With a moan of anguished anticipation

After building a little frame out of quarter-round, I put gobs of black caulking all around the perimeter, stuck the stained glass window in and stepped back to admire the look. It looked so great! Happy. Happy. Then it flopped forward and I could hear the glass breaking.

If you have ever read Nabokov's Pnin,** I felt Pnin's pain when he thought he had broken a cherished bowl while washing it. Only this really did break. After moping around a little bit, I decided to finish installing it anyway. You can't see the cracks in the glass but I think I'll cut some window glass to help support it.

Part of the lore.

**Pnin is washing up, after a party. Lovingly, he places an aquamarine bowl in the water. This bowl is a gift from his young son. It is Pnin's most precious object. It slips out of his hand and drops into the suds-filled sink.

He almost caught it--his fingertips actually came into contact with it in mid-air, but this only helped to propel it into the treasure-concealing foam of the sink, where an excruciating crack of broken glass followed upon the plunge.

Then something wonderful happens: "With a moan of anguished anticipation, he went back to the sink and, bracing himself, dipped his hand deep into the foam. A jagger of glass stung him. Gently he removed a broken goblet. The beautiful bowl was intact. He took a fresh dish towel and went on with his household work."

Woe

Several members of the Rodentia order have taken up residence in TinyCabin imparting a bad smell and rodent droppings of different sizes. They skitter around loudly at night, chew rudely and party with the rat poison I've left out. One white-footed mouse was found feets up but the size of most of the droppings makes me think I've got flying squirrels or woodrats.

Tarr is indifferent to these potential prey items and will not get out of bed to deal with them. Because the exterior walls are not completed yet (but soon!) I am lucky I don't have bears inside.

Earlier I bragged too soon about the wonders of Pex Plumbing. I don't love Pex anymore because when I actually turned the water on water spewed from many of the fittings. Pex doesn't bend as readily as I had envisioned - so I had to use quite a few brass fittings and these are expensive and introduce the real possibility of leaks and multiple trips to the plumbing supply store.

So I'm on my back on the floor under the sink trying to fix things, leak by leak, ickily aware that I was lying in a murky soup of water, dust, filth and rat feces. Then the faucet broke.

That did it.

After swabbing the cabin floor with ammonia, I went home and took a shower. Then I took a bath. No pictures. I was just too bummed.