Obligatory Valentine’s Day Story

The gals in my class were commenting that more women than men get presents on this day. They insisted that this is the way it should be. Who am I to argue? I was lucky to be in class at all. I've been out sick the last couple of days, and thought I'd risk avoiding the usual "unexcused absence." I'm not sure it was a good idea. "Sal" came over later today, and made a tea from boiling ginger root. It might have worked.

Those for whom today is just another day, may find comfort in a recent editorial by Nancy Gibbs for TIME Magazine:

[T]he idea of 8-year-olds' celebrating a holiday that shimmies into view wearing a negligee does seem odd. But consider the huge commercial stakes... For this we can thank Esther Howland, an entrepreneurial 1847 Mount Holyoke grad, whose father owned a stationery store and who came up with the idea of mass-producing valentines. The Mother of the Valentine never married but did get very rich, racking up annual sales equivalent to more than $2 million today.

It gets better.

(Illustration by Hadley Hooper for TIME. Used without permission or shame.)
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