Use me while you can

Thursday's commute saw another damp and dark commute, top up, I might add. I haven't had the top down in several weeks now, and it is this period of the PNW (sometimes referred to as the Pacific North Wet) that thoughts of investing in a hard top shell for the Miata get entertained.  Then we get (and we will!) a few days here and there of blue skies and, cold or not, the top can be tossed back over my shoulder and I can once again be that dog with its nose out the car window - whee!  For now, though, the canvas top stays firmly latched but I live with the ready hope it won't always be up.

Yesterday, shortly after getting into the office and noting that the drive required only the occasional wiper swipe, the skies grew very suddenly darker than they should have been.  Harry Potter readers would immediately think: dementors! Bang-crash-flash – and the heavens opened up in a downpour worthy of a Southeast Asian monsoon.  For 30 minutes or so we were treated to a torrential rainstorm with wonderfully rich acoustics and lighting.  Then it settled into a more-typical heavy rain for the rest of the morning.

The iPod must know we are creeping toward the holidays because it continues to toss just one holiday selection into the morning playlist.  This morning's holiday tune is from a Placido Domingo, Diana Ross, and José Carrera holiday album (Christmas in Vienna) that includes some wonderful duets.  This particular medley, which also features Dionne Warwick is one of those album high points.

That it was followed by Supertramp was a tad jarring, though I'm not sure what a selection like that could be followed by that wouldn't be.  Supertramp, at least, is good stuff. Once the initial mental recalibration took place, all was quite good.

Bruce Cockburn's lyrics almost always trigger my pause-and-listen button.  Use Me While You Can is a good example of that, with a combination of both spoken and sung lyrics, the song conjures strong imagery. If you want to see the full lyric (and I do recommend), the song title in the previous sentence will take you to them on the Cockburn Project web site.  If you are content with a small sample:

Pearl held in black fingers

Is the moon behind dry trees

Pearl held in black fingers

Bird inside the rib cage is beating to be free

Use me while you can

I've had breakfast in New Orleans

Dinner in Timbuktu

I've lived as a stranger in my own house, too

Dark hand waves in lamplight

Cowrie shell patterns change

And nothing will be the same again

Cockburn, in the liner notes about this experience-based song set in the Sahara, says, "There were people living there when it was grassland. An ancient presence is there, and yet it can only be felt because there's no sign of it now, no living vestige of it, other than what's left of Timbuktu. Which relates to what our lives are all about. We're here, then we're gone. So if you're going to get anything out of me, get it now."

Today's full playlist:

• Placido Domingo & Dionne Warwick: Medley
• Supertramp: The Logical Song
• Travis: Turn
• Bruce Cockburn: Use Me While You Can