My Valentine weekend would have been mostly charmed, had it not been for the bad and ugly, but that will wait. First, the good:

My girl and I took a road trip to Philadelphia. We went to this amazing bakery called Vegan Treats. According to her, it was located in a “suburb” of Philly. Note to all you Pennsylvania neophytes—80 miles is a bit far for a town to be considered a “suburb”. Anyway, we ate cake for breakfast!!!

After the sugarfest we made our way into the city proper and wandered around South Street for a while. We got spicy chai at a tiny Moroccan cafe and really good Syrah at a wine bar. Then we went to dinner at Horizons, which was the best food I’ve ever had in my life!

The menu:
Saffron Tomato Bisque with smoked foccacia croutons and a roasted eggplant “dumpling”
Wild Mushroom Crepe with creamy truffle sauce, golden beet tartare, and seaweed caviar
Baked Seitan Terrine with dijon glaze, potato chive crust and red wine sauce
Pan Seared Tofu Hanalei with hearts of palm and lomi tomato salad and warm lemongrass butter
Chocolate Covered Red Velvet Cake with lemon-vanilla bean ganache and toasted coconut

My camera didn’t really do the food justice because of the sexy lighting but here are a few shots:

Now onto the bad and ugly: Friday night we noticed our furnace was making funny noises. It kept turning on and immediately switching off. We called an HVAC service. The HVAC guy said the off/on issue was the result of a dirty sensor (which he cleaned) but then he said it looked like we had a broken seal on our furnace that could cause carbon monoxide leakage. He said repairing the problem would cost almost as much as a new furance.  He also said he’d have to rip out the dry wall to repair or replace the furnace since it was in a closet. Then (unbeknownst to us) he turned the gas off to the heater so we had no heat.

Amid a lot of cursing and bitching, my girl insisted we call another HVAC guy to get a second opinion because she wanted to make sure this was a legit issue and she was not about to go two months with no #&!#% heat!!! At least our cat Oliver gave us a lot of cuddles. When the house is 30 degrees he gets very affectionate.

The second HVAC tech took apart our furnace (thankfully leaving our drywall intact) and told us all the heat exchanger seals were fine and the  only problem we had was that the gas was disconnected. He said the dirty sensor may have been an issue but it wasn’t now and our furnace is fine. So it cost $400 to pretty much find out nothing was wrong with our furnace that a little soap and water wouldn’t cure. Ouch! At least we don’t need a new furnace, so I won’t have to sell my kidney or anything.

Also, my girl got me this for Valentine’s Day:

No, we don’t have a new cat (yet). What she did was sponsor a kitty in my name at the MDSPCA. We aren’t quite ready for a new kitty in our family yet, so sponsoring a little guy at our local shelter was the next best thing.

Oh, and I designed two new shirts this past weekend: