The Bee Bath
Computers are the oil of the 21st century. The oil company security which gave my father-in-law his executive respect for secrets is not all that different from the computer company security which engulfs my husband for 40 to 70 hours a week. From the distance of family, they are near enough to identical. The buildings are of different architectural design and the guards wear a different color of uniform. The blue denim uniform has replaced the business suit for techies like my husband. Same ol' business, different fashion era.
As retirement approaches, I am battling fears that my beloved is going to follow in his father's footsteps and turn his work-aholic habits toward making fixing wifey into his retirement hobby. We have certainly established the precedent for it. I am, openly and simply, the identified patient of the family, as was/is his mother. Her secret affliction is Huntington's Disease. Driving me to a mental hospital has been part of every divorce dress rehearsal we have had in our 32 years together. It even worked once. The other times the staff refused to take sides in our domestic drama. Add in the gold-digger accusations, and I am singing along with Tina. "What's love got to do with it?" There are solid logics to questioning the level of economic trust I have placed in this man. Good people do horrible things to people they sincerely love and I have left myself economically vulnerable. If my beloved decides to ditch the bitch, I have a bag lady retirement in my future.
That doesn't sound as ominous as laying in my mother-in-law's bed. She might be the most isolated person in Houston.
My husband is trying to break that family cycle. His current hopes are in the two bee hives sitting empty in the gardens. He is supposed to pick up the tenants for the hives this weekend. Bee day is Saturday. Bees need a water source, so I have been building a water garden in The Herborium. The bee bath. It has been a fun project, but I am still awash with the anxieties that I am only inviting the Executive Takeover.
We see what grows. Sometimes ya gots to roll your dice and take your chances, even when ya knows the dice is loaded.
As retirement approaches, I am battling fears that my beloved is going to follow in his father's footsteps and turn his work-aholic habits toward making fixing wifey into his retirement hobby. We have certainly established the precedent for it. I am, openly and simply, the identified patient of the family, as was/is his mother. Her secret affliction is Huntington's Disease. Driving me to a mental hospital has been part of every divorce dress rehearsal we have had in our 32 years together. It even worked once. The other times the staff refused to take sides in our domestic drama. Add in the gold-digger accusations, and I am singing along with Tina. "What's love got to do with it?" There are solid logics to questioning the level of economic trust I have placed in this man. Good people do horrible things to people they sincerely love and I have left myself economically vulnerable. If my beloved decides to ditch the bitch, I have a bag lady retirement in my future.
That doesn't sound as ominous as laying in my mother-in-law's bed. She might be the most isolated person in Houston.
My husband is trying to break that family cycle. His current hopes are in the two bee hives sitting empty in the gardens. He is supposed to pick up the tenants for the hives this weekend. Bee day is Saturday. Bees need a water source, so I have been building a water garden in The Herborium. The bee bath. It has been a fun project, but I am still awash with the anxieties that I am only inviting the Executive Takeover.
We see what grows. Sometimes ya gots to roll your dice and take your chances, even when ya knows the dice is loaded.
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