So, my dad and I were talking the other day.  I've explained to him before that he completely bumbles me up when I'm in the kitchen cooking something.  I can just HEAR his thoughts doubting my skill or knowledge.  I can feel that watchful, doubtful eye on me.  I can be doing the most wonderful of things in there, creating a masterpiece, and five minutes of his presence will turn it black, charred and lacking of all flavor, or good flavor anyway.  I hate that he has that effect on me, but he does, so we talked about this and sort of had it worked out that he'd leave me the hell alone when I was in the kitchen if I was trying something new.  See, we had been discussing trying new foods because he's getting sick of the same thing over and over.  Honestly, me too, so I'm all for experimenting with new recipes.  Strangely, I like to cook a little bit.  I find that it's one of those things that comes naturally to me and it makes me feel closer to my mom because she's the same way.  She doesn't need to measure or whatnot, she just goes at it and it always comes out awesome.

We were talking further about it and it evolved into my telling him that really, I didn't feel like it was MY kitchen.  I'd like to have a place that I feel is MINE, and this is just not it.  I'm sure you know what I mean.  I want to be the one who says 'No, that doesn't go there.' or 'Look what I got for MY new kitchen.' or 'Get out of MY kitchen!'  I can't say those things to my dad.  Anybody else sure, but there's always that underlying fact of "It's not mine, it's DAD'S kitchen.  He'll get mad about whatever much more than I will."  He of course went on this whole ramble about how it was my kitchen also and I should feel comfortable to do as I please and blah blah blah.  Well, how?  That's what I want to know.  I'd like to rearrange the cabinets and drawers so the things in them would be much more organized and thus easily accessible, instead of having a traffic jam of kitchen utensils when you try to open a drawer and find you can only open it halfway because something is stuck.  I could do it, but he'd find 100 excuses WHY I couldn't move this or that to this different place or that different place.  I want to remove things that we don't use at all.  Of course he'll argue with that for some lame reason, even though he knows the only reason he wants the stuff there is familiarity.  Back to the "because it's always been this way", whether it works well or not.  Get with the fucking times!

Also, I wouldn't mind being able to spruce the place up, make it not look so dingy.  He's got so much of his own stuff though, the second I move something I'm being accused of stealing his things, sabotaging his paperwork or moving shit around on him to fuck with him.  I don't even bother anymore.  If I were to feel like I was in control of that kitchen, I could do some pretty fantastic things in there and he wouldn't be sick of the same cooking day in and day out.  The last few things I've gotten brave and experimented with have turned out to be pretty successful with both my dad AND my husband, which is no small feat.  Anyway, after a long conversation about it I was told plenty of times to use it like it's mine, because it is mine TOO (not just MINE, but mine TOO, see the difference?).  My dad just can not keep this word, of course.  I was doing two completely new recipes and could he just stay out?  No, he had to come in multiple times to "check and see how it was going".  That is "dad-ese" for "I'm checking to see if you've screwed up yet."  Finally I told him "Everything's fine, please get out."  I was getting sick of the damn distraction!

So anyway, ever since we had that big conversation and he told me I should feel like it's mine, every time I go in there to do something he has to watch over me, explain to me processes I've done repeatedly myself already, and just be a pain in the ass in general.  That's not even the biggest glaring issue of the night.  He was chopping up the salad while everything was in the oven and he calls me into the house (I had gone outside to cool off, that oven had it hot in there!) with an attitude.  He starts bitching about how the salad is ruined and he's throwing it all out.  I started asking why and he tells me about some soap suds in the sink.  All right, admittedly, I had wiped the sink out.  I did not leave soap all over it though, how stupid do you think I am?  I rinsed it down thoroughly.  I was actually more worried about him bitching for me leaving the water on so long because of rinsing the sink down.  Anyway, so then he points to this sponge I had bought a few months ago.  It's the kind that has a handle that you fill with soap and a sponge on the end so you don't always have to have your hands in the dishwater.  The thing is ideal for washing jars and the like.  He points at it and claims that when the water leaked out of the back of the faucet as he was rinsing vegetables the soap must have run down the sink and gotten everything soapy because he was seeing bubbles in the sink while he was rinsing stuff.

I don't know about you guys, but I know there have been times that when I run water full blast it will look as if there are bubbles when they're not, it's just because the water is hitting rapidly.  I KNOW it wasn't that sponge, and I KNOW it hadn't seeped that far down a ways and then down into the sink.  Improbable.  Of course he maintained his attitude, it pissed me off, I threw the sponge and it's brand new refill sponges away because he points at it, then me and says "That can not go there, it's just not going to work."  Mind you, this thing has been sitting in that spot for the better part of probably 10 months or so now!  As soon as I got upset and threw it in the trash he switched gears and said "Well, it's a good utensil, it just doesn't go there, we need to find something else to do with it".  So I crammed it in a plastic ziplock bag and sealed it up.  He told me that that wouldn't work.  What other suggestion do you have then?  He starts talking about getting something to set it in.  That's just more clutter for the kitchen, fuck that.  So I cram it in this big cup we have that we use to rinse the sink down, bag and all.  Then he starts getting pissy because I got pissy.

Uh, sorry, I had a crappy day at work and now you're picking on me about some damn sponge and some bubbles when I wasn't even present, had nothing to do with it, the sponge has never been a problem before and you started it with your attitude.  Fuck you asswipe.  See, I can't even put a simple sponge wherever I want in the kitchen.  I can tell you where I wanted to put it after this episode.  Take a guess.  Anyway, see, had it been me, I would have just re-rinsed all of the stuff, because we have collanders, you know?  Wouldn't have been hard.  That was too much work for him.  All I can say is I think he's nuts.  I did not taste one bit of soap on that salad.  However, and this is very worth mentioning ... the drinking glasses have been presenting a soapy taste lately, no matter what's in them ... and dad has been washing all of the dishes lately.  Huh, isn't that interesting?