In Which Coats are Named

I made an egg sandwich this morning for breakfast and left the stove on. I didn't realize this until I was halfway to work, so I turned around and took care of the problem. Unfortunately, this killed about 15 minutes and it took me a millennium to find a parking spot downtown. I am going to get a ticket today. Doh.

But, I have a little bit of petty satisfaction to cling to, in the form of a beautiful knee-length tweed coat that arrived on my doorstep last night and magically fit perfectly. I loves it. I think I'll name it Agatha. I tried to pick a different name, since Agatha is the name of the primary protagonist in Girl Genius and I'd like to think that I'm not so hopeless as to name my coat after a comic character, but the coat looked at me askance. I sighed. Agatha is the correct moniker.

I have a tweed coat named Agatha, and I used to have a Volvo that was called the Maroon Marauder - which is almost as good a nickname for a car as my grandpa's old wood-sided monstrosity, the Twilight Cannonball. Twilight Cannonball. Absolutely ridiculous. He even painted a cannonball shooting like a meteor across the rear of the car. Maybe I'll someday retitle this blog The Twilight Cannonball in honor of my grandpa's celebrated absurdity.

The dress code at my workplace is changing from business casual to pure business, explaining why I've been stocking up over the past couple months on suit coats, dress pants, button front shirts, pencil skirts, formal jackets and various pairs of black and gray heels. Hmph. Gone are the blissful days of wearing cropped linen khakis and Rainbows. It's strange how we've regressed in terms of workplace dress; just a few years ago we had casual Fridays, when jeans weren't banned. Shorts could even be worn (by men) during the summer months. The women here generally dress up anyway, but there is increasing pressure to up the ante to suits 24/7 for both sexes. Women are held to a higher standard then men in dress - and maybe in professionalism, but the latter is just hearsay. My workplace is populated by professional, well-educated men and women of all ages and races, although I'm definitely on the younger side of things by a large margin.

While searching for the new cast list and perhaps a link to the libretto for The Gondoliers on the Durham Savoyards' website, I came across these two little bits of fun - a pair of short compilations of clips from one of the dress rehearsals of last spring's Yeomen, in which Steven played the primary tenor role. Steven is the youngest faux-Yeoman (his character, Fairfax, is only pretending) in red (also pretending to be Phoebe's brother, rather unsuccessfully). If this amuses and/or interests you, come to The Gondoliers! From what I hear, it's going to be pretty awesome. I will probably be extolling its virtues for the next three months anyway.