We saw a dark fluffy cat in the back yard, one with a tail and a scowl similar to Phoebe's. There's been a series of fluffies emerging from the back - somewhere nearby, somebody is making kittens or cats of a similar brand. Phoebe came a while back, of course, then wide-eyed and cheerful Riley. Mononoke, who looks spookily like Riley, showed up a few blocks away, and has now moved to the south hills. This one may have just been passing through. I hope so. I hope it has a place to live... we have a peaceable situation, one that I'd hate to see disrupted.

I'm in sort of a dip, a slough of despond at work. It does happen. It's one of those phase things, sort of like a sine wave, or a confluence of sine waves. Biorhythm, maybe. It happens, and then it's gone. I know it will be back. I've been through this a bunch of times, at every job I've ever had. It's one of those states where I feel simultaneously overwhelmed, bored, incompetent, and like I'm doing fine. What a stew of stuff. It's a vague dissatisfaction, where I'd really rather sit alone somewhere, and read escapist books, since I'm really not interested in what's happening. And there's a lot happening. And a lot that I should be interested in. And am, in some strange, far off, echo-y way. But not, in an active way. Well, the week-end is coming up. And I'm doing something a little different today, moving some equipment around, setting some stuff up. Maybe that will blow some of the fog out, getting something actually, visibly accomplished....

Since I'm feeling up to my nose in politics, glad it's over, mostly happy with the results, but discouraged that some of this we're going to have to do all over again in November, I was trying to think of something else to blog about. I'm drawing a blank on personal news and commentary, so I'll go afield.

I think I blogged earlier about my mom's volunteering with the Bend Humane Society to keep batches of kittens or mama cats or sick cats until they can be put in with the rest of the adoptable animals. She has a little room that works for it, and her cat and dog are pretty patient and decent about the whole thing. Anyway, here are some shots of the latest batch, courtesy of my sister:

I delivered our ballots to the ballot box today. I don't know if Mr Random and I are procrastinators, or if we just like the idea of voting on voting day. May the best candidates win. I'll admit, there were a couple items where I was really torn, where I really don't have that sure sense of the one right candidate. That's lucky, I suppose, to have more than one acceptable candidate. I suppose the race I'm surest about is our local mayoral race - go, Kitty!

We're back to normal spring - it's raining. I got to work in the drowned rat style. Oh well, water doesn't hurt you. Or at least, I seem to survive it fine. But I count my blessings - I don't have to walk into a power-suited, big-haired, business meeting first thing. I get to slide behind my computer and dry off first. And power-suits are rare here, which is a very great thing. We're not that formal or uptight. And so much is done remotely, or by phone. For instance, instead of going to a conference or training, I have about four hours of webinars today. Hopefully they'll be worthwhile... webinaring is good and bad. It's more efficient, more energy efficient, altogether easier, but it doesn't always give you that head-clearing break from the normal, and you never meet anyone new at one. But easy though it is, four hours of computer-gazing is brain-deadening. Zombie coming up!

Now for a couple of links. Via dangerousmeta, an article a new study on the effect of cell phones on children. This study showed evidence that children of women who use cell phones regularly have increased incidences of behavioral problems. Interesting - they don't know, really, if it is something about the phones themselves or if it is something else, like less attention to the child from women who use cell phones a lot. I wonder - I know I get confused sometimes. When some one is facing me and talking, or if we're the only ones in a small area, I assume they are talking to me. Often, nowadays, they aren't - they are talking to someone on a phone. Would that cause confusion/distress in a baby? Or is it something in the phone itself? It will be interesting to see what kind of follow-up studies happen...

And a couple from Rebecca's Pocket: an article with examples of portion sizes then and now. I've ranted about this before. Did you know that a standard-sized dinner plate is now 12" in diameter, where before 1990 it was 10"? We have bigger plates, and we put more on them. Or we put so much on the plates, they needed to get bigger. Not sure of the order there. But still, it's something to be conscious of. And something else to notice, an article about the misogyny we've seen in the democratic primary. Interesting that bashing women is so culturally acceptable still...

Whew, that was a real hit of summer this week-end! I got out the wading pool, and it felt really good. That usually doesn't happen until August. We had guests, who were checking out Eugene for a potential move here, and it was strange to have such strange weather. It was nice, too - sun makes everything look good, especially sun on that nice, fresh spring green we have right now. If you can see it through your sweat, anyway. We showed them quite a lot - we hiked around LCC and U of O, drove around some neighborhoods, went to Saturday Market, had lunch at High Street, breakfast at the Glenwood. Ken took them to the WOW Hall. We did our best, and Eugene put on a good show. I guess we showed them mostly the places we go to and like, not the ones we don't, so I suppose it wasn't entirely balanced. Oh well. I expect they realize that. Or will, anyway.

I tried out a couple recipes from my new Flexitarian Table book. Not bad! I made grilled kebabs with tempeh with charmoula, and chickpea bulgur salad with lemon & onion. I need to try some other things out of the book. I keep being a little tripped up by the structure of it - it's by season, by menu. I seem to resist doing a whole menu as they are laid out, but to mix and match more, and somehow it feels awkward, I'm not sure why. But I think I need to get past that, and it will be rewarding. Or just settle down and do the menus as they stand before messing with them. WHAT? Nah....

I stayed up too late last night. Mr Random and I biked to Anatolia for dinner, then after that I sat outside, enjoying the balmy air, and watched the sun go down, the light fade, the sky go to dark blue. I looked at the glow of lanterns and lights, listened to the train and to the bells from the orthodox church down the way. I could hear the faint sounds of Mr Random mixing inside, the cats were wandering around, birds were fluttering, calling, settling down. It was just so nice, so peaceful. And then it was late, and on a Sunday night. Oof, and here it is Monday morning. Back to work, back to routine, and presently, back to normal spring weather...

Welcome to summer! It's feeling like a shock to my system, to be so warm, especially at night. But it was really pleasant, riding my bike to work this morning. The wonderful Mr Random adjusted my brakes, and so that little frisson due to potential disaster is gone - I can stop at will. (I haven't really been in total danger since I tend to not ride very fast or very aggressively, so I could have executed an emergency stop pretty easily by the foot-to-ground method, but still, it's been irritating.)

We have guests arriving, and are almost ready. It's good to have guests - it makes you look a little harder at your environment. Sometimes that's shocking. Painful, in fact. I'm not sure I like seeing my environment that well - a little blurriness helps. But we're mostly in shape, as long as no one is too critical. And I doubt they will be. Think "bohemian" and it looks better. Hah! Oh well, could be a lot worse and has been!

The City Club today is Eugene and Beyond: Sustaining the Arts. Kind of nice to take a break from politics! It's a bit about classical music today in the US, and something about the Eugene Symphony, and their search for their next conductor. Should be interesting - some of you might not know, but I worked for the Eugene Symphony briefly, doing some part-time database work, way back in the day. I was between real jobs, and this one was congenial, suplemented my unemployment, and they didn't care if I kept job hunting between times. It was a lot of fun, and I got free symphony tickets. I really like going to the symphony - I should do it more often... I wish their shows weren't always on Thursday nights, though. I have a tough time going out on week-nights. Or rather, getting up the next morning.

Happy birthday to my sister! May she have a good birthday, and a good upcoming year!

It is sure nice to have some mild, spring weather finally. We ate dinner outside for the first time of the season. And the heat goes on, at least according to the forecast. We'll see summer, at least for the week-end. It will be a test for the new, energy-efficient metal roof. The metal roof is supposed to reflect heat, so in theory, our upstairs should be a lot more comfortable. I hope so, for our guests' sakes. And ours! It can get candle-melting hot up there, or has in the past...

An old saying is going through my mind, one that is feeling kind of true. The saying is "If you do just a little everyday, eventually you get completely overwhelmed." That's how I'm feeling at the moment. At home, I did a little weeding, a little tidying last night. I did stuff at work. Even so, the list of things to do, things to fix seems to get longer, not shorter. I need to make some calls, follow through here, initiate there.... and I do some of that, a little everyday. But it seems to get to be more, not less. A simple thing, I thought, something easy to get done, something to cross off my list, making an appointment to get my bike tuned up, just exploded into a major hassle. Argh!

Breathe, breathe. It could be worse. Who need brakes anyway? On to the next tangle of spaghetti...

First day back at work, tons of e-mails, some interesting problems. It's actually nice to be back, but I do think that a shorter workday would be nice. I like work, except I think I'd like to have a little less of it... Hmmm, now there's a goal.

Yesterday, I travelled across the river, on one of my brief forays to the other side. This time my target was that temple of Satan, Bed Bath and Beyond. I had to replace towels. I bought us new towels a while back, and figured that was it - I was done, we were good. Actually, I find that 18 years down the line, those old towels start being pretty ragged. They start to ravel. And one cuts off the dangling strings, and the towels get smaller. Hmmm. Being in a spring spruce-up mode, I decided to bite the bullet and go buy some more. I probably should have bought way more, but I at least made a start at it.

Since I was out, I thought I'd stop at a store or two, to check out some of the spring fashions. I'd already gone through my closet, and made a fairly large stack of discards. It's amazing some of the things I've bought. I mean, how could I have? I tried on a couple things, and it's astounding how bad they looked - colors that made me look pasty, shapes and cuts that brought out the worst. All I can think is that either the lights at the store were tricky, the things were on sale, or I was temporarily insane.

Well, I wasn't really feeling that shopping drive - after all, I'd just gone through my closet, and had a pretty good idea of how much stuff I have. And I was gun shy, given the mistakes I'd just copped to. I was also heaving along a big sack of towelling, so I had what I really came for. But the closet inventory did reveal some weak areas, and I did notice that some things, especially some of the t-shirts, have a little of that limp and wrung look, so off I went.

It was ghastly.

What is it with the new ruffly pregnancy smock look? And the colors were mostly these sherbet-y, icy ones, ones that make me look jaundiced or hung over, either way not so good. And how come a lot of the fabrics are half transparent? I have to carefully peer through skirts into light, to see if they are going to require a slip for decency's sake. I hate slips - they always seem sort of sticky and add a layer of elastic where I don't want one. Or maybe I'm just stuck in the past somewhere, and it's perfectly okay to run around with a semi-transparent skirt? I'm not sure I am capable, at least without self-conscious angst.

Of course, I was not at either of my favorite shops, but I was at ones that I've liked in the past. I'm curious to see if it's universal, or if I just had bad luck yesterday. Or if it is a sign that I should just do the frugal pioneer thing, and wear what I have to ribbons before I go out consuming again. That would be the smart thing, but the lust for fresh fabrics and patterns is likely to take me out on the hunt, looking for the new, improved look.