One way it could be worse

Slade often goes to Cali for the day to talk to the big wigs. But even that I hate and anything overnight is unacceptible. Again Anne Bradstreet, seventeenth century, has this to say about men traveling from home for work:


"A Letter to Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment"
Anne Bradstreet

My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, nay, more,
My joy, my magazine of earthly store,
If two be one, as surely thou and I,
How stayest thou there, wilst I at Ipswich lie?
So many steps, head from the heart to sever,
If but a neck, soon should we be together,
I, like the Earth this season, mourn in black,
My Sun is gone so far in's zodiac,
Whom whilst I 'joyed, nor storms, nor frost I felt,
His warmth such frigid colds did cause to melt.
My chilled limbs now numbed lie forlorn;
Return, return, sweet Sol, from Capricorn,
In this dead time, alas, what can I more
Than view those fruits which through thy heat I bore?
Which sweet contentment yield me for a space,
True living pictures of their father's face.
O strange effect! now thou art southward gone,
I weary grow the tedious day so long;
But when thou northward to me shalt return,
I wish my Sun may never set, but burn
Within the Cancer of my glowing breast,
The welcome house of him my dearest guest.
Where ever, ever stay, and go not thence,
Till nature's sad decree shall call thee hence;
Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone,
I here, thou there, but both but one.

He is due for three months of vacation this year and even he who I would have switch companies if he traveled is such a workaholic that he is ambivalent about taking it. He won't admit it really but unless I pin him down he says a lot of stuff that sound like it. At least he likes his work because he does it very hard.