Proflowers.com is running a special on roses. You can send their Valentine-quality roses for $60 a dozen. Standard roses cost $50 a dozen (I’m not sure of the difference here, except for the price). Delivery is additional. 1-800-Flowers’ prices run up to $110 a dozen if you want a crystal vase. Budget-oriented Kabloom is currently selling a dozen for $40 – no crystal vase, of course. And some of these prices will certainly rise in the next week.
Roses are lovely, no argument here. As I’m writing this, I’m staring at a delectable dozen that my lamb sent for our anniversary. But my mind can’t help but stray into forbidden territory – how we fed into a kind of licensed price-gouging. The idea that the same roses you bought a month ago – or could buy a month from now – are worth twice as much or more just because that particular bloom has become the emblem of a holiday that qualifies and quantifies romance based on how much you are willing to pay to say “I Love You” in long stems, Mylar balloons and banners.
Well, I said enough! Strew rose petals in my bower on the Fourth of July, Halloween and Hanukkah, but find a new name for romance on February 14. Anyway, we’re students, hardworking students, or being helped by hardworking parents, or underpaid staff members. Even Chancellor Gora could probably find a better use for between sixty and a hundred and twenty dollars… so here are some alternative ideas for a romantic and memorable Valentine’s Day.
Roses Without Roses
Have a Rose film festival at home. Watch Titanic and marvel at Kate Winslet’s gutsy, sexy, sparkling heroine, Rose Bukater. Then go with Gypsy, (there are two or three versions available on video) where “Everything’s Coming Up Roses”, and other characters are always sighing, “Ah, Rose…” With Bye Bye Birdie, you get “Spanish Rose” and “Rosie”. Horror movies – did you tape the recent Stephen King miniseries Rose Red? – can bring lovers much closer together. Listen to Guns ‘n Roses – the power ballads, like “November Rain” only. Drink rose wine. Munch candied rose petals. Avoid War of the Roses, a very black comedy about divorce and the death of love.
Rose-Colored Visions
Make your love a homemade scrapbook of pictures and souvenirs of good times of the past, or visions of the future. Press flowers into it, paste invitations and postcards from events that left the happiest of memories. Or give a blank book with the promise that the two of you will fill it together. Make a date and keep it.
My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose
Poetry is, by its nature, romantic. If one of you shies from the flowery, there is much modern poetry that gets the point across without too much chichi language. A carpet picnic with soft music, where you take turns reading poetry to each other and feed each other, as well can be very rewarding.
Roses of the Past
For less than the price of a vase full of roses, the two of you can tour one of Boston’s many museums. The Fogg, in Cambridge, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner, in the Fenway, can be easily managed in one afternoon, and the Museum of Fine Arts, near the Longmeadow medical area requires more time, but is well worth it (a new special exhibit of Impressionist art is coming up that should have enough floral charms for anyone).
Stop And Smell The Roses
Take a walk along the Emerald Necklace. Visit the now-wintry Botanical Gardens, or one of the many neighborhood gardens studded around Boston. Okay, there’s not much there yet, but… help me out here, okay? Use your imagination…
A Final Idea
Cats is on tour again, currently using our own Shubert Theatre as a litter box. Tickets are surprisingly affordable. It’s got nothing to do with roses, but as the ads say, it’s “Now and Forever” – just like love.