More-or-less permanently in the "night" position now

Monday morning, unexpectedly dry (forecast calls for rain), and it wasn't totally dark when I drove in this morning. Now that we have communally elected to realign our passage-of-time keeping devices back to real time, I wake and travel in to the office an hour later than I did last week.  So, for a brief and shrinking window of time, mornings will be a tad lighter and the drive home will be darker.  In a few short weeks it will be dark driving in and dark driving home, and the rear-view mirror on my car will now stay more-or-less permanently in the "night" position.

Heavy rain and moderate winds this weekend have denuded most of the early-changing trees.  Trees are now divided into three camps: conifers, denuded deciduous, and fire-colored deciduous. One of the nice thing about the Pacific Northwest is the solid mix of conifers and deciduous trees we have. Come winter, after the latter have shed their leaves and donned their depressingly cold, empty winter look, the conifers keep up the green.  They fight back against the creeping brown and gray of fall and winter.  Nobody makes a Christmas tree out of a small alder or maple.

Speaking of Christmas, I have started to see the beginnings of the holiday sales and marketing machine winding up.  Ugh.  Nothing saps the joy out of a season more thoroughly than tapping into it two months early.  By the time Christmas actually gets here it will have long overstayed its welcome.  The inescapable holiday music sound track, blaring from every store or television commercial for two months, will have worn the traditional songs out long before it is time to stand around together and earnestly sing them.  Bah humbug, say I, to the early holiday marketing machinery.

On a lighter note, a good music mix this morning, with a playlist that could easily have been intentionally assembled with the exception of the Duke.  As usual, though, what at first glance might look jarring (Wilco followed by Duke Ellington) flowed together with surprising grace. The full playlist:

 - Counting Crows: Sullivan Street
 - Van Morrison: See Me Through
 - Wilco: Heavy Metal Drummer
 - Duke Ellington: In the Hall of the Mountain King
 - Brendan James: Early April Morning