It may be cold outside, but Dulcinea and I are in a hot frenzy getting ready for Valentine’s Day. Though we don’t take the holiday particularly seriously, we do have our little household traditions: heart-shaped waffles for breakfast, lots of red garishly mixed with pink. Dulcinea gets a taste of strawberry rhubarb yogurt as a special treat.

Typical for us, we’ve selected practical gifts for the holiday, by which I mean a complicated new camera and a bunch of superhero postage stamps.

I needed just a few extra things to supplement my husband’s vigilante valentine, so off I went in search of tea, wearing my sparkly new Valentine’s Day bracelet. (The bracelet’s a gift from The General, who is 89 this month and has all the worldly wisdom you might expect. “Girl,” he said recently, “when an old man offers to buy you jewelry, always say yes.” Excellent advice.)

En route to the tea house, I started thinking about yarn, resulting in a not-entirely-unexpected detour. When I got to the yarn shop, Johan the Collie was there to say hello. Johan’s full name is Johan Sebastian Bark, but he’s remarkably quiet and well-behaved. That is to say, there was no barking at all. I have to tell you Dulcinea wouldn’t last five minutes in a yarn shop.

I searched for buttons to match the new Cahoots cardigan I’m knitting, which is one sleeve and a few buttonholes away from being done.

Then I bought five skeins of this pretty Malabrigo silky merino. Like I need more yarn. Wasn’t I supposed to be searching for tea?

At which point I realized I’d been away from my puppy and my kitties for far too long. Time to get home and make the blackberry tart. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!