Dynamics

Family dynamics is an odd thing. It can make people do crazy. It can make you tolerate behavior in a relative you would never tolerate in a stranger, or even a neighbor, coworker, or friend.

Sweetie has tolerated behavior from his brother, The Mouth, that he would never accept from other people. Part of it is family, part of it is the strange twin thing, part of it is that The Mouth is high functioning Asperger's and Sweetie has a few of the tendencies, though not nearly as much or as bad. Part of it, too, is habit. Behaviors become engrained, and are engaged in even after they cease to bring benefit just because they have the comfort of the familiar.

So as The Mouth has gotten more and more set in his ways -- the man was born an old maid -- his demands on his brother have crossed lines like never before.

The other night, they finally had it out. A big row, although it has happened before. Sweetie has dug his heels in before, and The Mouth has always worn him down. The Mouth has often left claiming he will Never do this or that again. Of course, that lasts until the next crisis in his life, when he demands rescue.

There is something different about this time. Sweetie told The Mouth a few things i have been saying for over 20 years, because he finally sees these things for himself. Sweetie is frustrated beyond belief now, and has spoken up.

The Mouth is offended, though not offended enough to not come over for dinner once a week, of course. He has said that he will "take my brother in front of my church elders!" Note: we do not attend the same church. Sweetie told him to go ahead, that the elder board would agree with Sweetie's position.

While i'm not sure where this will end, it is actually, for the first time since we got married, going in a positive direction. A crisis is brewing in The Mouth's life, and there will be no rescue from us. His church is more frustrated with him than he thinks. It may be that he will finally have to face a few things, and do things he never wanted to do but which he has been told he needed to do for years. Good things.

Let's hope it helps him grow up a bit to himself. It might be the first step toward making the old maid into a man again.


Today is

American Quilter's Society Quilt Exposition -- Knoxville, TN, US (through the 16th)

Barbershop Music Appreciation Day

Beans and Franks Day -- internet generated, but it sounds like a good dinner to me!

Birth of Ra -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar

Embrace Your Geekness Day

Festival of the Three Cows -- Basque

Fool's Paradise Day -- a day to figure out how a fool can achieve paradise? or how it can be paradise if it is full of fools?

Go West Day

Gruntled Workers Day

International Puzzle Day -- some sites say Jan. 29, but if you love puzzles, go do some anyway!

La Retraite Aux Flambeaux -- France (night watch, before Bastille Day)

National French Fries Day

Rath Yatra -- Puri, India (Chariot Festival, pilgrims pull huge chariots across the city)

Statehood Day -- Montenegro

St. Henry the Emperor's Day (patron of Finland)

St. Mildred's Day

Ulambana (Obon/Festival of the Lanterns) -- Japan Buddhist (reunion of family ancestors with the living), through the 16th in Tokyo, but celebrated in August in some other parts of Japan


Birthdays Today

Cheech Marin, 1946
Erno Rubik, 1944
Harrison Ford, 1942
Patrick Stewart, 1940
Jack Kemp, 1935
Bob Crane, 1928
Dave Garroway, 1913
Nathan Bedford Forrest, 1821
Julius Caesar, BC100


Today in History

Capt James Cook begins 2nd trip (Resolution) to South Seas, 1772
William Wordsworth, on a walking tour through the Wye Valley, visited the ruins of Tintern Abbey and a few miles further on composed a poem about them, 1798
Greek War of Independence: Greeks defeated Ottoman forces at Thermopylae, 1822
Henry R Schoolcraft discovers the source of the Mississippi River, 1832
After 9,957 unnumbered patents, the U.S. Patent Office issues Patent No. 1, for locomotive wheels, 1836
Queen Victoria becomes the first British monarch to live at Buckingham Palace in London, 1837
First day of the New York Draft Riots in response to President Abraham Lincoln's Enrollment Act of Conscription, 1863
Horace Greeley publishes his editorial advising young men to "Go West, young man, go west and grow up with the country," 1865
PT Barnum's American Museum was destroyed in one of the most spectacular fires in New York City's history, 1865
Gold was discovered near Cochrane, Ontario, Canada, 1909
The British airship R34 lands in Norfolk, England, completing the first airship return journey across the Atlantic in 182 hours of flight, 1919
Alexander Butterfield reveals the existence of the Nixon tapes to the special Senate committee investigating the Watergate break in, 1973
The Live Aid benefit concert, a telecast fundraising concert for famine relief in Ethiopia, was held in London and Philadelphia, as well as other venues such as Sydney and Moscow, 1985