There were some editorial issues with the colander hat license story last week. I had to read a whole bunch of stuff about Mr. Alm and I never really got to the definitive bottom of the problem, but I did learn that his favorite pasta is pici.

I had never heard of pici, but the internet had. I got directions and made a big batch of it Friday, along with some tomato-fennel sauce that fortuitously used up the rest of our Pernod, which is a nasty concoction otherwise. Pici is fun to make. It's super-thick spaghetti, too thick for a sensitive worm- and snake-lover like Victoria. Brian and I had no problem consuming her share along with ours.

V made it through her first week of work. She is helping out at horse camp. When I picked her up after a full day on Monday I wasn't sure she would last through the week, but she rallied and seemed to enjoy it more after that. Back in the neighborhood, today she got a gift from an admirer. Unfortunately, V is entirely impassive to all efforts romantical, so this episode is almost bound to end poorly but for now it's awfully sweet.