Norman Rockwellian

Dickish:  Offensively unpleasant and vexatious.

And the thing about family is that it's very hard to win if you're on the losing side.  The problem with working a Program is that you're working a Program, and by definition constrained by some form or shape of internal ethics.  It's so easy for me to say: "This or that person is acting dickish so I'm going to act dickish right back at them."  Then I feel terrible for acting like a dick.  But if someone is being dickish and I'm just sitting there taking it I think: "Wow.  Why am I taking this abuse from this dick?"

See?  I'm screwed!  It's not fair!  It's totally not fair!  I'm in a tight spot where I have to put up with things that I wouldn't put up with for a New York minute from anyone else.

The last day of my trip I went down to retrieve the car so that I could take my folks over to their house for one last survey, meeting my sister for a ride to the airport hotel.  When I got to the entrance my mother was waiting, no father in sight.

"I told him I wasn't going to buy him any beer at the store on the way home so he said: 'The hell with it then,' and decided he wasn't going to go to the house, either," she said.

SuperK and I discussed this.  Who was the bigger dick: my dad for basically declining to say goodbye to me, in a snit over a 12 pack, or my mother, for trying to control his drinking, which may or may not be anywhere as bad as she says it is, seeing that she's not exactly a big drinking booster.  Nothing worse than wanting a drink and not being able to get it, unless the decision is being made for you by a temperance warrior.  At 86 I'm of the mind that you should be able to drink if you want to - I bet he would be a whole hell of a lot easier to be around if he had a few beers under his belt.  But that's not my decision to make.

I'm also amused/amazed at my expectation of what family life should be like.  There are terrible families and there are wonderful families and there are all levels in between.  For some reason I think it should be my responsibility to construct a perfect, Norman Rockwellian family while simultaneously blaming myself for what I see as some kind of apocalyptic disaster.  The fact of the matter is that my family life is pretty normal - not too hot and not too cold - as long as I can manage to concentrate on what's nice instead of what's lacking, a difficult task for a master of ferreting out the slightest flaw in anything.

Not going back for a long, long time.