Friday: Valentine's Day Weekend, The LA Marathon & Friends

It's Friday!!!! Love seems to be in the air everywhere this last week making it one of the reasons it's a special weekend. It's Valentine's Day weekend!! There are balloons, red colored candy, and flower specials everywhere reminding us/me that we need to tell that special someone we care about them and appreciate all that they do for us...ya know...let them know they're special. In light of it, I will be sharing a few activities this weekend with some of my single friends and do fun things like watch Zoolander 2 or Deadpool, grill-out, laugh some, drive one of my buddy's Mclaren's to a car show in town, and a couple of us are going to watch this year's LA Marathon!! 

Yes, it's the other major reason the weekend is special. I will not be running it as I had hoped to because of the date change (one month earlier due to the extreme heat hazard last year) and because I ended up with some sciatic pain training for it (Too much too soon.) I guess I needed a running partner to help keep my strides shorter, even and manageable! Hahaha. So, please allow me to entertain you (or maybe not) with another weekly review of  Rants from a Midwest Guy In The Land of Milk and Honey!

Hallmark has created most of its legacy out of cards, gifts, and everything imaginable because we need help as people to remember 'to remember' there are people contributing to what we know of as our life. Even the people that we don't have a close friendship/relationship with like the barista at your local coffee spot or bartender at your routine bar is someone that contributes to your life. They understand you have a busy life and may not always remember them, but your job is to appreciate the impact they're having on your life (..if not with gratuity) and acknowledge them as human beings even if it really is their job is to make you feel welcome. 

The other people...the special ones in our lives that make our heart speed up or skip a beat..these are the people that hopefully you've been letting know all along that they count because you couldn't rest not knowing they're O.K. because he or she, 'completes you...,' as Tom Cruise said in Jerry McGuire. Everyone communicates and gives love a little differently, and sometimes you have to take the time to understand, if it's not obvious to you, how your significant other does it as well as how you do. If you're anything like me, I'm a mess like Bowie and his China Girl! 

Some people are gift givers. Others like to perform 'acts' of affection for you like cleaning your car or help you get things done on your list of things. A lot of people need to hear a verbal affirmation from you that you're thinking of them. I guess that's a touchy one, but as long as you don't feel you're dating the Wham girl or guy from Everything She Wants, taking a little bit of time to get it more right than not is key to more happiness and long-term love stability. It's almost rocket science with some people, but with a little bit of 'open' talk, you maybe able to work a few miracles.

If you are a little less of a romantic and need the Hallmark reminders, I guess it's a good time to go all out!! Get some flowers, consider a nicer place to enjoy a meal, or maybe take the time to find an appropriate type of chocolate that they like. You never know now and days. We all like to pretend we're stoic and that these types of days can just come and go and not tell us something, but you and me both know, it's so much nicer when even little things are done to show us gratitude or affection. And when a partner's affection rains down on us like a monsoon, suck it up! Enjoy it. Appreciate it just a little more cause you never know...this may be the time that you need it or they need to hear it, see it or experience your affection whatever way you choose to do it. 

It wasn't too long ago I put up signs to show a woman that I wasn't even involved with officially anymore that she still counted to me. Yup. I put up bright neon color signs lining the Santa Monica Blvd essentially stating our time mattered as much as she had. Today, I would settle for playing WHAM's Careless Whisper on an old school boom box  in a parking lot outside of the woman that matters to me now...even in this late hour as a romantic gesture. Hahahaha! I guess I'm a hopeful romantic and optimist when it comes to some things and some people in life considering how mine has gone thus far. Enjoy your weekend and have some fun, and remember to smile just a little bit more because someone thinking of you!! Below are the lyrics to an old Bob Dylan song that Adele took up.

When the evening shadows and the stars appear

And there is no one there to dry your tears

I could hold you for a million years

To make you feel my love

I know you haven't made your mind up yet

But I would never do you wrong

I've known it from the moment that we met

no doubt in my mind were you belong

I'd go hungry, I'd go black and blue

I'd go crawling down the avenue

No, there's nothing that I wouldn't do

To make you feel my love

The storms are raging on the rolling sea

And on the highway of regret

The winds of change are blowing wild and free

You ain't seen nothing like me yet

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true

Nothing that I wouldn't do

Go to the ends of the Earth for you

To make you feel my love

To make you feel my love

Dylan 

 #GetAdjustedToTheGoodLife #Whatismissinginthispicture #Californiadreaming