Random bits. Some are man bits. Some are tid bits.

Got an iPod touch. It's cool, a good little gadgety thing to mess about with and waste further time... I downloaded a few apps and can now entertain myself throwing virtual paper balls into a waste basket while listening to my new favorite music... (Have been listening to Amos Lee nonstop for about two weeks, thanks to TC.)

Speaking of Amos Lee, I picked up tickets to go see him at the Zoo this summer. I love the Oregon Zoo concerts, packing up the kids and an al fresco dinner, sitting in the breeze (lightly scented by the heffalump house) and kickin' it on the lawn Portland style. I'm hoping to get it together to do several of the Wednesday series, and there are a few on Friday nights that I'd also like to attend. Another thing I'd like to do is take a few days this summer to sit on one of the lawns up at Washington Park and read in the sunshine. One of my favorite days of all time was spent lazing about, reading, watching the world go by... It also involved a certain amount of bizarre behavior by a woman trying to catch squirrels, but that was pure entertainment from my vantage point...

Work's been getting me down lately - ever since my run-in with a client, I've been feeling less than gung-ho about helping a population that everyone else seems to have forgotten (or is just choosing not to attend to). I realize that there are limitations to what everyone can do, but it occurs to me that there is a slim shadow of helpers out there, with a dirth of resources to draw upon, in contrast to the growing numbers of disenfranchised and indigent people. What to do? Continue along, buoying the spirit with alternative distractions, like books and beer and friends and design work on the side? Throw up my hands and walk away before I get completely burnt out? It's a definite possibility, but I feel responsible to use the skills that I have to help people who can't help themselves. (Not in an enabler way - in a certifiably unable sort of way.)

*sigh* these are the kinds of things that keep me from sleeping.

Saw a great movie - Dear Frankie, with Emily Mortimer and Gerard Butler. T'was delightful. T'was just the right amount of tear jerker and Gerard Butler. Which is to say that any amount of Gerard Butler is the right amount.

Meanwhile, I've got a couple more books that I've been working on - Taras Grescoe (the same author who did The Devil's Picnic) has another one, called Bottomfeeder, that discusses the ethical aspect of eating seafood in a world of disappearing seafood. Should be interesting, given that I gave up meat after watching too many episodes of Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs, and now eat like a pescatarian... It's been over a year now... And the return to semi-vegetarianism has been a good one. (I was veg for a while from high school until I became pregnant the first time around.) Fish and seafood, but no warm blooded mammal or bird critters for me. It puzzles me that I voluntarily eat items which may be construed as insects of the sea, like crab and lobster... But that's a discourse for another time.

The other book I'm reading is The Best of All Possible Worlds, by Steven Nadler. Did I say this in a previous post? It's the story of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Antoine Arnauld, and Nicolas Malebranche. Three philosophers in the late 1600's in Paris, France, and their vantage points on mathematics, science, the arts, and God. Philosophically speaking, of course. The other night while I was reading my four year old asked me to read to him. So I did. He made it through a few pages - but the historical layout of Paris as it changed during the mid 1600's and resulting development of architecture and city-scape were apparently not riveting enough to keep his attention. He was out cold in 10 minutes.

We're operating from our sattelite location this weekend. I packed my iMac up and took it with me, nestled between a pillow and some clothes, so that I could take advantage of it; developing a new poster/postcard/ad suite for the Lower Fremont set (their summer fest coincides with their 2nd Friday on July 10 & 11); work on the design suite for the 2010 Elementary school auction; continuing with the catalog for the Rifle team; and a new suite for Johnson Shore, an interior design firm...

Good thing we're going out to dinner tonight. I don't think I have the energy to cook!