Nature or Nurture

My father is in town which means stress is at an all time high. I need to begin my deep breathing exercises and start my yoga “ummmm’s”. He arrived pretty uneventfully and even as all the kids rolled in (six between my sister and I … 4 aged 4 and under) he remained fairly calm. But as my sister was waiting for her husband, so she could trade off and head to work, you could see the wringing off the hands, the lightly flushed face, and the elevated voice take over. He was counting down the minutes to her departure. Worrying about her making it to work on time you could actually see the sweat form under his pits. The man exudes tenseness and like a plague I immediately become infected…he’s the monkey in “Outbreak” and I am Renee Russo. I joke, I tease, anything to break the anxiety filled room. But he’s like rubber… “You know I’m rubber you’re glue whatever you say to me bounces off of me and sticks to you”… Well her husband arrives and she’s leaves on time, no worries … until we realize that she has forgotten her cell phone. Now you would have thought all the air was just sucked out of the room. At this point he wants to probably chase her down but he’s trying to act cool… and on an acting scale from 1 to 10… he’s a Gary Busey. So she has now called from work, which means she has arrived unscathed, now we can relax again. Four hours into his visit I can’t wait till I mention the jail sentence I must serve… ha-ha… deep breaths.