The Amazing Baby Sis and The Acceptance Letter

So, Baby Sis decided she needed another master's degree (as if one wasn't enough) and we in the Rock Starr house were incredibly supportive of that decision. She applied to 4 schools; two in NYC, one in RI, and one in Boston. Needless to say, we were really hoping the RI and Boston schools came through for her because the thought of Baby Sis being in the big bad city that has more Yankees fans than anyone in this world needs was not a comforting thought for us. Her health problems alone made this somewhat a dicey situation, not to mention the fact that I know my sister and having her three to four hours away from Mom and Daddy and me and Omar was not going to be good for her or, really, any of us. So of course, she gets into one of the NYC schools and hears nothing from the schools where we would have preferred her to be.

Until Friday.

My baby girl got into the Boston school and the happy dance I did around my living room made me breathless. We squealed like six year olds being taken to Chuck E Cheese for the first time. I called Omar right away and told him the news. I don't think he realized the significance of how exciting this moment was, but he was better about it when he got home.

The first thing we realized is that our place is too small for the three of us and the baby we're hoping to have in the next year or so. Which is one of the million and three reasons why I love my husband. His first thought was that when we looked for a house, we should look for a place that has an extra room for my sister. What other man would think that?

Anyway, Baby Sis is safe from Yankees fans and she'll be just where she should be. I am so proud of her right now I can't even put it into words. She's really got something now to look forward and I think that will really make the difference for her. She'll start this summer and it will be so good for her to have something like this again. She'll be able to do what she likes and then, hopefully, find a job that she likes. Which is really what she deserves.

Guy Smiley Is Hoodwinking This Country

I don't get it.

While I haven't made a definitve decision yet on who I'd like to see as President of the United States (right now it's between Obama and Hillary, and both of them have their merits and faults), I can tell you one person whom I'd rather not see as president: former Mass. governor Mitt Romney.

I'm not a Massachusetts native. I grew up in southern NH (or as my pal Rich likes to call it, northern Massachusetts). I have to admit, I like living in Massachusetts more now than I did when I first moved here. There's still a lot of things I don't like about it, but I like working in Boston and I like the Metro West area where I live. I don't enjoy the outrageous fare hikes from the MBTA, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and their ridiculousness, or the cost of the Big Dig. But Massachusetts has a variety that NH doesn't, in many ways. It's certainly more culturally aware and more diverse, which I like.

One of the things I like both most and least about Massachusetts is politics. When I was growing up and wanted to be a lawyer, I always thought I'd enter politics someday. I had a teacher in high school who always told me he thought I'd be the first female governor of NH (this was before Jeanne Shaheen). It felt like a natural fit because I was active in community politics in the town where I grew up, even though I couldn't vote until my senior year in high school. I still find politics interesting, but I also find it wearying as well. There's nothing honorable about it, not that there ever really was, but the thing that finally turned me off the whole process was the Gore-Bush elections that totally showed how our system doesn't really work anymore. How can you win the popular vote and lose the election? Doesn't the fact that the citizens of the US chose Al Gore mean anything?

Apparently not.

Anyway, Massachusetts totally cemented itself in the "What the Hell Were You People THINKING?" Hall of Fame when it elected Mitt Romney as governor. He has been nicknamed Guy Smiley by many people and that's how I refer to him. The man had absolutely zero interest in this state. It was a stepping stone for the presidency and he at least should have been honest about it. His douchebaggery here still angers me to no end. He spent the entire last year of his elected term campaigning elsewhere. The Boston Globe kept track of how many days he actually spent in Massachusetts and the number was staggeringly low.

Right now, he's airing these commericials about illegal immigration that make me want to throw things at the television. He's talking about how he empowered the Massachusetts State Troopers to stop and arrest illegal immigrants, yadda yadda yadda. What he doesn't tell you is that Deval Patrick reversed that practice within weeks of taking office.

What bothers me most about Romney (besides his total disagreement with every view I hold dear) is his disrespect for the people of Massachusetts and his hypocrisy. He got to office in Massachusetts by supporting abortion rights and gay marriage, amongst other things. And what does he do? He professes to being "wrong" about abortion and having his mind changed by the anti-abortion lobby. He thanks these people for turning him around.

Dude, come off it. Everybody in this country has an opinion on abortion and it's a polarizing issue that's very personal. He said what he needed to say about abortion to get elected in Massachusetts and now that he doesn't need Massachusetts anymore, he's pandering to the Christian right who won't elect a pro-choice candidate.

And don't get me started on the gay marriage thing. He was all about supporting gay marriage and agreed with the SJC when it ruled that gay marriage was allowed by law. Then, he totally about-faced on it and started that completely bigoted and inappropriate rant about how marriage is between a man and a woman and he moved for a state constitutional amendment to ban it.

It makes me angry to see him touting his conservative politics when he was here touting himself as a compassionate conservative who supported minority and liberal causes while still holding dear the fiscal values of a republican. He used the people of this state to manuever himself into a political office just so he could run for a bigger one. His being the governer was never about wanting to make a difference in this state (although maybe it's not for any candidate), but about stepping on the people who elected him to get where he wanted to be.

Guy Smiley is hoodwinking this country with his crap and it's pissing me off. He's a smug hypocrite and I sincerely hope he gets his ass kicked in the presidential elections. I can tell you one vote he won't have.