A letter to my sister

your father is driving me insane

i don't know what to do with him

i think i'm going to have to call a contact time out of some kind

at work my phone's call display doesn't work right now

i don't have a call display phone at home

he calls me all the time

3 or 4 times a day - on a good day - and that's just the calls to me at work

he calls a couple of times an evening as well - sometimes more

for the most inane shit you can imagine

he is so completely self-centred it is ridiculous

everything is about him

we just went to the US to see Obama and Clinton - by the end the kids were saying things like "Grandpa needs to be the hero of the hour every hour" and "Everything is always about him" and "He has to be the centre of attention or he gets pissy and miffed".

and they've known and humoured him for their whole lives. they're pretty gentle about/with him.

and then he yells or gets snappy if they do anything even a little outside his zone - unless i'm around - then i can see him holding back - because he knows i'll take a strip off him

(at christmas time he threatened to punch out [Son]. i had quite a confrontation with him where we traded threats of physical violence. he apologised the next day)

he will change the subject of any conversation to be about him or his life or his family history - failing that, about some historical subject of interest to him - like the development of railways in north america... (and Canada in particular)

i brought him to the legislature last night

we are filibustering some rule changes, and having some introductions breaks things up a little for the person on the floor speaking. trying to think of Dad's need to be in on the action, i suggested he come down and be introduced. i asked him if he had a bio kicking around that we could use.

he wrote something up in a hurry - and that was good of him.

but the reason i did it was to just give him a little thrill that he was taking a small part of kicking the other guys. well, what a production...

he actually asked me "What should I wear?" as though this was more than a night sitting of the house during a filibuster. i told him "I'm wearing jeans and a sweater - that would be fine". he then came down to the office, but wanted to have a discussion about which of the members would be the best to deliver the introduction.

Oh My God

what a bonehead

this was after the weekend in Grand Forks. We went to some hospitality suites at the Democratic-NPL convention. Dad actually told me he'd sent an email to his contact asking what to wear. It's not like he hasn't been going to these since he was a kid some 70 years ago - but had to make it more of a production.

he has to discuss the ass off of every detail of everything - sometimes going over the same ground several times - and always about him and his role and what he should be doing or how to handle something or whatever the hell

when i talked to my friend here - his Dad is 90something - he said that its old guy stuff

that they are trying to assure themselves that they still have a place in the world

in our father's situation it is worse, i think, because of that politician's ego. he so desperately needs adulation and attention. he won't even do any give and take. he won't even pretend to pay attention to what other people are saying. he would turn away and ignore the kids in the middle of what they were talking to him about - if it wasn't about him. he would interrupt in the middle of things i was saying - after he had the floor for an extended period (like a half hour or more straight) and say things like "Do you want me to finish that bit of family history I was telling you about? How John and Katerina took the wagon from North Dakota to the homestead location?"

I had literally gotten 2 or 3 sentences out of my mouth. It was even on his topics of provincial history and homesteading and early farm life - except i was talking about the nature of settlement around where Mom's family lived and was about to ask him to tell me if that matched his area - thus giving him yet another chance to talk about himself and his family - he's an old guy, so i gave him his time to tell his stories and do his thing - but even that wasn't good enough - i couldn't even pitch him a softball in under 30 seconds that moved the topic away from him

jesus

anyway

sorry to spew in your direction but, i'm ready to lose it

and he just needs more and more - it's never enough