I Am a Selfish, Cold-Hearted Bitch

... well, according to my father. This is exactly what he calls me, not a case where I infer it from his more ambiguous words. And then he wonders why there's "estrangement" in our relationship. He never could quite understand why I moved far from home, as soon as I could. We regularly have these interludes where he dumps all this shit on me, refuses to listen to me, and then gives me the old, "Nothing you can say will change anything. I'm done with this discussion." And THEN, he expects me to smile nice, be a good daughter, and let him play grandpa to my kids. So, what do I do? Part of me wants to take revenge on him, the way he has on me. Not allow him to see us. Do other things that would upset him. Part of me says that it has nothing to do with revenge, but is simply a matter of not allowing myself to be subject to that kind of vitriol and abuse. My husband, who so often is emotionally clueless (hi, honey!), is nonetheless right on target when it comes to this situation. He reminds me that being vengeful only perpetuates the hard feelings and forces me to act like my father is acting. He says that my father will never change, and I should accept that. In the end, I'm sure that several months will go by, then my father and I will tentatively email each other as if nothing has happened, and go back to the same strained, cordial relationship we've had for the past several years. But my heart gets more and more hardened each time. I'm sick of the stress-related skin conditions, too.

Sorry for the vent.

Last night, Jr. Jr. was at a sleepover party at a friend's house (six 6 year old boys, oy), so S. and I took Sr. Jr. out for a big guy night on the town. We had dinner at a restaurant without crayons! Sr. Jr. had the salmon entree, which he loved. After dinner, we went to see "Fred Claus." We wanted to find a movie that wasn't a little kid movie, but was still appropriate for a 10 year old boy. There wasn't anything else out there, so "Fred Claus" it was. The movie had an incredible cast -- Miranda Richardson, Paul Giamatti, Kathy Bates, Kevin Spacey -- but it was a piece of cynical commercial claptrap, complete with cute orphaned black kid who gets a puppy from Santa in the end. I swear there were scenes in which I could practically see the actors thinking, "Just get the paycheck, just get the paycheck." Sr. Jr. enjoyed it.

I have no pictures today, but there has been a small measure of knitting progress. I finished the Spiraling Coriolis socks, so now all I have to do is figure out which sock I want to knit next. As frustrating as the New Pathways book is, the socks in it are beautiful. I've wound up some Sundara sock yarn (http://www.sundarayarn.typepad.com/) in bark over cedar, a gorgeous dark green color. I tried to get a good picture of it, but the light was bad and the house was messy, so nothing looked quite right.

I finished the collar edging on the Equestrian Jacket. The directions call for picking up one stitch for every row all the way around, which I did, but it flares a little. I tried it on, and it may be something that I can block out, so I'll finish the rest of the edging and block it before I resort to ripping it out.

I also finished the ribbing on my Autumn Rose, so now I can start the body patterns. I think I need to rechart it again, as I did for the sleeves, which I discussed in an earlier post.

Ravelry is dangerous! Looking in people's queues makes me want to start a million different projects...