Valentine's Day in PA

If one of the reasons for my blog is to tell about the differences between Texas and here, I have to mention the Valentine's Day restaurant phenomenon. In Texas, we never ever went out on Valentine's Day because a) reservations were impossible to get and b) all the nice restaurants had special Valentine's Day menus. This meant that it cost twice as much to go out on Valentine's Day than any other day. I am reminded of the story I was once told of a gas station owner outside of Salt Lake (sort of a last chance-type location) who used to charge a lot more for cigarettes than the gas stations in the city. When he was asked why he charged so much more he said, "I make more." Obviously, the restaurant managers in Denton have figured out that people will fill their restaurants on Valentine's Day and that if they charge more, they make more. I've mentioned this to several people here and they were all shocked! Just something they don't do around here. But the stores get into the gift giving and flowers and stuff. And as I came in the door of the Weis grocery store, they were hand-dipping strawberries to order. Pretty good marketing. They also had huge Delmonico steaks in a case near the front door. They were butterflied! Michael wondered if they were for stuffing with crab or lobster. In newspaper ads I noticed that crab and lobster are very Valentine's Day appropriate. It is nice living close to the Atlantic!

I'm in physical therapy as of Wednesday for some leg pain I've been having which is actually caused by lower back problems. The doctor and the PT say it's not serious based on my reflexes etc. But my activities are much reduced. And the PT asked me to avoid climbing stairs often. I laughed! The bathroom is upstairs, the laundry and kitchen are downstairs, the bedroom and computer room are upstairs, the television is downstairs, the books are upstairs, the CDs and DVDs are downstairs. You get the picture. Michael says I should carry a little backpack with essentials to avoid going up and down the stairs. I just can't seem to get healthy here in PA. If it's not one thing, it's another. I'm plenty frustrated.

In spite of my limitations, I did make us a Valentine's Day dinner yesterday. We were going out to dinner last night and would have done it today but we had a last-minute appointment (which was canceled, of course). So only one nice dinner this weekend instead of two. I tried to copy a dish I loved in a Denton restaurant, Veal Francaise. It came out rather nicely. And we had fettucine and salad and I dipped some strawberries in that easy microwaveable stuff you buy in the produce department. The best I could do with limited standing up time. It worked out well, considering.