We're replacing the bathtub in our master bathroom with a shower and the reason is simple. It's a crappy bathtub, made of plastic, and it wasn't installed correctly to begin with.

In the past, I took a lot of heat for the mistakes that were made when our house was built, such as the when the plumbing was being put in and when the paint was being applied. I shouldn't have been too hard on myself. The contractor picked the month we were out of the country to do the brunt of the things we've found wrong in the last two years. It's too late to complain about it to anyone that matters and it's not really worth it — the contractor is in prison for various counts of fraud, according to our contacts in the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation, kind of like the FBI in the US).

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Before I tell you what I'm referring to when I say "my gilded cage in the Philippines", I need to tell you exactly what "gild" and the phrases "gilded cage" and "gild the lily" mean. You can click on the picture to get a larger view. The frame still needs to be repainted.

According to what I read in a couple of dictionaries, "gild" means to decorate the outside of something, usually unnecessarily. The phrase "gild the lily" (referring to the flower, of course) means adding ornamentation to something that already looks nice. Finally, "gilded cage" means a cage that's decorated and the cage is not necessarily to keep something in, but to keep something out.

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About an hour after I posted my last article, at approximately 3 am local time, I walked into the third bedroom on the second floor and looked outside. I do this periodically at night because I always hear dogs barking, hens cackling, and roosters squawking for whatever reason. Sometimes I spot my nephew, who lives in house to the right of us, walking his dog (still a puppy really) so the dog can do his thing behind my house. He keeps him chained up at night for some odd reason.

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