Roses are red...skin should not be

This weekend was Valentine's Day.  It is my least favorite holiday ever.

Ever.

But my sweet N is a bit of a romantic soul and I wanted to make it a special evening for her.  Since we've been on the go so much lately I thought a quiet dinner at home would be exactly what we needed.  I found a recipe for Ropa Vieja and decided to give it a go.  What's the worst thing that could happen?  If it turned out terrible, we would laugh it off and order a pizza.

Well....

I was wrong.

In the middle of prep work, I had a small-ish mishap with a hot pan and some grease that ended with extremely hot grease covering my upper body.  Did I mention that I was wearing a tank top?  I mean, it's December and we don't live in San Diego so any sane person would be in long sleeves.  But my stupid internal thermostat seems to think that it is always 95 degrees so I run around in the least amount of clothing possible.  For the first minute or two, I didn't even realize quite how bad it was.  Then I looked down to see that my arms and chest were turning bright red and beginning to blister.

Thankfully, my sweet friend Sarah was there and she got on the phone with the doctor, got Silvadene called in, and made sure that I was covered in it immediately.  Then she proceeded to load my dishwasher and dig out the aspirin while I laid on the couch trying to convince myself that my skin was not, in fact, melting off.  N got home from work and took over babying me.   We traded our fancy clothes for old pajamas, Channel perfume for medicinal cream.  Our romantic dinner took place on the couch and involved absolutely no candlelight.

But you know what?  This is what life is.  Real life.  Two people getting through an entire lifetime together and realizing that the most important thing is that we were together.  No movie about romance will ever show the lovebirds falling asleep on the couch at 8:30 on Valentine's Day.  But that is exactly what we did and it was glorious.  There will be another day for wine and candles.

Flame-less, battery operated candles.  Just to be safe.

Here's hoping that your Valentine's Day was far less eventful than ours.

Xoxo