BoldUlysses.com

It’s beautiful outside today, even if it’s kind of a wild beauty. The pressure gradient over us is still fairly steep, and the frequent wind gusts that blow by the window next to me testify to it. Still, driving to lunch today, it certainly felt like this kind of a day in spite of the patchy, rent clouds overhead.

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My dad’s a bit in the marital doghouse after some comments he made over Sunday lunch. We all convened at my grandmother’s house in Raleigh for an Easter lunch and basketball game viewing/nap session. Lunch was wonderful (my grandmother mercifully refrained from cooking her infamous rice), and we were about halfway through the meal when our hostess mentioned how my uncle Richard, presently an almost-retired English professor at FSU, had been offered a new job. My dad immediately quipped, “A used car salesman?” My grandmother either chose to ignore the comment or simply didn’t hear it (a likely possibility since she’s deaf in one ear), but my mom was so upset that she left the room.

It’s a complicated situation. My dad’s relationship to his in-laws isn’t the most chummy, for the most part on account of completely opposite personalities (they’re very academic and somewhat aloof; my dad likes to watch football and grill out, that sort of thing), but they’ve always been cordial and there’s never really been anything in the air, at least not that I could detect. My dad’s certainly aware of the divergence of personalities, and his approach to the matter is to poke fun at it in sort of a self-deprecating way. Occasionally though, especially after a few glasses of wine at the tail end of a big meal, he’ll say things without thinking them completely through, as was the case yesterday.

It’s been going on for a while now, but has just recently come to a head between my mom and him. I think more than anything she feels like he doesn’t respect her family, at least not in a diplomatic way that would impress respect on my brothers and I (and any other company that happens to be present). But Paul and David and I are certainly familiar enough with my dad’s occasional attitude to circumvent its influence in our thinking, and we have a great deal of respect and regard for our extended family, and it’s been that way for years. I remember approaching my dad in my mid-teen years with a concern that he wasn’t communicating respect for my grandmother in his conversation, and I’m sure he took it to heart, but the process of change I think can be pretty long, especially when it’s not an issue on the marital front burner, as it is now.

Of course I just rolled with the comment (and a few others that came up in quick succession before my dad realized what he was doing), but later on last night he called me, obviously in the aftermath of a conversation with my mom, and asked me what else he had said, just wanting to talk about it, I think. It felt a little weird, since my dad’s has never really made an effort to confide in me (a good thing, I think), mostly because our personalities are quite different and you confide in people who you feel will understand you best, but I listened and told him what I thought about the situation. It’s hard to know how to approach that kind of conversation since he never came to me for advice or with encouragement when I was much younger, but it means a lot to me that he does now. I’ll always say that my dad’s effort to alter his relationships with his sons as they grew older (less “father,” more “friend”) is one of his best qualities.

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I had Arby’s for lunch today. No, not the quasi-healthy “market fresh” sandwiches, but a big, honkin’ 3/4 pound of thinly-sliced roast beef called the “Big Montana.” That hit the spot. I’ve had a persistent minor headache over the course of the past week, and the last time it happened I recall my nutrition during the previous week had been a little spotty, albeit healthy, and indulging in a big, fatty fast food meal for the first time in weeks solved the problem.

Same thing today. Boy I feel great again.