its a play on words involving a moderately obscure euphemism in French

I had some serious serendipity happen this afternoon.

This morning was the trainees monthly meeting with an individual I'll refer to as Don. Don is an executive vice president over here at Liberty Mutual, and the chief underwriting officer for national markets. He's an important guy, and needless to say we are all terrified of him. Apparently he enjoys nothing so much as sitting us all down and firing complicated questions at each of us in turn, thereby putting us on the spot like we were on some sort of gameshow. This was my first attendance at such a meeting, and I have to say that while I found it nerve-wracking it was also kind of thrilling.

So as a result of that, the whole training class had a lot of excess energy today. Someone suggested that we take a walk over to the Prudential mall to get lunch at the food court. They've got a Qdoba over there (which is like unto a pale ghost of Chipotle, but one does what one can) so I happily tagged along. We all sat and ate and talked animatedly, and as we were finishing our meal a guy on a microphone over my shoulder starting talking to the passing crowd, giving some sort of introduction.

I couldn't hear exactly what he was saying, because the speakers were pointed away from me. There was a little semi-circle roped off, and some speakers, and tables where mall employees were apparently signing people up for a raffle and also selling something. And then some spikey-haired woman in jeans and an orange t-shirt shuffled up to the microphone with her guitar and started singing. Again, she was facing away from me, so I couldn't discern much more than that. But as I sat there chewing on my straw and listening with half an ear, it occurred to me that she sounded an awful lot like Erin McKeown.

And it was. Unable to contain my curiosity, I stood up and ambled around to the front of the "stage" area, and there was Erin McKeown, singing away with her guitar. The whole thing was entirely surreal and super keen. I listened to her play a song, and when was done she implored the people who had congregated to stop gawking at her from a distance and come stand closer. They hastily complied, many of them sitting at her feet, less than an arm's length away. I would have, too, except of course my lunch hour was drawing to a close and I had to head back here to the office.

Now I know that Ms. McKeown isn't terribly famous. Obviously not, if she's still playing under-publicized mall gigs. But it was still a huge deal to me, because I own one of her CDs and like her music quite a lot. She toured with Ani Difranco, y'know? She's not a complete nobody. It was nifty, and it kind of made my day.

Pity I have to work for another three-ish hours and then go home and move.