For my final 'photo-op' of this latest 'sweeps month' (February, 2015), I have the second of two digital pictures of yours truly, in celebration of Valentine's Day (despite my tardiness)...

This time, the snapshot of moi was taken at the February 11, 2015 meeting of Scrabble Club 276 (at Veteran's Park) in Lauderhill, Florida. Once again, club president Sandee Bloom offered a prize that night to the player who comes up with the best word associated with Valentine's Day (during the first two games). All members attending would decide the winning word by a 'majority rule' vote...

In Game One, I came up with the word 'LOVERS', and in Game Two, I had produced my longest word submission to date: 'NESTLING' (which was also a 'bingo' word - earning me 50 bonus points, along with the word's regular score of 10 points, for a total of 60 points altogether). But when the voting was done, 'LOVERS' was the overall winning word (as over 75% of the attendees chose it)!

My Valentine's Day prize this year was a set of three red candles in three unique shapes: a heart (naturally), an X and an O - representing the phrase "love and kisses". And, as usual, Sandee took a digital picture of me with said prize - which I'm sharing with all of you...

Now, I know what some of you are thinking: This is "Throwback Thursday", but this 'photo-op' was taken just two weeks ago. What's so nostalgic about it?

Well, for this pre-Valentine's Day meeting, I chose to wear a 'Pepe Le Pew' T-shirt and matching cap (the visor of which, unfortunately, obscures your view of three embroidered versions of the popular cartoon skunk) - which I had bought, many years ago, when the Warner Brothers Studio Store was still in business. The T-shirt alone actually came in a heart-shaped box, when I'd acquired it, back in the late 1990s. (In fact, I have a lot of other 'Pepe' memorabilia from the same store, including additional T-shirts, a few Cloisonne pins, and several plush figures of various sizes.)

Anyway, since I don't have a girlfriend at this time, and my mother is no longer of this Earth, I had decided to give my prize away to someone else who can show his own love to another. In this case, I gave the candles to Funimal, who (in turn) gave them to his brother, who (in turn) passed them along to his latest girlfriend. (and, in case the girlfriend should turn down said candles, 'Funimal' would've given them to his own mother).

'Pepe Le Pew' (C) Warner Bros.

FOOTNOTE: One humorous side-story about that night I'd won the prize: Near the end of Game Two, after playing another 'bingo' word and clearing my rack, I had reached into the cloth bag and pulled out (what turned out to be) the last four lettered tiles - which, ironically, spelled out a four letter word which I will not grace this website with. (The only vowel in this word is the letter U; YOU do the math!) I had shown the profanity to another Scrabble player (engaged in his own game), and jokingly said, "Hey maybe you can use that word to win your Valentine's Day prize!"... "I don't think so!" I'd replied...

I couldn't make this up in a million years!