02F90: ⭕️Valentine's Night

Combining Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day themes into a single event may not sound very intuitive, but I knew O Bar would pull it off. Thus, we had an interesting mix of dragon dancers chasing away bad luck at the bar, but also many, many songs about love. And while we didn't have a full table for the night, we still a lot of fun with the people who managed to make time to join us. 

We had also made sure to prepare Valentine's Day gifts for the performers as well - part of our seemingly expanding efforts to show our appreciation for all their hard work. The traditional gift for Valentine's Day tends to involve sweets and flowers, so we focused on a variety of treats for everyone. This included chocolates for the Divas, coffee for the boys, and ginger candies for the singers. 

This year, the O Boys prepared some rather special gifts as their Valentine's Day gift to us. More than anyone else in our shared life, the O Boys always find unique ways to help celebrate events like this. And this year, the gift was very personal and, quite frankly, nearly brought me to tears. It goes without saying that we know all the performers appreciate the little ways we try to support everyone, and sometimes they let us know this more directly.  But the lengthy message that defined this gift was...a lot. There's a lot of love all around, for sure.

I've been going to O Bar with Tobie for pretty much the 17 years that we've started spending time together, and we've developed a special relationship with everyone involved with what makes O Bar such a unique establishment. But, admittedly, the O Boys have been the most concrete or perhaps more demonstrative of their appreciation. They've added something special to many of our birthday celebrations at O Bar, and more and more it feels like it only makes sense that any special occasion needs to include them somehow. It's everything from being able to celebrate great shows where they get to showcase their talents or share in their troubles and see if we can give advice or help out in our own way. It's just how much they mean to us, moreso in recent years. 

We often talk about O Bar being like family to us, and the O Boys stand out as one of the pillars that hold up that statement to be true. We invest a lot of time into O Bar, perhaps more than most. But we do note how much the boys try to invest in us in return, even if it means little things like always stopping by our table after the show so we can take a group picture with everyone. It's the sort of thing you do when you're together with close friends and family after all.

So again, Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! There are many forms and shapes of love, and I hope you all took time to celebrate the love that matters most in our lives.