Just call me an R&B diva

This weekend was the big office Christmas party at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Unlike Solitaire, I love the Christmas party for a couple of reasons: I love most of the people I work with and we get pure jokes and I LOVE to dress up.

When I dress up, I go all out. Not because I have something to prove, but from the time I was a little girl, I liked dressing up. Putting on a pretty dress, some makeup and doing my hair puts that little oomph in my step. So, when the e-mail came out announcing the Christmas party, I was ready: I had my dress, a sexy purple cheong sam from the CNE, and my shoes.

The only thing I had to concern myself with was getting my hair done.

When I watch awards shows and see the likes of Beyoncé, Ciara and Ashanti (all beautiful women -- no disrespect to any of them), I always say to myself, 'if that was me, I would have worn this' or 'I would have done my hair like that.' Even with my limited clothing budget, I can rock an outfit just as well as any of those R&B divas.

To complete the R&B diva look, I had to get the hair. The long, straight hair to flash around like the white girls do. I am not a proponent of weave, but I wanted something different. A little extra length, so I said, what the heck? I'll get some extensions glued in.

"Glue?" said my hairdresser Stacey in horror. "We don't glue. Just bring the hair and I'll do the rest."

This is where the journey began...

The salon.

I love my hair salon. I've been going there for four years now. It's on Yonge Street, just north of Wellesley and the girls can really do hair. But, after some restructuring, the ship hasn't been as tight.

Since some run-ins at various Montreal salons, I've been gun shy. I'm saying, why pay a lot of money to have some scorn my hair and use chemicals to dry it out. So, if I've been going to a salon for years, it's gotta be tip top.

D. and I both had appointments at the salon early Saturday morning. After I had stayed up late baking a cake for the boyfriend's birthday, my sis and I headed downtown to become glamour pusses. We arrived to find one of the stylists perming her own hair.

Maybe she had somewhere to go that evening, which is fine. Call me a prima donna, but if I'm paying you to do my hair, my hair sould be your priority. I may be dry, but darn it, I wanted to look cute.

My sister and I both needed some serious work. I mean, I don't just wake up looking fabulous (I wake up looking pretty close to fabulous, but some work is still needed ;))

Being the patient, Christian woman I am, I sat back and got ready for the girls to transform me. Well, maybe it was the fumes from the texturizer, but I forgot the cardinal rule of all Black salons: "If you have an event or are in a rush, we will conspire to make you late."

It's not everybody in the salon, there are usually a few conspirators. On Saturday, Ms. Let-Me-Perm-My-Own-Hair-and-Forget-About-Yours was it.

This stylist overbooked and, by noon, she had about four irate women in various states of 'done' in and out of her chair. One was wet. One had a relaxer in her head. One had a colour in hers. And, one, my poor sister D., was just waiting. D.'s not the most patient young woman, so you know she was starting to get riled up as she looked at her watch and sucked her teeth.

Then it got ridiculous.

The overbooked stylist walked sheepishly to Stacey's station, just as I could see my the end nearing. She had just finished blow drying my hair and discussing the parting options.

"Stacey, do me a favour and finish my client? She wants an updo."

But wait. I don't need my hair to be finished as well? Time was ticking and I wanted finish up, get my georgy bundle and get outta there.

"No, [INSERT NAME -- we gotta protect the guilty]. You know you have to learn how to do updos," said Stacey growing increasingly annoyed. At this point, I could tell that this had happened more than once and Stacey was not impressed.

"C'mon, Stacey. I didn't know that's what she wanted."

"[INSERT NAME] not only are you inconveniencing me, you're inconveniencing my clients. You know that too."

This went on for about five minutes, until Stacey was harangued into fixing the other client's hair. The client who wanted the updo felt so bad. I mean, I was shooting her bad looks 'cause I needed to get out of there and get home and make myself look like something.

What should have taken about three hours, had stretched into a marathon hair appointment. The joke was we told the stylist that we had a Christmas party to go to, but did you think that mattered? Finally at 3:11 pm (two hours and ten minutes after we should have left), we left the salon.

Then started the wailing and gnashing of teeth, because D. didn't like her hair. "It took so well long and I don't even like my hair," she complained as we drove home. "I look like I have wings!"

We got home at minutes after four. I called the boyfriend, who was going to arrive at 5:30 pm. We still had enough time to get ready and get to the party for cocktails at 6 pm... at least that's what we thought.

Getting ready.

Got home and didn't have time to eat a little something. My mother always told us to eat before we went to social events 'cause: a) you may not like the food; b) you may be allergic to the food (trust me, I'm allergic to enough things); c) it may take forever to get that morsel of food; and d) when you finally get the morsel, it may be a foodlet.

But, because of the chaos at the salon, there was no time for a bite -- unless you count the freezer burned Eggo waffles that I scarfed down because I was faint from hunger and exhaustion.

As I was trying to apply the eyelashes that I bought from MAC -- I wasn't playing around. My sister began to carry on in her bedroom. She can't find this! She can't find that!

"And I put it right here!" she sighed.

Good grief. "Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yes," she said pouting. After five minutes of searching she found the offending undergarment in the back of her drawer. I went back into the bathroom to fight with the eyelashes. As I was applying the adhesive to the lashes, the phone rang. The boyfriend.

"Yo," I said.

"What time should I get there?"

"Ummm... we should be ready around 5:30."

"OK. I'll see you then."

Finally, on the third try I got the stupid lashes to stick to my eyelid, not my finger.

Let's go to the party!

I was done. My hair was coiffed. My lashes firmly attached to my eyelids. My dress was on (thanks to that body slimmer) and I was ready to go. The boyfriend arrived at 5:20 pm and took a seat on my couch.

"The weather's getting kinda bad out there," he said. It had been snowing all afternoon and the roads weren't bad, but you know how Toronto drivers are. As we discussed my Apprentice blog (the boyfriend totally disagrees with my reasoning. Meh), my sister came out -- hair re-coiffed, wearing a dark blue spaghetti strap gown -- to put on her brand new shoes.

She opened the box and put them on.

"Something feels strange," she said. After this day, I was thinking: this girl must be overly sensitive or something. What could possibly be wrong.

"No, they don't fit right."

"Do you have two lefts?" the boyfriend asked laughing. D. was not in a laughing mood.

"No!" She ripped off the shoes and looked inside. "One is a size 8 and one is a size 10!"

I thought my sister was going to lose it. I could see the steam coming out of her ears.

Relax. We'll just go to the Town Centre and get a new pair," I said.

"No! We don't have time!" she said slumping on computer chair. "We should be heading down there now."

I convinced D. to call Bata (the store in question) and have a pair of shoes waiting. We trudged downstairs to the parking lot. I was trying to make light of the situation. I mean, why get upset? The shoes were the wrong size, we were going to go to the mall get the shoes and head to the convention centre.

We got to Scarborough Town Centre, parked and made a quick move: D. went to Bata and the boyfriend and I headed to the bank. You could just imagine how we looked amongst the ruffians at the Town Centre. The juxtaposition was quite amusing.

Allons-y!

Shoes? Check!

Tickets? Check!

We headed down the 401 at a good pace. It was 6:20 and, if we contined at that pace, we would be at the MTCC by 6:45. Not as early as we had wanted, but in enough time to take a picture and get to our seats. But, of course, it was inevitable as Mr. Smith would say.

Traffic.

And not regular traffic. But the inching kind of traffic that would drive you insane.

There was a conspiracy to keep me from the Christmas party. Did I tell you that I looked like I should have had my own R&B record? Beyoncé had nothing, NOTHING, on me (some of my male friends may disagree, but they are just haters. I'm not saying she's not gorgeous, but she had a team of stylists -- I had a harried one and I did my own makeup. And look at the weave... only recently it's looked like something. Ladies, holla if you hear me!)

We inched along the ramp from the 401 to the DVP. We inched down the DVP -- that's when all of my co-workers started to call me wondering where I was.

"I'm on the DVP, stuck in traffic. Yep, I'll be there soon."

Yeah, soon. Sure. I didn't believe that myself.

The party.

We did actually get to the party on Saturday night. We were late, but we didn't miss anything. D.'s shoes ended up being fabulous and our hair was on point.

I looked so fabulous, my co-workers didn't recognize me -- I cleaned up well (I'm sure the two feet of hair didn't help.) You've gotta mix it up a little bit at these office shindigs. If I dolled myself up every day to sit down in the office building, do you think I would have cut any shine? Saturday night was a time to pull out some of the stops and make myself into a R&B diva.

We laughed. We danced. We took plenty pictures (see above) and had a good ol' time.

And I was an R&B diva -- I still can't sing, but, then, neither can Ashanti ;)