Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012 - 6:24 a.m.

Dried smoked apples. Really lousy chicken. Excellent Brussels sprout and potato gratin. Hubbard squash pur�ed and ready for action. Need to make my mind up about the pumpkin stock before it goes bad.

Mom came down yesterday. Brought Q a toy biplane. Excellent.

Walked to the park with the new stroller (huzzah). It worked out fine. There was an odious woman there being mean to a small child. Clearly of the "say it once and expect immediate, unquestioning compliance; say it louder and meaner if the first time doesn't do it" school of child management. Also very pro-shaming. All based on a very unrealistic view of a 2 year old's abilities, even setting aside other issues. Very hard to watch the interaction. It was unrelenting. Commented on it on FB; of course I don't know who in my extended network might think such behavior is entirely right and justified. I hope if I happen to have someone like that on my friends list, they'll unfriend me, because I would not want such a person anywhere near me.

We know I have lots of opinions, and I know I should generally keep them to myself. But this shit was way out of bounds.

Aside from being a mean bully, the woman also was waxing poetic about how she would never eat at a Vietnamese restaurant because 1) she's vegetarian and 2) those people kill and eat dogs and cats and it's just disgusting and besides 3) her husband is a Vietnam war vet and why would she ever want to eat at a Vietnamese restaurant. She repeated those arguments about 3 times each. Ok, more pho for me, lady.

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