Outfit of Excellence

Watermelon Floral for Spring--Wednesday, 5/27/15

Seriously, I swear I'm not stalking this woman.  She just has great style of a type that is compatible with my sartorial ambitions...and a huge wardrobe.  This time I am taking her lead in combining a black top, floral pencil skirt, and colorful jacket for a bright, fun, yet professional outfit.  (The lovely green outdoors setting for the photo, that I'm not going to match.)

From happinessatmidlife.com

She picked out the orange in her skirt with an orange blazer.  I went with my new bright pink jacket to coordinate with my skirt.  I'm really pleased with how the collarless zipper jacket works in this context--I think I like it even better than the (longer) blazer.

*Black short-sleeved silk sweater (JNY), $15.00/wear
*Bright pink zipper jacket with black tabs (JNY), $22.25/wear
"Watermelon" floral skirt (thrifted, Talbots), $1.67/wear
Black flats by LifeStrides, $2.23/wear
Single strand pearls (Macy's), $2.79/wear

With the weather forecast saying rain on again/off again all week (and whether it's expected on any given day changes every couple hours, it seems), and a high of 81 F for today, a skirt with bare legs and non-leather shoes seemed like a good idea.  The rest of the outfit is on the more business side of business casual, which was a strategic decision because I have 4 hours of meetings planned, including the every-three-weeks meeting of our "excellence" group.  Of course, it turned out the excellence meeting was canceled--all the better.

I don't think I've blogged about how surreal meetings of that group can be, due to the weirdness of the three main technology department people who attend.  There's this one dude C. (not the jerk I've talked about before) who has been with the organization forever, and he is believed by people in my department to have survived solely due to his propensity to "throw people under the bus."  (At the last meeting, C. did that to my boss, who had left the meeting early and was thus not present to protest when C. ludicrously shifted blame onto him for something that I think did not even happen anyway.)  I found out at the post-meeting WTF session of the "excellence" members from my department that the awesome project manager who mysteriously was announced to be "no longer with" the organization a couple months ago had been suddenly shit-canned by C., and the general consensus is that this happened because C. cannot stand having competent people working for him, people who actually do their jobs rather than weasel around figuring out how to constrain the scope of their jobs to nothing.  C. is supposed to be retiring in September, and this event is going to be met with a lot of celebration.  Figurative champagne will be flowing once C. is outta here (though he has threatened to come back and volunteer as a "mentor," which we can only hope will not happen).  I mentioned to Robert something bizarre that C. said in our last meeting (I wish I could remember what, but I can't), and Robert said, "He's not used to being associated with a group with 'excellence' in its name."  I cannot express how hilarious and how true this observation is.

The thing I complained about being soooo hard waaaah in this new software we're using--well, yes, it is harder than it needs to be but I did figure it out late this afternoon, so I got to go home on a high note.  Tomorrow I get to finish implementing this thing, then it's on to the next thing I don't know how to do.

Awesome Animal Alert:

If you haven't seen it already (and if you have, you need to see it again), quite possibly the world's coolest selfie (or "elphie").  (Hat tip: Style on Target)

And another bunny print for your enjoyment.  This one is in the entryway/hallway to the left of the bunny on a swing who reminds me of Tam.