm afraid I hate it too.

Though, I admit to liking Groundhog Day. Not because of the groundhog himself. He never has anything new to say - he always predicts six more weeks of winter. I just love it that, for one day, everyone else in America turns the key in the door marked "suspend disbelief" and acts like a ground hog really CAN predict the weather. It's like having a thousand visitors in the world where I live all the time.

But Valentine's Day - nope. Too traumatic. Too many years of being the skinny geeky kid who, if she got any Valentine's at all, got the one with the strange looking monster on it - and, to remove all doubt of the intent - had the pleasant verse scratched out. In ink. And then there's the story of St. Valentine himself, which, while touching, is not exactly uplifting. This is the way the story goes.

Well, okay, this is the way I told the story every year using my one Barbie doll and one Ken doll and a box of kleenex. This story was perfected over years of practice when I lived in the Land That Time Forgot, but I actually took this show on the road when we moved to Cow County, where, for some reason it was a smash hit with the other little girls in the neighborhood.

Actually, I know why. I can remember it vividly. The other girls had TONS of Barbies, all kinds of clothes, props. I could have come up with Wagnerian Opera with all that stuff - and, I'll say this for them, they would gladly loan me anything they had when I was in the mood to "put on a story"

"Don't you want to play a part?" I'd always ask after giving a rough outline of a plot

They'd sit back on their heels. "We'll help you with costume changes" "It's more fun to watch you do the parts." and then, "Before you came, we could never think of anything, and we'd just dress them and undress them."

It was strange. It was like one of those moments in a fable or a morality play where you find out poverty is really wealth. It didn't matter if the only thing I had at hand to use was three bobby pins - I could ALWAYS think of a story. This had never been seen as anything but a hindrance to me learning the multiplication tables before, so I loved my Cow County audience and really pulled out all the stops. But I was so used to making Roman period clothing I wanted out of kleenex and scotch tape that I kept that part up for the St. Valentine story.

Anyway, here follows the Story of St. Valentine as performed by Barbie as the Warden's Daughter, Ken as St. Valentine, and me doing the voices of God and The Warden (in more or less the same voice, since I was only 9) off stage.

ACT 1

St. Valentine ( from the interior of an empty kleenex box facing out through the oval where the tissues came out) He raises his arms, careful not to dislodge his loincloth made of kleenex and scotch tape - THAT would be most unseemly. "Oh, Lord, though I have been imprisoned for worshipping you, I feel sure that I still may do some good! Though a sentance of death is upon my head (to say nothing about his weird sideburns. This was the '70's you know) I will not dispair! I know that You are Love and in Love is Freedom!"

Warden's Daughter, wearing a toga made of kleenex and a rubber band. ( wandering aimlessly in from stage left) "What voice is this speaking of love? What could free me from this prison of blindness?" ( possibly caused by an overdose of blue eyeshadow. Again - 70's)

St. Valentine (aside) "That's the most beautiful woman I have ever seen! ....Ahem, It is I, the lowly Christian prisoner, Valentine."

WD (aside) "That's the most beautiful voice I've ever heard! ...Speak, speak, Valentine! I will follow the sound of your voice. Tell me, what has brought you here to my father's prison?"

St.V. "I am imprisoned with a sentence of death upon my head for no other crime besides worshipping Jesus, the Savior, the son of God! Yet, I have no fear of death, for He is with me!"

WD ( arms outstretched, searching for Valentine) "That's terrible! I've heard that Jesus was a nice person who preached peace, love, and understanding."

St.V. "That's true, and he also rose from the dead" ( Keep in mind here, folks, not only was I 9 - the audience was between 5 and 9)

WD "Wow! I will go speak to my father and ask him to free you!"

ACT 2 Scene 1

WD approaching the side of the kleenex box which has been turned so you can't see the hole "Father, Father, where are you?"

Voice of the Warden: "I am in my secure office where no one can come in lest they see important papers from the Empire!"

WD (approaching the box) "Father, you know that I can't see anything at all"

VOW: "I know it is true. You have never been able to see, and it breaks my heart. Still, I cannot let you in, for in this office are the keys to the fates of men!" ( and besides, I didn't have another Ken doll, and Holly forgot hers)

WD: "I have come to plead with you for the life of one of those men. His name is Valentine."

VOW: gasping in horror "Valentine! No! He is a Christian! Can't you plead for somebody better like a murderer or something?"

WD"Father, Jesus was a nice man who also rose from the dead!"

Scene 2

Interior of the kleenex box, Valentine is praying on his knees "Oh, Lord, though I have only seen her once, the Warden's Daughter is so beautiful and her heart is obviously very pure! Please allow me do something to show her my love for her before I die."

God: "Valentine, you know that the greatest gift you could give her would be faith."

Valentine: "Yes, I know that. I will tell her all about faith and only give her a chaste kiss on the forehead as a token of my honorable love."

.....Oh-oh. Breaks over! Gotta go! ....Hey! If you haven't heard this story before it's a cliff hanger even! Here come the dreaded words

....To Be Continued.....