Today’s the first time in a week that it hasn’t rained from dawn to dusk. The sun’s partially out, but the sky’s still overcast and the ground is soaked. With any luck we’ll get a few days of sun so that we can get back to complaining about how it never rains.

My landlords live right under me and every now and then they invite me down to eat with the family or my landlady will make a little extra for me and I go down to pick it up. I love my landlords. They think I don’t eat enough, so she’ll ask me every now and then what I eat to make sure that I’m not up here starving.

My landlady called me down this morning to give me some lettuce out of her garden. The constant rain from the last week threatened to ruin all of her lettuce, so she gave me a big sackful to take back up with me. She asked me if I wanted some ripieno for lunch because she was making some and could make a little more for me. I was a little confused because “ripieno” in English means, “refill.” I asked her what’s inside of ripieno and she said, “Hardboiled eggs, tuna, mayonnaise, capers…” and immediately I said, “Aaa, insalata di tonno,” or what we’d call tuna salad.

At lunchtime, she rang my doorbell again and told me to come down because it was ready. I walked up to the door and and she handed me a plate of something that took me by surprise. I expected tuna salad, but this looked like a torta with cream lavished over the top like the finest of desserts. I stumbled with my words for a second before I clumsily asked again, “What’s inside?” She gave me a strange look and told me again what’s inside, “Hardboiled eggs, tuna, mayonnaise, capers…” I told her, “Thanks!” and took it upstairs, but thinking that I probably threw off some body language that made her think that I didn’t want it. I was just thrown off because I had already pictured in my mind what it would look like. I’m from Texas. If there’s one thing I can draw up a picture of in my head so clear that I can taste it, it’s tuna salad. It’s like if someone offered you some soup, then they slice you off a piece, it’ll throw you off a bit.

A better description would be deviled eggs with a tuna salad filling, but tell me how delicious that looks. From my first hand experience devouring each and every one, I can describe it in one word — fantasticalular. I had to go and invent a word just to give you the faintest of ideas.