I feel as though I should compose an ode to my new bathtub. I'm sure it's unhealthy to be so utterly in love with a a plumping fixture, but there you have it. It's a real bath tub, a great white-enameled, cast-iron, claw-footed beast that seems as though it would hold at least twenty or thirty gallons. After years and years of those atrocious, shallow, modern, plastic shower thingies, it's far beyond wonderful to have a real tub again. I think we took this place largely on my immediate love for that damned tub.

My wife has the same opinion about claw-footed bathtubs. She's sick to death of our crappy little modern tub, the same kind you get everywhere nowadays. And she's a poet, too, so when we move into a house and get a real tub like yours, she's definitely going to write an ode or two to it.

I'll be sure to share when she does.