For Valentine’s Day this year, I got the best gifts: a single white rose, and a new dishwasher. I realize I sound like a major housewife here, but ours had been broken for six weeks, and, spoiled by modern conveniences as I am, I did not fully realize how many hours of my day would be devoted to dishwashing without it. Especially with all three of us at home all the time. And Mikhail with a still-not-fully functional thumb that causes him to drop wet, slippery things and potentially break them. Mikhail and my dad installed the dishwasher most of the way themselves, then a contractor-friend came out to help Mikhail sand down the iron countertop-rail to make it fit.