A bit of a quandry

I'm dealing with a situation that has me flummoxed. (Pissed off, too, but that's another issue.) My dad is in his early 80s and is in a senior care center. He's pretty much self-sufficient as far as caring for himself and taking his medication as prescribed, he just never learned how to cook or do laundry, so he needs someone to do those things for him. And he's still pretty much "with it" mentally - he just has always had an annoying tendency to make up his mind based on what he thinks are the facts, and ignores the truth when it's inconvenient for him. He also has a habit of holding me responsible for things that are totally out of my control, sometimes even for things that have absolutely nothing to do with me. And if I point out that I can't do anything about the situation and don't want to hear about it any more (or, gods forbid, suggest what he can do to rectify things), I've been known to get "Why do you hate me so much?" in response.

So. Recently a situation involving my youngest and a visit to his grandfather that didn't happen arose. Squidboy had few days' leave time, and went back to Original Home State to visit the relatives. Athos' side of the family and my father live about two hours away from each other. Not knowing that Squidboy didn't intend to make the trip to see Grandpa because he never told me of his final plans, and based on the fact that the kid had told me he was "going to visit everybody", I let Dad know that he'd be in sometime over the weekend. Well, turns out the boy hadn't planned on making the drive. (As it turns out, he couldn't have rented a car for the trip - rules have changed, and generally a person under 25 can't rent a car these days.) To make things even better, he didn't even bother to call his grandfather despite promising to do so; he said he was "busy" when I challenged him about it afterwards.

Now his Dad is taking his disappointment out on me. He's convinced that Squidboy spent the entire weekend "following his uncle around like a puppy" (Dad's own words) and that's why he didn't visit. Not true; he actually spent very little time with Favorite Uncle, and was dragged around to various family functions while he was there. I explained the situation and told him to talk to the kid if he has a problem with the way things turned out. His response? "No, I won't do that." But he's willing to bitch at me about it. Mein Gott.

Now I have to decide whether to just bite my tongue and let Dad go on and on about everything and continue blaming me, or do I basically tell him to STFU about it. What I'm really wanting to say is, "I had no control over the situation. Talk to Squidboy if you've got a problem with it. ...No? So you think it's better to piss off the person who's paying your bills than it is to risk annoying the kid who can't even be bothered to call you?!?"

Not that it would do any good, I've never counted for as much as the boys have, them being penis-people and all. But it would sure make me feel better.