While it's tempting to want to rewrite everything into The One True language, often it is better to deal with these applications on their own terms, and use Ruby as an API proxy. This allows one to use Ruby for day-to-day interaction while avoiding the overhead of reinventing the wheel. My talk will use examples from some of my real-life projects created to allow the use of some best-of-class non-Ruby software while abstracting assorted interactions behind a handy set of Ruby tools and services.