Not all men are the same, not all dirt is the same, not all haircuts are the same, and not all zucchini are the same.
What they have in common:

1. You can’t leave any of them in the bottom of a refrigerator drawer and expect them to improve.
2. If you start with quality, you won’t be as tempted to leave them in a refrigerator drawer.
3. Improvements can be made

My man started out fine and remains fine. The dirt out back was a bleak misery but has been nurtured, cuddled and caressed back to life w/fat juicy worms and compost. The haircut isn’t working flat out. Cutting my hair w/whatever scissors I can find in the junk drawer is over.
I have never met a good zucchini in this country. They are either bitter and nasty or bland and tasteless. I buy them because I hope in vain that they’ll be everything I know they can be and then leave them to whither because I know they’ll do nothing but leave me wanting.
Yesterday though, I won the battle. I sliced 3 cloves of hefty garlic cloves into paper thin slivers and sizzled them up in olive oil with flat leaf parsley. I peeled two strips of lemon zest from the pith underneath and threw that in with a few red pepper flakes. 3 zucchini in a small chop. Salt and pepper and then SUGAR! Only a little a bit, only a tiny scream of it, plus a solid squeeze of lemon juice gave me enough agrodolce zing zang to make the zucchini worth eating. I pounded a few tablespoons of pignoli w/sea salt, ripped arugula leaves from the garden and tore them up. When hardly half a box of orchiette were al dente, I added them to the zucchini w/the pignoli, the arugula leaves, a few tablespoons of the pasta’s cooking water and a good handful of parm. regiano.