Valentine’s Weekend at Plimoth Plantation

Are you looking for a unique way to celebrate Valentine’s Day?  Tired of all of the commercialism that surrounds this “Hallmark Holiday”, such as the ads that urge you to buy all sorts of stuff for Valentine’s Day, from pricey jewelry to a ps3? Are you also sick of dealing with crowded, noisy, not-so-romantic restaurants and movie theaters? Well, perhaps Plimoth Plantation has the solution for you!

Over the weekend of February 13-14, Plimoth Plantation will be hosting their Valentine’s Day Special.  Guests can choose either a romantic dinner on February 13,  or a brunch on V-Day itself.  Or both!  Both meals will be followed by a romantic movie at the museum’s Cinema.  There will be two movies shown…one is an independent film starring Robin Wright Penn and Alan Arkin, called The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, the other is going to be a romantic comedy classic to be decided later.  They’ll know what the second film is when you get there, and then you can decide which one you want to see.  The Cinema has two theaters, and both movies will be shown at the same time.  So you can only see both if you sign up for both the dinner and the brunch.

We made reservations for the dinner.  The price for that is $90 per couple, $80 for members of the museum.  I signed up for a membership before making the reservations, so I got the member discount.  Plimoth Plantation is not actually open for viewing of regular exhibits until March, but Mike and I had been talking about visiting for some time, anyway.  Being that adult admission to both the museum and the Mayflower II goes for $28 per person, and that the membership for individual plus one goes for $60, the membership cost will have paid for itself after the dinner and one visit once the museum opens up for the season.

Anyhoo, $80-90 for dinner and a movie is actually a really good price.  Where else can you get a package that includes a red rose, a glass of wine for each person, a four-course meal, a movie, and chocolates and popcorn to bring into said movie?  Tax & tip is included in the price.

I am hoping that since they are gearing this for couples, that will be enough to keep those couples with kids away, or to hire something called a BABYSITTER if they plan to attend.  There are no discounted kid meal prices, which is a good sign.  At a regular restaurant, there will always be some inconsiderate dumbass who will drag little kids into the place, and ruin the romantic atmosphere for everyone else.  I hope that this won’t be the case here!

We shall see!  Click HERE to learn more about these events, and how to make your reservations!

Powerball is coming to Massachusetts!

Starting on Sunday, January 31, Massachusetts residents will no longer have to drive to neighboring New England states to buy tickets when the jackpot is really high.  Powerball is currently available in five of the Six Great States, but that’s soon to change.

In the past, we would drive up to New Hampshire for Powerball, but only when the jackpot was high enough to make it worth the trip.  More often, we’d just buy the tickets when we were up that way for some other reason.

But soon, we’ll be able to buy Powerball tickets at the same stores where we buy our MegaMillions tickets.  I’m sure that Tim For Treasurer, oops, it’s now Tim For Governor is happy about this, as state Treasurer, he’s all about looking for ways to raise revenue for this sorry-assed, debt-ridden state.  He knows that people are driving to other states to buy Powerball tickets, so why not just sell them here?  This was the same sort of idea that former governor Mitt Romney agreed to, by signing a bill that allows Massachusetts liquor stores to sell booze on Sundays.  Romney is a Mormon who doesn’t drink, but he’s smart enough to know that other people do, and that Massachusetts needs the tax revenue.

Frankly, I’ve not been thrilled lately with the idea of buying lottery tickets in New Hampshire.  I follow the NH Lottery on Twitter and Facebook, and they have the rather annoying habit of posting the names of winners and how much they won.  I’m not sure if New Hampshire offers the option of remaining anonymous or not, the law differs state-by-state.  The Powerball site itself seems to only post names and photos of winners if the winners agree to it; I’ve seen lists of winners on the site, and many are claimed by attorneys who represent a trust formed by the winner for this purpose.

I’m pretty sure that Massachusetts allows anonymity.  At least they don’t seem to have Facebook or Twitter.  I’d think as long as they got the tax revenue from the winnings, they’d let people be anonymous.  They probably hate it because they want the publicity, but they need to realize that once it becomes public that you won a big jackpot, all sorts of long-lost friends and relatives come out of the woodwork with their hands sticking out.

It’s not that we wouldn’t help some people who need help, but there are certain people we’d never want to have find out about it if we won.  Basically, I’m talking about both Mike’s and my exes.  And his family, as well.  Would we send some money to his elderly mother?  Yes, but we’d do it without telling her we’d won a huge jackpot, make her think that this is a one-time payment, no more would be forthcoming.  Otherwise, we’d be asked constantly to help his various family members.  I’m still steaming over how Mike’s mother asked us to buy his college-aged niece a new car, because her old one died.  We refused, the kid is in college, she can work and save up for her own car, and take the bus in the meantime.  Nobody ever bought Mike a car when HE was in college.  He bought a crappy old van back then, and taught himself how to fix it up.  He used to work on it at Click & Clack’s do-it-yourself garage in Cambridge, not far from MIT where he went to school.  Funny how no one in Mike’s family forked over a dime to help him get through school; he actually had to LIVE in that damned van for a time because his money ran out.  Then he dropped out of school to join the Navy, because he was having trouble finding a job.  In fact, his parents STOLE an inheritance he got from a relative, which was to be used for his college education.  When Mike finally returned to MIT, I actually helped him get through a lot more than anyone in his family did.  So you understand why we’re not too keen on giving them much of anything now.

We refused to buy the car.  But then Mike gave his mom money to buy hearing aids.  She ended up using the money towards a new car for herself, after having given hers to the spoiled brat niece.  And she still does not know to this day that we bought ourselves a new car back in ‘07, because then she’d be screaming about how we can afford that, but not a car for Mary.

Actually, NO, we can’t afford to make payments on more than one car.  We didn’t even want to have to have car payments again, as the old one was paid for.  But it died, and buying another car was a necessity.  Mike needs a car to get to work, there is no public transportation near his work.  Why should we buy a car for someone else, when we’d have to do without ourselves?

Anyhoo, even if we won a multi-million dollar jackpot, it wouldn’t last long if these people knew about it, and we’d be harassed to the ends of the earth for saying NO.  Hell, I think his mother is still pissed that Mike changed the beneficiary on his life insurance from her to me.  Let her find her own life insurance quotes, and have her brat grand-niece be the beneficiary if she wants.

Even so, we’d most definitely be moving from here if we came into that kind of money.  The new address would only be given to a select few, everyone else gets it on a need-to-know basis.

Oh, we’ll probably never win.  But it’s nice to dream, right?

Looking for a summer job?

Well, it may be January, but it’s not too soon to start looking!  Mystic Seaport Museum has announced some summer job openings, which you can see HERE.

Mystic Seaport is well known for its summer sailing programs, and they also have a residential summer camp for kids.  They are looking for sailing instructors and camp counselors.  If you enjoy working with kids and the outdoors, and can meet the certification requirements, please take a look.  These would be great summer jobs for college students who are looking to make a career out of working with kids, and probably a lot more fun than wearing a paper hat and asking people if they would like fries with that.

Mystic Seaport is a beautiful place, it would be fun to be able to live and work there for a summer.  We were just there in January, and will be going back in May for Mike’s birthday.  Before we go then, we’d better make sure to have enough allergy relief meds…he does get some serious sneezies due to the pollen in the spring. But still, we can’t wait to go!

State of the State?

In my humble opinion, as the LOLcats would say, “nawt sew gud, ackshully”.

I can’t stand Deval Patrick, so I didn’t watch it.  I can find out what he said on the news.    Gov. Patrick Urges Voters To Channel Anger.

You bet I will, Deval.  When November rolls around, I’ll be voting for anybody but you.  So you say that “it’s easier to be against something than for something”…well, what exactly is there about you to be “for”.  You’ve basically run this state into deeper ruin than before you were.  Good thing you’re not in charge of the state’s websites; you’d probably foul up the online backup systems, and then I’d have to actually GO to the Registry to renew our licenses and registration, and sit there for hours on end.

Seriously, I never trusted the guy.  I did not vote for him the first time.  The first sign that this was not going to go well was when he bought himself a Cadillac on the taxpayers’ dime, shortly after taking office.  He’s rich, if he wants an expensive gas guzzler, he can afford to buy his own.  There was so much screaming over this, that he finally did reimburse the state.  But it’s all gone downhill from there.

I don’t blame Tim Cahill for breaking away from the Dems and running against his boss as an independent.  I like this guy, he wants to spend state money on important stuff, such as fixing all those broken-down public roads and bridges.  Compare that to Patrick’s wanting to give stimulus money to Patriots owner Bob Kraft to build a footbridge for his fancy Patriot Place mall.  Mr. Kraft is very wealthy, if he wants this, he can pay for it himself.  Thank goodness, now he will have to.  Stimulus money should not be going to enhance private property.  It should go to fix the Longfellow Bridge, preferably sometimes before we have another tragedy as with what happened in Minnesota a few years ago.  No one wants to see the Red Line train falling into the Charles River because the state didn’t have that ancient bridge fixed!

Deval is going bye-bye in November, and I could not be happier about that!

The voters did it to themselves

Unless you are living under a rock, you are aware that Republican Scott Brown beat out Democrat Martha Coakley for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the late Ted Kennedy.  Turnout that the polls was very high, despite the cold, snowy, slushy, icky weather.  Even the precinct where we vote seemed to have a decent turnout.  That’s unusual, because this neighborhood seems to be a throwback to the 80’s…women with bleached blonde big hair, guys with mullets, etc.  Sometimes I wondered if these people thought that Ronald Reagan was still President!

Anyhoo…if you live in Massachusetts, normally vote Democrat, but did not bother to vote in the Democratic primary this past December, the one that got Martha Coakley the candidacy, I do not want to hear One Single Word of complaint out of you.  You lost your bitching rights by not bothering to vote.  I truly believe that if more people cared back then, if more people showed up at the polls, perhaps last night’s outcome could have been different.

There were four Democratic candidates:  Coakley, Congressman Mike Capuano, City Year founder Alan Khazei, and businessman/Boston Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca.  Out of the four, I thought that Alan Khazei was the most electable, the one with the best chance of beating Scott Brown.  He ran an excellent grassroots campaign which picked up a lot of momentum at the end, but sadly, it was not enough.

But it was clear that very few people cared about this primary, didn’t realize how very important it was to pick the right person for the job.  Unlike the general election, the primaries got little to no coverage on the national news shows…seemed that “fluff” stories like those about quick weight loss methods got more airtime. Pathetic, isn’t it?

I feel that Coakley got the nomination by default, that if more people had paid attention and gone out to vote, we might have seen Khazei or Capuano, and the headlines today would have been much different.  Coakley ran a lousy campaign, she seemed very out of touch with the people, she seemed to think she was better than the regular people.  She was too sure of herself, and all but handed the election to Brown.  As for Brown, he took full advantage of his opponent’s weaknesses, and ran a much better campaign.  I think a lot of people liked how he came across as a regular guy, more in touch with the people, and not afraid to shake hands with them.  But neither were the other three Dems.  I thought that Khazei and Capuano had the most appeal because they, too, came off as “regular guys”.  Either one would have run an excellent campaign against Brown, either one could have beaten him.

Let this be a lesson to all – next time you decide to skip voting in a primary because it doesn’t seem important enough – think again.  I think these election results are the proof of how important it is to VOTE!