ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 12, 1997 TAG: 9702120046
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Marketplace
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL
Cupid may be wearing a red fez this year, but don't be alarmed.
Kroger's floral shops have worked out a deal with members of the Kazim Shrine Temple to deliver Valentine's Day bouquets. The Roanoke Shriners will keep the $6 delivery fee, using the money for its charities, and Kroger has access to an army of deliverymen on a day when warm bodies are desperately needed.
Joyce Burgess, manager of the floral shop at the Tanglewood Kroger, said she should be able to take orders up until almost the last minute, thanks to the extra help from the Shriners.
"I have no intention of turning anybody down," she said. "Unless maybe if you call me at 5 o'clock on Friday."
Burgess expects to sell three times as many roses this Valentine's Day as last, when Kroger was just getting started in the flower delivery business. "I've got my fingers crossed for 1,200 dozen," she said.
Multiply that by all the supermarket floral departments and florists in Southwest Virginia, and you get an idea of why people who sell flowers love February so much.
Of course, candymakers aren't complaining, either. The sweets industry expects us, as a nation, to spend $709 million on candy this Valentine's Day.
But don't be afraid to look beyond the ubiquitous heart-shaped box. How about a quick jaunt to Boston? Every weekend in February and March, you can take a chocoholic's tour of the city. The 2 1/2-hour Old Town Trolley Chocolate Tour stops at three restaurants, including Le Meridien Boston, where a chocolate buffet offers chocolate meringue, chocolate cherry almond cake, cappuccino creme brulee, bananas foster with chocolate sauce and chocolate croissant pudding.
The tour, part of Boston's winterlong Food, Wine & Arts Celebration, costs a mere $35 per person.
(The price doesn't include transportation, lodging, meals or antacid.)
Or, if your sweetie complains you spend too much time on the Internet, you can show her you actually think about her while you're surfing: Surprise her with a gift from, where else? Chocoholic.com. The site - www.chocoholic.com - offers gifts including chocolate roses and the Chocolate of the Month Club. For $25 a month, the club delivers a selection of sweets from a different chocolatier each month. Club membership - and other Chocoholic.com gifts - can be ordered as late as today for delivery by Friday.
Of course, if you think chocolate in general is passe, there are other ideas.
The more self-indulgent may enjoy Hyatt Hotel's "Ultimate Romance" package at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Washington. For a paltry $16,000, the four-star presidential suite is all yours for two nights, complete with fireplace, candle-lit hot tub and "unobtrusive butler."
For those looking to add a little spice to the holiday, try massagers. For a pricey $2,595, there's the Panasonic Urban Massage Recliner that soothes the whole body, and for the less wealthy, the No Hands neck massager for $99.
Or, if you don't feel the need to be subtle, take a cue from Japan, where the hot gift this year is a new way to say "I love you and you'd better propose to me": a framed photo of oneself in a wedding dress.
A hotel in Osaka is sponsoring the "Pressure Choco" promotion, which already has drawn 1,000 customers. For $40, the hotel provides a photographer and a selection of wedding dresses. And even a box of chocolates - consolation, perhaps, if the hint doesn't work.
They should find out next month. Only women give Valentine's Day gifts in Japan. Husbands and boyfriends are supposed to reciprocate - with a proposal, these women seem to hope - in March, on White Day.
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