thursday.

Today for lunch we went to McAlister's Deli to celebrate Jeff's birthday, which was last Sunday. There is a McAlister's in Manhattan, Kansas, and I've been before. We took two cars; I drove mine. It was fun.

After work I was taking Jennifer to get her car from the shop and some guy pulled up next to me and pointed to indicate I had a flat tire. So I pulled off right there at our exit and looked at it; sure enough my passenger rear tire was looking no bueno. Jennifer said she had noticed it was low at lunch. If I had known, I should have taken care of it then.

My sister and bro-in-law got me a car emergency kit for Christmas which has an air compressor in it and I pulled it out and aired up my tire. The leak was slow, so it held a little air and I made it to Midas. (I considered putting on the spare but it was 95 degrees and I was in a skirt; maybe that wasn't smart of me but the tire was holding air still.) Midas told me the leak wasn't one they could fix for some reason but they sent me across the street to the Shell station and the boys there said they could plug it for $9. Sweet deal. I was still home by 4 p.m.

After a quick stop at home, I headed to Belmont where I parked at Anne and Sam's and began the 0.8-mile walk to All Fired Up in Hillsboro Village. I loved the walk; I like campus areas of town. It reminded me of being in Manhattan where I walked or rode my bike everywhere. This scene literally stopped me in my tracks:

Portland Ave. & 20th Ave. S
Click the picture for a larger view.

When I walked into All Fired Up, the place was empty. I finished up my coffee mug I started last weekend and it will be ready to pick up on Tuesday. I'm not extremely happy with it; I went in without a vision and there's no undo button when you paint. And at some point when you start to dislike it, you just have to stop because adding more and more paint to try to fix it will only make it look worse. But who knows, it might look great after being glazed and fired.

Anne's sister is in town and Anne noticed my car and invited me to join them for dinner. Anne and Sam's is basically my second home; I'm over there a lot. :) Anne made spicy soba, emphasis on the spicy. I told her about my last semester in college when my friend Henry made "Henry's White Fire Chili." It was the spiciest thing I had ever eaten and that night I couldn't sleep and ended up throwing it all back up. Anne's soba was spicy enough to leave my lips a little tingly but I think I'll be all right. Only time will tell. :)

Today was beautiful,