Happy Valentine's Day!

In the Catholic church, today, 14 February, was designated the Feast of Saint Valentine, by Pope Gelasiuis I, around the year 496.  However, 15 February was the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia, which was an annual fertility celebration.  Which St. Valentine Pope Gelasius I  wished to honor is unknown.  According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, there were at least three early Christian saints with that name; and, strangely, all three were said to have been martyred on February 14.  The first known Valentine was a priest in Rome, the second was a Bishop in Terni, and all that is known of the third is that he met his death in Africa.  Maybe Gelasius wanted his followers to pick one of the triad?
   Geoffrey Chaucer was the first author known to link romantic love and St. Valentine's Day - and that was in poetry celebrating birds that mated for life, back around 1380.  Hmmmm...   Did earlier people realize how frail and false the human flesh was?  We cannot trace romantic love and St. Valentine's Day back to the Age of Chivalry; that Code of Conduct was established between 1170 and 1220.
    So why do we celebrate "romantic love," as human beings?  For dreams and seemingly wonderful fairy tales?

   In any event, I wish all of my readers a very happy Valentine's Day !

Books, Horses and Weather

The weather folks say tonight will be good for cuddling - I'll cuddle with my two cats. It's still below freezing outside, and snow is expected shortly after noon. I went to the store and got a few days' supply of cat food and soup, hoping that we'll get more than the 2 inches of snow predicted. I currently have Ice Station Zebra playing on the TV, and both kits are inside. Nedi is in the top of the cat tree, while Lovey is curled up in the afghan at the foot of the bed. The clouds look forbidding to the east, but there's blue sky to the west...
  Racing star Rachel Alexandra produced her second foal about 2:30 Tuesday morning - a filly by Bernardini, who weighed in at 140 pounds. The foal is on a nurse mare, as Rachel A is in serious condition at the Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital. She has had surgery to repair bruising in her small intestine, which occurred during foaling. Last year, she was at R & R for three days for "pain management" after giving birth to Jess's Dream, a colt by Curlin. I certainly hope that the lady makes it. She was a fantastic racer, with a huge heart. .... Waiting for news of Zenyatta and her second foal this spring. ..... Eblouissante, Zenyatta's half-sister, has been pointed at the March 16th Santa Margarita, but she is recovering from a foot bruise and may not make the race. She has won both of her previous races handily.
  I finished my library books last night and am ready to start back into the next 4 books of the Chronicles of Camulod by Jack Whyte. I thoroughly enjoyed Christopher Fowler's latest Peculiar Crimes Unit mystery. And, if I had my way, everyone who is eligible to vote in the next Presidential election should be required to read Sneaky Pie for President by Rita Mae Brown. It is a fantastic book, well worth the time it takes to read, quite funny and, again, sad in places. However, it's a fantastic read, all in all. I'd rate it a 10 out of 10.
  Happy Valentine's Day to every one who reads this. I hope you have someone to love, and who loves you.

Valentine's Day 2011

It's odd how the addition of a word can completely change one's viewpoint. For me, Valentine's Day is the day to celebrate love; the idea which was first introduced by Chaucer and his circle at the English court, to promote the idea of romantic love, and not just sex. I can remember good and bad Valentine's Days - getting a card from someone who I had a crush on, getting messages from my girl friends, and, sometimes, not receiving a card from someone. My parents always made much of the day - Dad would always give Mom flowers and a gift, and Mom would cook one of Dad's favorite meals. My husband and I celebrated by doing a lot of little special things for each other...

But add the word "Saint" to Valentine's Day, and I think of several different things. There are 14 Saints named Valentine that the Catholics revere - the three main Saints named Valentine were all martyrs for the Church. Most people know of the "original" Saint Valentine, who was a Christian priest in Rome: he married Christian couples and preached God's love. He was brought before the Roman Emperor Claudius (II) Gothicus, who found that he actually liked the man. Valentine lived with the Emperor for some time, but then tried to convert Claudius to Christianity. He was sentenced to be stoned to death. When he failed to die from the public stoning, he was beheaded. This happened between 269 and 273 in Rome. - But what seems to immediately spring into my mind, when someone says Saint Valentine's Day, is the follow-up word of "Massacre." Eighty-two years ago today, the Massacre occurred in Chicago, on the North side of town. At that time, Prohibition was an on-going joke and the two main gangs in Chicago were Al Capone's South side Italians, and Bugs Moran's North side Irish gang. On the 14th of February, several witnesses saw 7 men being taken into a garage by a group of men. The men who seemed to be in charge were two men wearing Crestview Police uniforms, and several other men wearing long coats known as dusters. The seven men who were taken into the garage were five members of Bugs Moran's gang, plus two non-members. They were shot down in a hail of machine gun bullets. When others arrived, Frank Gusenberg, who had 14 bullet holes in his body, was asked, "Who shot you?" Gusenberg, a member of the Moran gang, said, "Nobody shot me." What an idiot!

In any event, today is a day to do something special for the one you love. I've spent the morning with Lucy, and will soon walk Rosie and Remy. After cleaning the house, to remove traces of my residence, I'll return home to Lovey and Nedi. My time with them this afternoon and evening will be my Valentine's gift to myself. (And watching IBM's Watson computer on Jeopardy! will also make the day.)