The Frog and the Scorpion

I came home from school about two weeks ago brimming with enthusiasm about a flyer I'd seen at school. Turns out St. Vincent de Paul is having a fundraiser called Discard 2 Divine. All fashion students and fashion designers in SF (possibly the Bay Area) are eligible to enter. Basically you show up at SVdP, they let you troll through some of their donations, you grab whatever you want to use, and you have to come up with an original coture clothing design using only the materials you got from them: coats, pants, tableclothes, pillows -- whatever. Then there is an auction for all of the garments created to help SVdP.

Pretty cool, you think. But it gets better. Last year the event was held at the Gap headquarters, drew about 400 people, and raised $15K. This year, before the auction at the Gap, there is going to be a ONE DAY DISPLAY of all the entries at the de Young Museum in GG Park!! Yah! How f'ing cool would it be to be able to say that, "yeah, something I made was on display that the de Young Museum..." Wow. Wow. Wow.

Another great thing is is there is no fee to enter, and you aren't officially registered until you turn something in. So, I figure, I can give it a try, and if I just don't ahve the time, then no harm done. There's not going to me an empty spot at the de Young that is labeled "Mama Pajama -- NOT FINISHED ON TIME". (Geez, the humiliation likes which I haven't seen since high school.) Downside to all of this? When I found out about this whole thing, there was only 3 weeks left until the due date. As of today, we're down to 7 days left.

So, I decided to go for it. I went in, got my materials, and downloaded the application. But, I held off on telling Husband, because I had a pretty good idea wht his reaction was going to be. Nor was I disappointed when I told him. It went something like: "Bwahahahahahaha!"

"See?!? I KNEW you'd laugh at me!!" Tears of mirth are ready to roll down his cheeks.

"No honey, I'm not laughing at you. Well, not exactly. It's jsut so like you! 'My goal is to have less stuff on my plate. Which is why I've registered to do this enormous project with only 3 weeks to do it in!' You're like the frog and the scorpion: 'Will you sting me if I get on your back as you swim across the river? "No, I won't.' 'Hey, you stung me!' ' Sorry, it';s just my nature!'"

By now he can hardly catch his breath. Impressively, he's still able to dodge the pillows that are being aimed at his smirking face.

Anyhow, I'm still poking along at it. I'll probably get it all done, if only for the reason that I've started telling people about it and don't want to look like a quitter. I figure once the divorce goes through I'll have plenty of free time.

Oooops, was that my out loud voice?

more info about the event at: http://www.svdp-sf.org/discarded.htm