Take A Chance Take A Chance Take-a Take-a Chance Chance

Did I ever tell you that Englishman bought me a 40GB Creative Zen MP3 player for an anniversary present this year? It happened right after the layoff so I was floored by the expense of it more than the thoughtfulness. He assured me that it had been ordered and paid for months before. It certainly explained why he had been making repeated trips between the living room and office with stacks of classical CD's. He'd been ripping them to the hard drive for me. Prior to receiving this gift of audio ambrosia, I had been toting CDs to and from my workplace and burning them onto the hard drive of my computer and whining about how, without having administrator privileges, I couldn't delete the tracks I hated.

Anyway, sitting at my desk today I was listening to the player on shuffle mode which I love because it means I hear the Kyrie from Bach's Mass in B Minor followed by some Trip Hop track then the Beatles which spins straight into the Buzzcocks like some psychotic miniature DJ lives in there and gets off on cracking arcane musical jokes. This morning I got to hear Abba's "Take A Chance On Me." Now, you may perhaps disagree with me, but it's hard to imagine a more mood elevating, toe tapping, fuck-it-its-Friday-and-I-can't-take-this-shit-seriously-anymore genre than Abba (because I think we can all agree they're a musical genre unto themselves). Psycho Mini DJ kept up the Friday mood by spinning some Strokes, Olive, Coldplay, Keane, Vines, REM, and Kronos Quartet. I left the office in a reasonably happy mood and stopped at Trader Joes on the way home. And what should be playing on the PA but Abba's "Take a Chance On Me."

Twice in one day after years and years of languishing in my memory banks. As a believer in synchronicity, I'm still trying to understand the significance of the "Take a Chance" message (quit work to write books?). It certainly must have stirred up some nostalgia for childhood because while at the ryebaby this evening with Jujube, I checked out the Schoolhouse Rock Grammatical Rules and Multiplication Tables CDs. Three is a magic number. Yes it is. It's a magic number.

Actually, I think Schoolhouse Rock got that wrong. It's four that's the magic number. Have a great Labor Day weekend.