It's Not "Broken"!

Act I

Scene I

At Rise: (A peaceful stone terrace, surrounded by stone retaining walls and gardens, birdsong fills the air. Enter my husband, carrying a sapling he has cut down, perhaps 15-20 feet long, balanced like a teeter totter over his shoulder. Do we have The Three Stooges in mind? Good...)

ME: Where are you going with that?

HUSBAND: Over there (points to the miter saw by the back door).

ME: Ok........(*gasps* as back end of sapling catches an aging patio table and topples it, breaking the tile on top into several pieces)

Now at this point, anyone but a mosaic artist might be annoyed. In fact, I think my husband expected me to be annoyed. When he heard the breaking noise, he looked like a racoon caught rifling through the garbage. Apologies were profuse, but they were unneccesary! Broken tile! Are you kidding me? It's what I live for!

The table had been built out of 2 X 4s with a porcelain tile set into the top. It had survived the New Hampshire climate for at least 5 years. The legs were wobbly and we had even talked recently about the need to replace it. And the tile had been used as a "stop gap measure" (although nothing in this household is ever really a stop gap measure - once put into use it will perish there before it is replaced).

So now, off to build a new table base (maybe a slightly sturdier one is in order), and scramble those pieces up with some broken slate, or possibly some left over Talavera tile and see what evolves!

Exit, stage left!