So much Olympics! My brother-in-law had a barbecue yesterday, and I hope Dingo’s family understands what a gesture of love it was that I left the house (and the Olympics) to spend time with them.

Get this: I love to watch ski jumping, but I don’t care about aerial skiing. I don’t get it either. And how fun does ski cross look? (very)

I went to Vancouver about 2 years ago for work (I started “The Wolf I Want” on the plane out). I just loved it – I spent 5 days in a Ramada Inn with a breakfast bar in the basement in which the toaster only toasted the bread on one side, making proper Commonwealth toast. The conference (Council of Science Editors) was excellent, the city wildly interesting (but oh! the meth addicts everywhere!), the sushi enormous. I went to the Fluevog store and alarmed my boss with my love of strange shoes.

My sister-in-law has the most enormous black widow spider EVER in a terrarium on her back porch. They’ve been feeding her bugs they find in the yard. She is perfect glossy black and lipstick red. It must be the spider high life to live in a safe house with regular meal deliveries.

A less cushy life is that of our golden orb weaver – it’s also enormous, and it wants very much to build a large web outside our dining room. We are alerted to this by Jinx jumping repeatedly at the window and driving us to distraction. I would love to take a picture for you, but the spider keeps building webs that are either blown or rained away by morning. Poor thing. I love to watch it building, strand by strand.

I cooked up a bunch of chopped Brussels sprouts in the same pan that had been used to cook bacon – high heat, garlic, lemon juice, white wine, oregano. The sprouts are just a touch caramelized, with the acid of the lemon and wine to temper the funky cabbage-ness. That is some tasty nutrition, for sure. My friend Sleuth S. says that it doesn’t count as a treat if it’s a vegetable.

Oh, S. You are so wrong.