I've been watching the commercials designed to drive millions of innocent human beings insane, or at the very least break already inconsolable hearts. Do you know what I'm talking about? People's Jeweller's. Hallmark Cards. Valentine's Day.

What should be the sweetest day of the year has turned strong men into babbling eunuchs and gentle women into acquisitive heat seeking missiles.

My Mom and Dad had their very first date on Valentine's Day over 50 years ago. I can picture it. My Dad, a handsome man still, must have been decked out in his spiffest outfit and maybe some blue suede shoes. He would have walked up to the door where my Mom lived with her aunt and uncle and stood there trembling with a red, heart shaped box of chocolates in his hands. The door would have been opened by a stunningly beautiful young girl with stars in her eyes and a gorgeous smile. As he handed her the sweet offering, fate joined their hearts. My Dad offered a 50 cent box of chocolates to a girl who made his heart sing and his own true self as the real gift.

My Mom has that box to this day. And my Dad.

Where has the sweetness in romance gone? Does a ring reduced from $1099.00 to $399.00 say I love you? Or does it say, I'm afraid of what you'll do to me if I don't buy it for you? Why does Hallmark get to say what's written on your heart for upwards of $7.99?

So if you don't get the ring does that make you less of a man or a woman? Has the hype made you forget that like Christmas, Valentine's Day can be every day, in so many ways. "Action without love is meaningless, and love without action is irrelevant." This elegant quote serves to remind us that you have the chance every day to offer a sincere happy moment to someone.

I know what I would do. I'd get up early, print that impossibly beautiful picture, make some fresh brewed coffee and snuggle back into bed with a couple of cups and whisper, wake up honey....I want to give you this road and I want to go with you. I want you to see the beauty that I see. I want the wind at our backs and the sun in our eyes. I want to stop in a meadow and love you in the grass. I want to give you this gift because I cherish your dreams.

My sweetie would crack one eye open and mumble, yah, but are you gonna make sandwiches for the trip?

A gift, offered with love and received with hope. And it wouldn't cost a thing.

Don't get me wrong. I love jewels as much as the next girl. But I would love my love more....and if his hands were empty, I'd fill them with mine.

So leave your VISA at home on the 14th and offer the road.

"Do you want to be the statue or the bird?"

I read that neat little piece of sophistry the other day and my inclination is to say the statue only because I don't like the idea of pooping my way to glory. When I land on someone I hope to leave them smelling a little sweeter for my having been there. Being a statue however keeps you steady, standing, still.
What's to choose from?

I signed up for an ecourse entitled, "The Pathway to Prosperity". A man named F.W Sears wrote a book in 1914 called "How to Attract Success". Here's a bit of his philosophy......"the true law of success is....the law of harmonious attraction. Under this law, things come to us because they want to come and not because we make them come; they remain with us because they want to do so. Instead of working to control the other fellow, we learn to control ourselves and become so strong, powerful and harmonious in our attractive power that the things we want will want us so much that they cannot stay away."

Way to be a statue F.W.

So let's say I'm a statue, and because this is my fantasy I can make myself breathtakingly beautiful with a sweet and compelling smile etched onto my features. My hands are carved open and in a beseeching gesture; gold leaf covers me from head to toe and buffed to a brilliant shine. I stand there in all my attractiveness, but I don't believe it was success that plopped onto my head; I believe it was last night's dinner deposited by that go-getter dude with wings.

So now I'm the bird. I'm a hawk. My wings cut through the air and far below I spot....dinner. For the sake of my analogy, dinner is a mouse. My eyes never leave my prey and with a powerful and single-minded thrust I slam to the earth and that hapless mouse is mine. I tear him apart with beak and talon. Satiated and full of myself, I take off for a post dinner turn in the park and crap on the shiny golden statue standing there.

I know people like the statue and people like the bird. The statues are never going to get what they want out of life. The birds might, but then there's another law as old as the one of harmonious attraction; the law of karma.

No wonder sophistry was condemned by Plato. You can't answer the question without going a little crazy.