A Woman is Like a Teabag

 
[Mass. College of Art "Wearable Art" exhibit in Boston; 9/10/12]

I've had a busy week, shortened a bit by taking Monday off to enjoy an extended birthday weekend with D in the city (actual birthday was 9/11). D took me out Sunday evening for a lovely dinner at a French restaurant, and I'm looking forward to the new Kindle Paperwhite he preordered for me when it comes out. And Tuesday night I met up with some gal pals to celebrate over margaritas at a new Mexican place. 

On Monday, we were walking through the Copley Place shopping mall when we came across an exhibit of fashion designs -- "Wearable Art -- by students at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Most were actual couture, which doesn't really interest me, but there was one delightful line of dresses made from unconventional materials like birch bark, discarded plastic water bottles, sponges and the like. My favorite was one made from tea bags and dyed with tea. It reminded me of a quote I saw once on a friend's teabag holder: "A woman is like a tea bag -- you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water." 

I felt like rather weak tea following the client freak-out two weeks ago after they belatedly found a mistake I'd made. After threats of ruin and damnation, there was near-silence on their end while I imagined the worst. One brief email a week ago asking for a bit of information calmed me somewhat; oh, they're probably just taking stock of all the work. Then on Wednesday this week I got an email saying all was fine and just make minor changes to the attached set of documents. Feh. I spent about 10 hours making exceedingly careful changes and sent them back. Keeping my fingers crossed. And feeling those tannins darken.

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Meanwhile, the kousa dogwood outside of D's building in Boston has put out its fall fruit, much to the delight of the sparrows and robins. I hear the fruit is edible and sweet, but we're happy it leave it to the birds to feast on.

[Sparrow in the kousa dogwood]

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*On left: dress by Chloe Davies made from over 3,000 tea bags and 17 lbs. of tea. On right: dress made from matchsticks and matchbooks by Fiona McTieque. (Behind: dress made from Aquafina bottles by Faith Garland.)

Comments

[Lucy]

Belated happy birthday, love the teabag dress!

[marja-leena]

Glad your birthday celebrations were happy - all the best in the coming year to you, Leslee! Sounds like one touchy client - hope that settles down to a mutuallly happy working relationship.

Love the non-couture dresses, especially the teabag one!

[Leslee]

Thanks, Lucy!

Marja-Leena: Well, I hope the project comes to a mutually happy close. But I don't plan to work with them again. The lack of communication and direction was bad enough, but the mention of my potential liability if their client relationship was damaged was too much for me.

[Relatively Retiring]

Many happy returns.
I love the wearable art. I drink so much tea I can easily make myself a tea-bag dress, but am slightly concerned about wearing it in the British climate.

[Leslee]

Thanks, RR. :-)