Friday morning, all's well.

My radiator is fixed - so well, that I woke up way overheated this morning, stewing in odd dreams. Waking dreams with mice skittering along my floor, and whispering oracles into my face at 4am.

I got up with the alarm for once, and spent an hour on the last changes for the work website. When I was done, I looked up, out the window and saw the first bits of light peeking from behind the clouds.

So, accomplished, sunlight, good music on the 'phones, not sick anymore and Friday on top of all of it - is it any wonder that I feel just an inch bigger than my skin from just sheer joy?

I'm happily anticpating my little vacation in two weeks, and I'm playing around with Style Sheets - why didn't I do this earlier? These are so cool!

Toxic Juan's

I have various food cravings on a fairly regular basis, and usually they're easy enough to satisfy, sushi here, good salsa there, tempura is a quick run up to the UDistrict, and I've recently added Hooters wings to the list.

Sometimes, though, it's not so easy. For instance, my favorite chicken tacos are from this little place in Lenexa, right outside Kansas City. Somedays I think I'd visit Kansas just for the few restaurants there that I love.

And while we're thinking about not terribly authentic Mexican, there's Taco Johns. I got hooked on their potato oles and two-tacos-for-a-buck Tuesdays back in Colorado, where it was a weekly event for the IT folks to walk five blocks to the nearby Toxic Juan's and stock up. Later, at my last job before I left Kansas, I'd head down to the local TJ's for lunch instead of moldering in the giant cube farm.

They had these lovely little crunchy tater-tots with seasoning salt and unidentifiable meat and sauce milder than ketchup, and I loved it.

In Washington, they only exit in Fort Lews, Kennewick, Spokane and Yakima, and I'm not about to drive across half the state for my foodish cravings. Darnit.

And while I'm at it, I wish to hell I could remember which wing-joint Nathan worked at in Evanston before he went to CC. Buffalo Joe's is just too easy. Those were good wings.

Wings and color

My second craving of the day was assuaged this evening - no fake Mexican, but Lori, Ali and I headed down to Hooters for dinner. Cheap wings, yes, but they charge usurious prices for a simple glass of iced tea. I feel I simply must have a refill, even if it is the size of a small tank truck.

Once I wore off the savage-must-rip-into-the-wings edge of my hunger, I remembered the second reason I like Hooters so much. People! In this case, it was the foursome of barely post-pubescent guys who sat down at an adjacent table. I'm still in the stage of noting that we're the only group completely composed of women that I've seen there, and we look nothing like the women who work there or the few that come in with the larger groups.

Once you get past the overwhelming smell of testosterone (which smells suspiciously breaded and fried,) it's just fun to watch the guys.

On the way home we decided to try to find a bus across to the UVillage, and Lori's bus karma came quite in handy - we'd just stepped off the 70, and the 65 was right behind us. I was quite pleased. And then: Barnes and Noble.

I restrained myself. I still don't know where I found the willpower, but I almost managed to walk out the door without buying anything. And then, of course, we passed the bargain table. Dollar items, including the last of the calendars, and, just there in the corner, under the cheap-ass old poetry and the 18th century cutout dolls, the Grail.

A coloring book.

An adult coloring book, no less. (No. Wait - no, get your minds out of the gutter.) It was a book of Japanese designs from kimonos and screens and lacquered boxes. No naked pictures.

But a coloring book! Woohoo! And only a dollar!

The frugal part of my soul perked up, and the inner seven year old demanded, so now I have to decide: which first, crayons, colored pencils, colored pens, pastels or the watercolor pencils? Well, probably not the last.

Whee! Color!