As the rest of the world began swooning over red roses and candy hearts, Stanford campus swarmed with Secret Service, military helicopters, CEO's of banks and technology companies, and President Obama, all here for a cybersecurity summit (which resulted in him signing off on an executive order on the same stage that I've seen less-than-professional shenanigans play out). Valentine's Weekend, Schmalentine's Weekend. It was all about them presidential figures 'round these nerdy parts.
Campus was abuzz (overheard: "––the net worth of everyone sitting in that auditorium, though..."), all was sunny, and so began a long and beautiful weekend of tanning whilst watching softball games, ordering in sushi and making chocolate milkshakes, smuggling Malibu and Cokes into 50 Shades of Grey, In-N-Out runs, pausing Midnight In Paris to make butterscotch mousse and then forgetting to turn it back on at all, consignment shopping and brunching indulgently, aaaaaand, a grand finale of gathering goodies at Trader Joe's for a sunset picnic, complete with mochi ice cream and brie and honeyed chevre and Toblerone and cranberry wine and sparkling pink lemonade, with my favorite 360 view of campus and my very best friend.
AND SO NOW YOU SEE why normal weekends simply don't live up anymore. Give a girl a taste of this long weekend fanciness, and she'll never be happy with simple Sunday night Domino's delivery ever again. Well, false. But something like that.
