Women: suck it up

So I was lying in bed the other day really not wanting to get up, and Morning Edition was playing on my husband's LEGO clock radio, and Steve Innskeep and Mara Liasson were talking about the Republican primaries. As if there's anything else to talk about, like, say, that Thurgood Marshall's elementary school caught on fire this week and Dilma Rousseff might get impeached.

Here's an excerpt:

INSKEEP: Has Trump's trouble in the last week or two caused any change in the sentiments in upstate New York?
BRIAN MANN (North Country Public Radio): I kind of expected to hear that, maybe hear some of his supporters here in New York kind of edging toward the door. But as I talked to my neighbors and people around upstate, I just didn't hear that. I reached out last night via Skype to Sue MacNeil. She works at a local hospital, and she's chair of the Republican Party in Fulton County, N.Y., a few hours west of here. And she told me, you know, that people who are put off by Donald Trump's coarse talk, especially about women - she says they're just wimps.
SUE MACNEIL: If you can't stand the heat, then gosh darn it, get out of the gosh-darned kitchen. I grew up with two older brothers. And I learned a lot from the family that I grew up with. And if I couldn't take it, then that was my problem. And talk about political correctness. Women, suck it up.

Needless to say, THAT got me right out of bed. I mean, I was either going to get out of bed and put some pants on or roll over and pull the covers up and hope for death. And Sue MacNeil has been ringing in my ears ever since.

Your Neighborhood Librarian Cooks a Meal

My son needs to bake a pie for his 8th grade class's Pie Auction. 

Why this strikes me as like the last and final blow, the pinnacle, the ultimate "we've got to have WHAT by Monday?!" in ten years of "Students must have X by Monday" - paint smocks, comfortably a dozen batches of cookies and cupcakes, multiple tri-fold presentation boards, a clipboard, camping equipment, and costumes representing John Wilkes Booth, Ravi Shankar, a tropical fish, and British composer Henry Purcell - I can't really say.

But it irritates the shit out of me. Maybe it's because I can't bake a piecrust myself.

Anyway, the Pie Auction is described as a hallowed tradition of this private school that the boys have been attending for middle school, middle school representing for me the three years in a young person's life that most closely resemble hell, and so we paid good cash money to put them somewhere with 275 years of experience keeping kids basically on the rails. (*ignoring ignoring ignoring my friends who went there themselves and their fond memories of skipping class to smoke cigarettes at the Dunkin Donuts or pot down at the creek*) (*that was high school anyway, they assure me*)

And the flyer for the Pie Auction allows for "savory pies." Which is good, because my 8th grader is a savory guy. Ha. Ugh. Anyway, he's better with meat than with desserts. Hm. That's also kind of ugh. Here's a story:

We're sitting at dinner one night maybe 6 or 7 years ago, Ez was about 6 and Milo maybe 8. The subject of pie comes up, who knows how. Ezra asks, "What actually IS a pie? How do you make it?"

I start to answer. "You roll out dough flat and put it in a round pan..."

And then Milo chimes in. He's like me - he likes to have the answer to things, and is generally unconcerned with the limits of his own knowledge or authority on the subject at hand. "And then you put in the filling - the meat or jelly - and then more dough on top."

Bob and I looked at him. "Meat and jelly?" Bob asked.

I turned to Ezra. "Please keep in mind that your brother has never made a pie."

"He may have never eaten one," added Bob. "Or seen one on TV," I said.

So this is going to go well.