Valentine's Day...Is He Up To It?

Valentine's Day always  reminds me of a play I once saw on Broadway in the late 1980's.  M Butterfly, inspired by Puccini's Madame Butterfly, loosely depicts the affair, in the years before the Vietnam War, between a French diplomat attached to the French Embassy in Peking and an opera singer who is actually a man masquerading as a woman.   Unbeknownst to the diplomat, the singer is a spy for the Chinese government and uses the relationship to extract vital information.   He is sent back to France, divorces his wife, he/she follows, they resume the affair which lasts 20 years before the truth is discovered, he is convicted of treason and kills himself.  Phew, so there you have it in a nutshell...except that it is somewhat based on a true story!

The play has many dimensions and explores the stereotypes that underlie and distort relations between Eastern and Western culture and for the purposes of this post, between men and women.  Something  that I have never forgotten is a soliloquy by John Lithgow who portrays the diplomat, delivered towards the end of the play, explaining how he was fooled for so long .  I can't specifically remember the exact words, but the part that struck me the most went something like this: " She was a man's idea of what the perfect woman should be"  Who better indeed. And by now you are probably wondering what all this has to do with this post! Nothing more than this...

Here's a woman's idea of what her perfect Valentines Day gift should be:

Roses from Bloom, NYC

Everyday I Love You  notebook

from Smython's

Jo Malone Red Roses Cologne

Jo Malone Red Roses Bath Oil

(Oh the possibilities!)

A puppy! (only for a select few...

and you know who you are)

The Tiger Woods Special

You know perfectly well what this is...

now is as good a time as any...

...and make sure there's a full moon!

Now be prepared to give him his idea of what his perfect Valentine's gift should be! I have some suggestions on the next post...stay tuned!