Fat Tuesday pancakes are imminent.

In twelve days it will be March and it feels like we just had Christmas and late last week I ate a big silly hummus platter with a salad-eating friend and we reminisced about attending several Love Sucks parties during our college days. It was the 90s and we wore black and gathered at our normal gathering place where we drank cheap beer and celebrated the fact that having a date on St. Valentine’s Day does not make a person interesting or beautiful. The Love Sucks party attendees were ALL interesting and beautiful. Some were adorned with Christmas lights. Some handed out bad poetry on tiny sheets of paper. Some Love Sucks revelers hooked up with other Love Sucks revelers and eventually decided that love doesn’t suck so much at all.

On Saturday afternoon, we celebrated St. Valentine’s Day by inviting both sets of in-laws over for lunch. It was a nice gathering, despite the fact that 78% of the conversation circled around death and illness and how difficult it can be to walk or sit. These conversations always leave me feeling tired and mortal and in twelve days it will be March and it feels like we just had Christmas. Tomorrow my kids will be writing poetry on tiny sheets of paper and I’ll be fighting the inclination to sing songs about the dead people I know and how my bones won’t stop breaking despite all the life-saving chemicals I’m tossing down my throat.

The highlight of the weekend (other than receiving a huge cardboard heart filled with peanut butter cups that I finished off in less than 24 hours) was the craft party that Meredith and I attended on Sunday evening. Seven girls and their moms gathered at 5:00 for dinner, and afterwards each girl presented a craft for the other girls to make. They created decoupage candles, glow in the dark jars, beaded bracelets, cord bracelets, sun catchers, bath salts, and cherry blossom paintings. While the girls were crafting, the moms were hanging out and drawing Zentangles and friendifying each other and despite the fact that my anxiety can reach dangerous levels if I don’t have an end time in mind for each and every social gathering, Sunday evening’s party was perfect. We loved it.

We were all home yesterday and because the house was fairly clean and the snow wasn’t allowing us to drive, I finished the mitten that I started during Saturday’s in-law lunch.

I’ve been knitting like crazy lately, mainly because it’s the time of year that lends itself well to sitting on the couch and wrapping yarn around needles. Also, I don’t have a freelance job right now and I don’t feel like doing abdominal crunches. Knitting it is. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>