family ties

I have just spent a long weekend doing a bunch of family stuff. My sister finished her undergrad degree, she got it just in the nick of time before hitting thirty. My brother got promoted to a higher rank in the military, he's so gung-ho that it really wouldn't surprise me at all if he ended up like Colin Powell one day. My dad came into town for my sister's graduation and he finally decided that it was time to acknowledge the elephant in the room, his girlfriend of five years. Now, that isn't to say that none of us knew about her. We all knew about her, even my mom, mostly because I decided to tell her about my dad's lady when I moved back here. I thought, "We're all adults, my parents have been divorced for years...it's not like my dad left my mom for this woman. It'll be fine." And so for a while it seemed like it was fine. Even when my dad first mentioned bringing Robin, it seemed like it would be okay.
But alas...it was NOT okay. It was very much not okay. My mom ended up being a slice of the bitterest fruit imaginable. She refused to sit with us at the graduation. Then later when she finally could not avoid a tete-a-tete with the new ladyfriend, she refused to look her in the eye, had the face of somebody getting a colonoscopy the whole time, and then proceeded to say some incredibly rude things.
It probably could have been a lot worse. My mom isn't always the most emotionally balanced person in the world. What kills me is the perception of it all. My mom thinks that what she did proved some kind of point, she probably feels some kind of internal validation. The rest of us are a little horrified that she could be so rude. And part of me really hoped that she would suck it up and act like the adult she is but then she didn't and I had to admit that in this instance, I gave her too much credit.
Ah well. That was the only "down" side of the weekend and it only took up about fifteen total minutes of real time. Everything else was great. My dad's new lady seems like a wonderful woman (I had not met her in person before this). We're all proud of my brother and sister. The boy met my dad and that seemed to go well. Next time maybe we'll get my mom on board with the whole happy family thing.