Gracious grumbling...

Okay, so I have issues where my wife's father is concerned. Plain and simple, he's not my favorite person.

He hurt my wife and mother-in-law many years ago, vanished, then came back into her (an my, since we were dating at this time) life. Things were okay, then he went Houdini at Sprout's baptism.

Several years later, he's back again. Personally, my limit was reached when he walked out on my daughter's day. Far as I was concerned, my father-in-law died before I met him (my wife's step-father, the person she thinks of as "daddy" died from cancer many years before we met). Doubt (a nickname for blogging purposes) was just my wife's father at that point.

Let me explain how I make this distinction.

Any idiot can perform the physical actions needed to become a father. Many have been for thousands of years. But it is a truly exceptional man who manages to become a daddy, especially if he has no blood in common with the one calling him that with affection.

So Doubt is my wife's biological father. He is back in her life, and is known to my kids, who have affection for him in that way that kids do ("We're related? Then that's all I need to know. I love you"). To say I'm not thrilled is an understatement, but I deal with it, because I don't want to be one of THOSE dads who will tell his kids from on high who to like or not like. I try to keep my snide comments where Doubt is concerned out of the kid's earshot, and limit what I REALLY want to say so as to not upset Wyfster. She (and by extension, my kids) are willing to give him another chance, to maintain that tie to some part of her family, and I wouldn't begrudge that to anyone.

I keep wandering, so please forgive me. If I can maintain focus here's the good stuff.

Doubt and his wife are coming over for Father's Day tomorrow. They are giving us the gift of a full-sized gas grill, and will help inaugurate it. I appreciate the gift enormously. At the moment I am using a small camp grill perched upon two TV tray tables that are falling apart. But despite my appreciation of the gift, I still have my issues where Doubt is concerned. The gift doesn't change that.

He and I spoke very briefly at Sprout's dance recital (I really need to get that video on-line one of these days), and while I wasn't rude, I was... curt. I spoke to him as little as possible, and as I said, I wasn't rude. I held my tongue from what I really wanted to say, and kept to pleasantries. I just simply didn't want to a) create a scene, and b) allow him to cause any further emotional harm to my wife through having enough control over the situation to make me lose my cool.

But I think tomorrow (or later today, depending on how you look at it) will be tough. I will have him in my house, and short of being obvious in my prolonged absences there will be no practical way to not deal with him for an extended period.

I try to not be rude, but fear I may fail at this in tomorrow's light, and that might be what upsets me so much at the moment. I can't even say that I hate him. I hate what I have inside of me BECAUSE of him.

I know that sooner or later, I will forgive Doubt his transgressions against my family. But in the meantime, to keep the peace and maintain my family's emotional stability, do I surrender my own, and allow Doubt to have a passive control over me that he doesn't even know exists?

This is gonna be a rough Father's Day.

In defense (at least a little) of BP

Okay. So we have, what, about a billion gallons of oil streaming into the Gulf of Mexico, and threatening to follow currents, swing around Florida, and come up as far as North Carolina on the east coast.

The oil company, British Petroleum (BP) has said they are responsible, and they are. It was their "Deepwater Horizon" rig that exploded and sank killing 11 workers (their names don't get published nearly enough. They have become a sidebar to the oil and the *gasp* oil covered birds. for those curious, they were: Jason Anderson, Aaron Dale Burkeen, Donald Clark, Stephen Curtis, Roy Wyatt Kemp, Karl Kleppinger, Gordon Jones, Blair Manuel, Dewey Revette, Shane Roshto, and Adam Weise). This explosion and sinking caused the well to malfunction, and start leaking oil into the water (roughly a mile deep).

Since that time, BP has done all they can to try to staunch the flow of oil, but because it's not happening fast enough, and we now have Exxon Valdez-esque photos of oil covered birds, turtles, and other sea life, the predictable accusations have begun. I mean the ones that say that BOP is trying to find a way to still collect oil from the well, so they can make a profit.

Really? Let's examine some facts. The technology to prevent this kind of disaster does exist, but in a short-sighted money saving move, BP opted to NOT use a specific type of safety cut-off valve. Since the disaster, BP has engaged in several attempts to cap, plug, cut a damaged pipe and re-cap this well. You are talking about something at almost a mile deep. Contrary to what movies would have you think, we do not possess the technology to safely get humans down to that depth in any sort of functional manner. All attempts to stop this leak would have worked with a leak that was not so deep.

This is a situation where there is all sorts of unexplored issues, because a leak has never happened at this depth, and as such, STOPPING a leak at this depth has never been done. Conventional methods of responding to leaks have not worked, again, because of the variances that occur at such great oceanic depths.

So maybe think for a few seconds. BP isn't stalling to try to figure out how to continue to use the leaking well for money in the future. As it is, the want of a half-million dollar valve system has already cost billions of dollars in lost oil and environmental clean-up, and that is before the serious lawsuits by the families of the 11 victims start.

Maybe BP is doing all they can to stop this leak, and figuring out the best way to do it, so they only have to do it once. A short-term solution won't do anyone any good, because if it fails, we're right back to square one.

Rather than assume the worst in BP, because they are "a big evil oil company out for profits", maybe try to understand that this disaster is unprecedented, and as such will require an unprecedented solution.

A young woman (19-year-old genius college professor) pitched an idea to BP. I have no idea if it will work. Neither does she. Nor does BP. The best they can do is try. But at least she is offering something more constructive than "I wish BP would do something about this that doesn't involve them making a profit".

Maybe we all can take a cue from that. Rather than randomly criticize things about which we know nothing, and seeing a sinister motivation, think about how to make it better, or at least trust that if the solution were as simple as everyone thinks, either BP, or some group of nutjobs with a bankroll would have tried it.

Maybe cut some slack, instead of looking for the worst in everything.

Just a thought.