Happy Valentine's Day

I’ve never liked Valentine’s Day. A holiday manufactured by retailers and often all it does is mock single people. But this year, my Mom was in town and we could go out. Kid Free for a nice romantic evening. Any excuse to actually go out, I’m down. So my wife thought we should go out for dinner and a movie, our favorite date since our early twenties.

But then I did some research and saw that my favorite play was being performed in Santa Monica: Macbeth. I asked my wife if she wanted to see it on Valentine’s Day. She coyly replied that it wasn’t very romantic, it being Valentine’s Day and all. “Doesn’t he get beheaded in the end?”

Okay, so maybe it’s not what you call a light play, but it explores human nature, unbridled ambition, and doing horrible things to obtain power. It explores questions about free will and destiny, and if we really are masters of our will, or just hurdling towards a preordained prophecy, regardless of our actions or how much we try and fight it. What could be more romantic than that?

So we had an amazing two hour dinner at Le Petit Restaurant and then sadly missed the last showing of Slumdog Millionaire. But it was fine. We enjoyed ourselves and for the first time I really didn’t mind being manipulated by a commercially manufactured holiday. We had a little wine and before you knew it I was saying to the waiter, "Lay on, Macduff, And damned be him that first cries: Hold, enough!" My wife just told me to sit down and finish my cobbler.