last weekend mike and i went down to little italy to browse around. turns out it was the festival of saint someone or other and there was a street fair down mullbery street. we hung out there for a little while and mike threw a dart or two and won a purple rhinocerous for me. (the other option was a cheap bear holding a heart - clearly the cheap purple rhinocerous is better). one guy tried to get us to throw more darts by saying "hey big guy - get a bigger one for your model" (which, when you think about it, sounds kind of dirty...). mike was flattered (about the big guy part), but refused and i was busy looking around for a model.

the other interesting part is that we found a restaurant that specializes in rice pudding. instead of big vats of ice cream, they have big vats of rice pudding in all sorts of flavors (almond, cookies and cream, mango, rocky road) and let me tell you it's a good thing they are on the way south side of the island because that is just the right dessert place for me. on the other hand, if you are feeling very skinny, they will ship you some! they're called "rice to riches" and they have a website. look it up.

mike is training for another long bike ride (now that his lower half has recovered from the first one) which will take place in late october. let's all hope he doesn't freeze to death. it's nice that he has so many good biking options because ninjitsu is just a lot harder to get to here.

i've been working very hard at the library - planning a lot of programs, buying books, helping patrons, etc. the regular library stuff. still love it there (my boss always tells me to "say that louder for the microphones" but it's true) and still love being a librarian. the lesson here? my mother told me that i should be a librarian years ago. children: listen to your mothers. they know what they are talking about.