Recipe for feeling better about life: hang out with your little sister (bahini, in Nepali), order chinese take-out, drink beer, and watch your niece have as many melt downs as your daughter. M and I were both excited to finally hang out with my sister and niece again, and the girls both played/fought all day while my sister inspired me to be the peaceful parent I’ve strove to be all along with her calm responses to irrational preschool/kindergartner behavior. And honestly, being reminded that my kid isn’t the only one experiencing extreme emotions and awful behavior was just comforting. Solidarity.
The hardest part about leaving Michigan will be not being able to hang with my sister on a weekly basis. So instead we’ll be making regular trips and staying with them for like a week. Squeeze in the quality time!
If anyone is more upset about the results of the US election than me, it’s my sister. We probably should be sick of politics but this isn’t something we can just turn off. We can’t just go about our regular lives when we just watched half of the country “put aside” or vote for outright bigotry and idiocy. We can’t stop talking about it because people like Pence, Gingrich, Giuliani, Bannon (and on and on) are being given power over our laws and policies, and are backed by a GOP house and senate. Scary shit. And yes, I’m someone who will “unfriend” you, or think differently about you, if you voted for this shit because it’s not “just politics”. It’s my life. It’s eliminating tax credits that directly affect my bank account as a single mom. It’s calling my daughter’s biological relatives “rapists”. It’s bragging about sexual assault and being rewarded for it. It’s having those things NOT be a deal breaker for you cause you don’t like some policies or the history of Hillary Clinton.
Disgusting. Repugnant. Unacceptable. If you don’t agree with me that those things are unacceptable no matter what, then we aren’t friends. No. We aren’t.
Anywho, if I do start a nursing contract too early to go back to Nepal, I’d like to swing by either the million woman march or the protests in DC near inauguration day, or the pipeline protests out west… that would be very awesome. I’d like to do something, rather than just complain about everything.
Mother of All Things 
I’m glad you’re feeling better, but what a narrow-minded, intolerant post.
I have friends from all over the political map, many of whom have voted for candidates and legislation that was repugnant to me. But that’s okay, because they are entitled to their opinions as much as I am to mine, and I believe we all have something to learn from each other.
It’s great to protest and fight for what you believe in, but to cast people out of your life because they think and vote differently than you? What a horribly un-democratic way of approaching the world.
This isn’t about politics. If the type of sexist, racist, hateful rhetoric coming from our next president and his appointees isn’t upsetting to someone, then our core values and our entire world view is incompatible. If you are willing to look the other way and cast a vote for these people, then no, you are not my friend. I will not allow you into my daughter’s world. I will raise her to keep people like that far far away from herself, and to use her vote and her voice to stand up for tolerance, acceptance, diversity, and compassion.
I am kind and polite to everyone. I would never seen to hurt someone because they are willing to overlook racism, sexism and bigotry. I don’t want them deported or jailed. But they have no place in my private life. I will work hard to peacefully overturn everything Trump supporters stand for or are willing to allow.
Also, no, I don’t believe people are entitled to opinions that promote discrimination or violence against other groups when they turn that evil into law. Nope.