February has been my least favorite month for as long as I can remember. I can look back on my life and point out a million bad things that have happened on chilly February days. At the dawn of February 1st every year, I wake with a sinking feeling in my stomach and an impending sense of doom.  By my early twenties, I found myself completely cynical of the entire idea of Valentine’s Day– and not just the romantic part of it. I wanted nothing to do with the hearts, the candy, the pink and red signs. It was all a gimmick to get people into candle-lit restaurants on a…

When I was fourteen, my grandmother made all the girls in our family get dressed up and attend a high tea. We squeezed into some random lady’s tea room in the suburbs of Illinois and wore oversized hats the shop owner provided. My grandmother oversaw the menu and frowned in disapproval when the hostess put her own spin on the classic high tea dishes. It was two hours of pouring tea from mismatched pots and talking about whether we liked our scones with or without clotted cream.  It was long, it was tedious, and it was the most incredible thing I had ever experienced.  My grandmother- along with the entire…