Here in the US, this past weekend was a major event for lots of folks. Sunday was the Super Bowl, which football fans watch for the game and lots of others watch for the innovative commercials and the halftime show. It’s a long period of time so there tends to be be lots of snacking with chips and dip and wings and pizza and beer and such. Some people are binging on winter Olympic viewing, instead of or in addition to the Super Bowl. Many people also moved their celebration of Valentine’s Day to the weekend, encouraged by restaurants who are still trying to re-build their business as the pandemic (maybe) winds down or, at least, this most recent wave.
Things were pretty quiet at our house, though.
We aren’t big football fans. We have only been watching limited amounts of the Olympics, mostly figure skating, and often via DVR so we can watch the events without all the ads and commentary. I admit that I usually watch more Olympic coverage but the complications of Chinese politics and the bizarre participation of Russia with the doping problem still hanging over them make me less enthused about these particular games. The threat of Russia to Ukraine is also casting a pall, especially since Russia has previously used the time of the Olympics to take military action, hoping the world was too preoccupied to notice.
We did observe Valentine’s Day, but quietly at home and on Monday instead of over the weekend. As I am at a point in my grief process where planning celebrations is still difficult, spouse B did the lion’s share of the work, with daughter T contributing thoughtful cards and candles for the table. I did bring home a pot of mini-daffodils and some dairy-free chocolate for B and T, a token nod to the tradition of flowers and chocolate for Valentine’s Day.
B planned and executed a lovely dinner for the three of us. He made individual Beef Wellington with mushrooms rather pâté, served with fresh sautéed green beans. For dessert, he made white chocolate mousse, which was rich and delicious. He chose that because I can no longer eat cocoa but still enjoy the luxurious melt-in-your-mouth-ness of cocoa butter.
A sweet and quiet Valentine’s Day suits me.
Thanks to B, it was what we were able to celebrate.
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Top of JC's Mind 
I was surprised to find the poem “love is more thicker than forget” in the Valentine’s Day Dear Annie column along with some other love poems. If there is anything every student ever learned about the poet (ee cummings) it is that his name must always be all written in all lower case. In this situation however it was printed E. E. Cummings, exactly the same style. as the other poet names in the column. Hummm does that mean that the rules of the Newspaper’s official Style has presidence over the person’s own established way of writing his name? That probably is so, I thought, as I’m sure people whose names include some sort of letter which does not occure in the type of that publication, have to expect that.. But what about the title, then.
I began to check it out, and discovered that at least part of his work had recently come out of Copywrite, so anyone can use it without particular permission, but does that give one rights to alteration? And then I investigated the covers of his earliest books of poetry and found it printed W. W. Cummings. So I guess I’ll do what ever I want, and it will probably become Commings or Commins, both of which were common names where I come from – and where there is never a U involved.
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I think that poets and people who study literature will still use lower case as he did. I wonder if the capitalization was not the result of the style guide and more that whatever digital tool was being used automatically capitalizes proper names/initials and no one bothered to override it.
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