I think it was my boyfriend's birthday (and no, this isn't a letter to Penthouse), and I wanted to do something special. I used about 25 yards of black cotton and a staple gun and transformed my bedroom into a bedouin tent. (the bed part was behind one of the tent walls - it was a big bedroom) I used some oriental rugs and every cushion and pillow in the house to decorate it. For lighting, I used a string of white XMas lights (I thought candles would be too dangerous with all the cotton). I also had a lot of Middle Eastern stuff in the house (brass trays, music, pillows, belly dancing costumes, etc). I put one of my more tribal sounding belly dancing tapes on continuous loop and left a series of "bread crumbs" leading from the front door to the bedroom. Boy was he surprised when he got there....

(of course, I can't do anytyhing remotely like that nowadays because there's been a kid in the house for 12 years, but I do have a window of opportunity in August. Hmmmm.)