Sunday morning

I've never operated under the pretense that I'm not part of the problem. All I've done is shared the problem, hopefully humorously, from my perspective. With mom, the share of responsibility is usually pretty stark. For example, my "part" of one given problem was gaining weight, hers was not letting me forget it for two seconds; my part was not figuring out a constructive way to let her know that the constant reminders were not helpful; hers was telling me not to be so sensitive, that she was only trying to help--thus not hearing the message that the constant reminders were not helpful. But I digress. With dad, it's much less stark. Where mom can be downright toxic, dad tends more toward quirky-that-can-turn-into-frustrating. That frustration can be practical, but usually it's just a minor personality clash (see yesterday's mustard episode). And this morning's mystery vegetable episode, which fits squarely in the realm of "how the attributes that make me good at my job can make me quite tiresome socially." Mom will grab things off the supermarket shelf without knowing the name or reading the label, and then my parents will ask me, usually over Skype, to identify the mystery vegetable. Last night, I was asked to do this in person.

A.: I think it's a turnip relative, but I could be wrong.
Dad: So we should grate it.
A.: I really don't know. I just think it's similar to a turnip.

Then, this morning. Mom, holding the mystery vegetable: What is this?

Dad: A. says it's to be grated.
A.: I did not say that! I said I thought it was like a turnip.
Dad: Correction: You said it could be grated.
A.: All I said was I thought it might be like a turnip. Any logical leaps to grating were entirely on your part.

And I'm not even a lawyer! In the meantime, I discovered my new favorite page of images.