Richard didn’t get home until late last night. So I talked my mom into going to dinner with me, and we split a pizza and then a slice of mud pie because, after all, it was Valentine’s Day and our respective sweethearts were out of town (or in her case, out of the country).

Today has been the usual mix of busy and slow for a Sunday. The instrumental ensemble played in church today, which meant that I had to be there early to lead the practice (And can I note right now how glad I am that my dad will be back next month to take this over and I no longer have to worry about it?). I led a rather abbreviated class on Harry Potter because I think all the usual class members decided to sleep in instead of showing up early for Sunday school, and then after church three of us from choir gathered around the piano in a desperate attempt to nail down the song we'll be singing next week at the Robert Burns dinner (because one time eating haggis this year simply was not enough).

We actually did our Valentine’s Day celebration (such as it is – neither of us is really into making a big fuss over a holiday inspired by the greeting card and floral industries) by trying out the new fondue restaurant in Sacramento. I’d been to La Fondue in Saratoga twice and had been wistfully dreaming of repeating the experience, but alas, La Fondue is not a chain. However, a quick Google search turned up the Melting Pot, which may be a chain, but there was fondue involved so we really did not care. They seated us in a tiny little two-person alcove and fed us melted cheese which we could not finish and then gave us herbed broth in which to cook a massive amount of meat that we could not finish, and then finished off the evening with a combination of chocolate and caramel and pecans which we did finish because there was no way either of us was willing to let perfectly good chocolate go to waste. One must have one’s priorities, after all, even if that involves eating the remaining dregs of chocolate directly from the pot with the stirring spoon because one has run out of dipping food.

Finding parking was a challenge, but then that’s always the case in downtown Sacramento. In the spirit of cheese and chocolate, however, we threw caution to the wind and took our chances on getting a parking ticket by parking in a one-hour spot. Luckily the gods were smiling on us and our car was ticket free by the time we emerged from our dinner two hours later.

It started raining this afternoon and has steadily gotten drearier and grey outside, which I think means that tomorrow will be a lovely day to stay indoors and do nothing remotely productive, just to celebrate having an extra day at home to try to digest all the cheese and meat and chocolate that we did manage to eat.