Harmonia: Goddess of Harmony, Balance and Concord (ophios_harmonia) wrote in deities_dot_com, @ 2013-01-06 17:59:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | ~harmonia, ~hermod |
Mistaken Identity, Whoops! [tag: Hermod]
Harmonia was freaking out.
Alright, freaking out might have been the understatement of the century, but she had herself so worked up without anyone to really talk to about it that she was making herself sick. This was how she ended up in San Francisco. She had made the mistake of googling, finally, what Valentine's Day was. When she found it, she read the first few paragraphs of the wikipedia entry and very nearly had a coronary. She didn't even get into the history yet when she stood up and raided Lottie's liquor cabinet, did three shots of tequila because it was the first bottle she saw, and decided she needed to do something that was the polar opposite of what the read in those first few paragraphs.
She went to Alcatraz.
The history was dark, not warm and fuzzy by any stretch of the imagination. So she went on the tour, listened to the stories and tried very hard to not look the article back up on her iPhone while she wandered around the island just to be sure.
Back on the mainland she sort of just moved about aimlessly, now very aware of the underlying theme in some of the stores. Red, pink, white. Apparently once New Years was out of the way the mortals went crazy with this Valentine's Day thing. There were little erotes on a lot of things, some with bows and arrows and Harmonia was confused by the association with her brother. Cupid/Eros, even in his prime, didn't really bum around as a fat baby with wings. The Greek statuary never looked that way. Regardless it was everywhere. The colors, the sentiment, the theme. Her mother and the erotes must have loved this time of year.
Harmonia was less thrilled. Which had far more to do with her not knowing what to do next than anything to do with the holiday itself. She ended up in a dark bar which was in the realm of somewhere between a corner tavern and an obnoxiously loud club. There was music, there were people dressed nice and the atmosphere was dimmed. But it didn't make her long for earplugs. She plunked herself at a corner table that was relatively secluded with a bottle of beer and opened Safari on her iPhone.
Sometimes she just couldn't help herself. Balance searched the article back up, and read the third paragraph at least four times, pausing only to take a drink of beer. It just kept setting off alarms in her head.
The day's association with romantic love grew in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. By the 15th century, it had evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines").[1][3] Valentine's Day symbols that are used today include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have given way to mass-produced greeting cards.[10]