Do you know what this day is all about? Besides the existence of commercial retail to push material junk on the sexes in the name of emotion… St. Valentine, which is used to mark a reference to several martyred saints of ancient Rome… is in a word, shit.
One of which was a roman empire priest (Valentinus) whom helped prosecute the Christians during the reign of Emperor Claudius II; who would eventually restore the Empire and during that rise he took thousands of prisoners, destroyed the Gothic cavalry as a force and stormed their chariot laager (a circular alignment of battle-wagons long favored by the Goths). The victory earned Claudius his surname of “Gothicus” (conqueror of the Goths). He was eventually imprisoned and beheaded. Sounds like love to me.
It’s also traced back to A bishop of Interamna (modern Terni), who was also beheaded during the period of Claudius II.
The feast of Saint Valentine was formerly celebrated on February 14 by the Roman Catholic Church until a revised calendar was issued in 1969… uh yeah 69, whatever… The feast for such horribly demised figures of the time, may have been an attempt to supersede the pagan holiday of Lupercalia celebrated on February 15. Lupercalia originally began with the sacrifice by the Luperci (or the flamen dialis) of two male goats and a dog. Next two patrician young Luperci were led to the altar, to be anointed on their foreheads with the sacrificial blood, which was wiped off the bloody knife with wool soaked in milk, after which they were expected to smile and laugh; the smearing of the forehead with blood probably refers to human sacrifice originally practiced at the festival.
Yeah I guess you do need a happy day to get over the sacrifice of virgins, unusual use of milk and laughter… hmmm how about a candy heart to perk you up? For this, I am glad our public schools celebrate Valentine’s Day. Teach em’ young!
As you walk up out of the 23rd street station, the flavor of city air changes from the rank humid and stale subway variety to a unique and highly uncommon noise raising mixed aroma of charcoal, beef and spiced sauce. Thousands of people clamored around in Madison Square Park this weekend for the fourth annual 
Unlike previous years, this time around the organizers added a much needed Beer garden, hosting local brew favorite 
This was a trip initiated by my woman for two reasons: To see a good friend of her’s and to check out the Cherry Blossoms bloomin around DC… ahhh boyfriend duties… These are the times when you need that body double right? Well it worked out to be a fun and interesting experiance to say the least. We left Friday afternoon and returned Sunday evening so it was very quick. 
We decided to take the “Chinatown Bus” from NY to DC. This is the cheap bus that runs chinatown to chinatown between the two cities. It cost was $35 a person round trip with a company called Apex (I’m not even going to link them and you’ll find out why). It was a mad dash to get to the Manhattan bridge on Friday because our NY taxi took us on the real estate tour of LES and Chinatown, pointing out the empty retail spaces we all could use to start businesses. We ended up running on the bus 5 till four and getting the last pair of seats together on the bus… near the bathroom with the broken door. I won’t go into nausiating details of the smell we had to endour for this trip. 
Jodi lives in Dupont Circle area of Washington DC. Which if you’re not familiar with DC, this is similar to the Castro district in SF, Chelsea area of NYC, Hillcrest of San Diego, South Florida well I hope you get the general picture… Dancing was on the menu for the evening and so was having my ass grabbed apparently … so getting stupid drunk was on my menu. We headed to the local spot – Cobalt. Lucky us, it just happens to be a blow out party for them with a 3 yr anniversary party running all weekend. Friday was Heaven and Sat was hell night. I snapped a few good shots, in between taking down some stiff Greygoose and crans… Friday night was a sore one as I woke with serious head trama from the vodka. 
However, the last fun story we have is the ride home. This I will always remember and another reason that justifies the saying “You get what you pay for” So with the China bus home, we arrive half hour before our departure time, and the bus was late…by 2 hours… we were stuck in the sun till 3 PM until we left DC. On the way I notice something irritating the driver (being in the 2nd to the front seat, and having that knowledge of bus driving from riding the yellow bus to school for 10 years). Half hour outside DC we started picking up speed and a few minutes later we were not slowing down… literally… we started down a hill and as the traffic started to back up, our driver started pumping the breaks… nothing… no squeal or slowing of this metal boat on wheels. He started to vier off the highway onto the sloped median – I also notice some cars starting to swerve to the right as they too noticed a giant bus barreling down the hill at record speeds… As the bus started to catch gravel and grass on the side, the breaks slowly kicked in and we were able to slow enough to avoid the stopped cars and the drive succeeded in not tipping the bus over the median… whew! Well as you might expect the bus to pull over because there was an obvious problem… um no. He decides to call into headquarters and let them know “we are heading back for a break adjustment”!!! 
Everyone seems to be on edge they are traveling on a bus with out breaks (as am I) and the driver continues on as if this is a regular occurrence! Needless to say we make it as far back as Maryland and wait another hour while the breaks are “adjusted” before heading back on our way… Not making it back into the city until after 8, I was thankful to see the sun setting over familiar sky… I’d do it again… maybe I’ll just rent a car next time. ;)