Ducks & Date Night Slingshots: Unique Ways To Celebrate V-Day In CT

CONNECTICUT — We celebrate his martyrdom annually, and he's the second most beloved saint after Nicholas, but there is not a lot we know for sure about St. Valentine —including whether he really existed.

The more popular stories have the young priest beheaded in 269 A.D. after defying Claudius II by performing marriages for young couples on the down low. The emperor was having difficulty recruiting soldiers, blamed it on married life making the fighting men soft, and so had Valentine beaten and beheaded when he learned of the secret nuptials.

The hagiography of St. Valentine might be complex and bloody, but your St. Valentine's Day celebration in Connecticut need not be.

For example, we'll bet you've never taken your Boo to the Ripley Waterfowl Conservancy in Litchfield on a date. You'll have the chance to redress that grievous error, and in grand fashion, this weekend. The waterfowl folks are promoting it as "Ducks in Love," 45-minute private tours available on the hour, Feb. 14-15, starting at 10:00 a.m. Guests will enjoy an exclusive guided experience of the conservancy, a premier conservation biosphere which is home to more than 90 species of feathered residents. That meet-and-shriek will be followed by a cozy fireside gathering with handcrafted Thorncrest Chocolates from Goshen, warm spiced cider, and other refreshments. Tickets are available online here.

And if your date prefers stingrays and sharks to swans and pheasants, who are you to judge? Just grab a ticket to Valentine's Date Night at Mystic Aquarium, Friday at 6 p.m.

Who needs wine and a candlelight dinner when you can spend Valentine's Day night shooting rubber balls? That was the unassailable marketing logic that went into "F & B My Valentine" at the Fork and Band Slingshot Shooting Gallery in Bristol. Tell your date the night will include training, use of custom fitted slingshot and safety glasses, a sweet treat for two, souvenir poster targets and — best of all — unlimited rubber balls. Book your spot online here. The rubber will fly for three sessions, at 4:30, 6:00, and 8:00 p.m.

Or take it down a notch — actually, make that several notches — and take in The Xinyi String Quartet out of Miami, who will be performing a "Romeo and Juliet" themed concert in Bridgeport on Valentine's Day. It's part of the "Candlelight Concert Series" at the Bijou Theatre. Expect more Beatles than Bartók, but that'll be just fine at this point in the relationship, right? Tickets are available online here.

Celebrate Valentine's Day the Thomaston way — with plenty of desserts and alcohol on a speeding train — aboard the "Lovers Limited." The old-fashioned locomotive will pull out of the Railroad Museum of New England on the Naugatuck railroad line in Thomaston twice on Saturday, Feb. 15, at 6 and 8 p.m. The Nutmeg Fudge Company in Torrington and Fascia’s Chocolates in Waterbury will both provide what they're famous for, while the train's newly installed bar will supply the specialty libations. Book your passage online here.

There's always one in every group, and for the tedious, angry, cooler-than-thou anti-romantic pooping your party this Valentine's Day, may we recommend a screening of "Psychos in Love" at StageOne at the Fairfield Theatre Company? The post-modern cult classic is the rom-com-cum-slasher-flick you get when you toss cannibals and star-crossed serial killers into a blender, and then toss that blender into the bath tub. The Valentine's Day screening begins at 8 p.m., doors open at 7, and tickets are available online here.