Not my vacation

I haven't been blogging, and that is because my Dad (aka Grumpy) has been visiting for the past 9 days. I have never told my Dad that I have a blog, because he doesn't share my views on ... well ... on anything. I love my Dad, he loves me and he loves his grand-daughters, and he has always been generous with us, but he is a critical, bigoted, frustrating person with some startling and annoying habits. So he was here, and I stayed away from my blog, and he didn't call Obama the anti-christ, and things were pretty mellow.

Other problems of having my Dad visit is that I never feel like I can get anything done. Now that he is gone I have a long list of things that need to be done, like making an art mat for Arabella's class, submitting paperwork to the school district in preparation for Arabella to enter Kindergarten next year, firing ceramics projects, and packing artwork and other things to ship across country. I don't know why I feel I can't do any of that stuff while he's around, but it might be his hovering around and offering helpful advice like "ask them why they are such a**holes", or "tell them you should get a better rate because you're so cute". He always gives me some money when he leaves for 'room and board' which I always tell him he doesn't need to do (except back when he would stay at our house for two weeks, have to be driven everywhere, and make frequent long distance calls. Now he brings his own car or walks, and we have flat rate long distance). This time he asked if my mom stayed here when she visited and then if she paid room and board (like I would charge my mother room and board! my goodness!) like he does, and I said, no, she does laundry instead. He didn't bring it up again.

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Sabine, I have noticed, is much more socially discriminating than Arabella ever has been. At Starbucks last week, there was a rather grungy looking man asleep in a chair when we walked in. Now, realize that when I say the man looked like a bum that I have a fairly high threshold for bum-ness. I am, after all, the same person who was given spare change on the streets of San Francisco instead of change for a dollar. And a panhandler on Haight Street said to me "hows it going" instead of "got a dollar". Of course I have also gotten curious looks from the Amish, which all should tell you that I have a rather low-key and unusual sense of fashion. So when I say the sleeping man in Starbucks looked like a bum I don't mean he was unshaven, I mean he looked like he probably slept under a bridge last night. Arabella, at 1, would have walked over and smiled, at 2 would have said hi and given him a hug, and at 3 and up would have given him her life story. Sabine however, once she toddled around to where she could see him, stood about 15 feet back, stared, and then tootled off the other way. She never got any closer. Even during his whole visit she seemed not too sure if she liked Grumpy. But since he didn't seem too sure if he liked her, I wasn't fussed.