Come to think of it, Herb, I do dream in black and white.

I’m soooooo tired of black.  Is it the same in the rest of the world, or is it just Australia that is stuck in a rut?

This morning I had an hour to kill between dropping my houseguest at the Concert Hall, (Simone is a member of the Australian Youth Orchestra, which is here playing a huge concert in combination with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra –Mahler’s Ninth)  Anyway, I dropped her off at eight, then had time to fritter before my appointment with the audiologist (I’m road-testing some hearing aids!)  Anyway  — enough of these digressions.  I found a handy coffee shop on a busy corner of Hobart where I could sip my coffee and watch the scurry of workers on their busy way to whatever challenges their jobs had to offer up on a very rainy day.

Years ago, Nigel and I used to sit in a favorite lunch spot and watch shoppers hustling about.  The game then was to see if we could spot a woman wearing a skirt.  Today, my target was to find one not dressed in black.  I sat for a long time and saw a lot of women — all headed for work, presumably, as the shops weren’t open yet.   In the forty-five minutes I was there, the only non-black outfits I saw were three or four dark charcoal skirts or pants and one very dark brown suit.

Hey, out there!  Where is your imagination?  For a start, that is no way to brighten a dark, wet day.  Everyone will have arrived at their office wet and bedraggled, only to see clones of themselves in the same black suits/pants/skirts.   When did color go out of style?  I did see one woman in an attractive dark brown and black plaid skirt, but I have to suppose she was so hopelessly out of fashion that I hesitate to include her in the count.

I thought I would  sit in the coffee shop until I saw a skirt or pants in any color that wasn’t black, but time defeated me.  As my appointment time drew near I realized I would have to be the one radical female on the streets of Hobart to defy the fashion goddesses, so out onto the street I went in my light grey pants.              MM