week's end

Every Friday, on my way back to Gone West, I stop at C0stC0 to fill my car up with gas. I don't always need a full tank (today I filled it with 7.717 gallons*), but I drive my carpool on Monday, so I like to have it full. 

Today I called the Ethiopian restaurant while my car was filling, to ask if they would have enough injera if I stopped by to eat dinner before my friend's birthday party. 

They did, so I drove straight there and sat at the bar with my sudoku puzzle.

"Come on a Tuesday or Wednesday," P. said, so we have time to chat.

My food came quickly, which was good because after a day that starts at 5:30 am, I am ridiculously hungry by 6:45 pm. 

I never get tired of ye doro tibs and kik alecha wat. Never, ever. When my mom came last winter, when I was going to drive back to the Mitten** with her and then never picked up the rental truck because I could not leave Gone West, we went to the Ethiopian restaurant twice, and each time we got enough for leftovers. I ate Ethiopian four days in a row. Actually, maybe six, because I think I had it the two days before she arrived, too. I was not tired of it.

I had enough time to stop at home before the birthday party, which is where I am now. This is a problem, because I'm not sure I can move again now that I have let myself lie down.

* My old friend SHO from Universe City recently bought a hybrid SUV, and he proudly announced that he'd gotten 32 miles to the gallon. "Me, too," I said. "And my car is a '97 Civic."

** Random story: the Mitten license plate has always, naturally, been the one that is most familiar to me. (I have an inexplicable interest in license plates, the numbering thereof, so I pay attention to them.) The State of Happiness license plate, though, is catching up, and a few times recently I have caught site of a State of Happiness plate and, because of its familiarity, thought, "Hey, it's someone from the Mitten!" Only, of course, it isn't. It's just that the State of Happiness license plate is replacing the Mitten as the most familiar in my brain.