Lifestyles of the rich or moderately well connected

I thought, over the years, I'd seen just about all the Royal has to offer.  But last night, all those experiences got one-upped ;)   Rebecca invited Chris and I to join her and Mike in the Greenhawk box -- which in itself is all kinds of awesome!   Esp as I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get to go at all this year (can hardly take a day off when I've been here less than two weeks!)   So we'd planned to go for a fancy dinner at the Tanbark club (all kinds of exclusive in that you have to have box seats to get in).  But then, plans changed…   We found ourselves invited to the President's Dinner?

What's the President's Dinner?   Yeah, we didn't know either.  Google proved to be a complete fail on this one.  But it is very formal and your name must be on the list -- in the most literal sense.  Fortunately due to the magic powers of Rebecca's connections, it was.  Woohoo!

So -- planning.  I was coming straight from work, so Chris stopped off and picked up my clothes on the way.   I randomly decided that if I was going to get dressed up, I was really going to get dressed up -- there have to be *some* advantages to working downtown.  One of which is a reasonably high end hair salon that's literally across the street.  Called them at 9am -- they don't open till 11.  Hmmmm  Left a message saying that I'd really like an appointment for 12:15 for an up-do if they had anything available, but I'd be in meetings till noon so if they could please just leave me a message either way.  The message said 12:15 wasn't available but 12:30 was.  Okay -- I didn't have another meeting till 2, so nbd.  Just wanted to go on my lunch break (who needs to eat?).   Called them to confirm and they said "well actually they finished early, so you could come any time."  Perfect.  Lock up my computer and I was there in well under five minutes.  I wasn't sure at the time exactly where it was, but turned out to be like three doors away on the other side of the street.

Hairstylist was not chatty -- I really liked her.  Hahaha asked me what I wanted. Ummm roughly I want the front pulled back and I want curls.  Other than that?  Pretty much up to her.   Okay well did I want it up or down.  Down.  And away she went.   A little while, some hair magic, and a couple bottles of elite hair cement later and we were done.  Do you know they paint grey hairs?  ;)  hahaha I was so amused by that.  Yes, the last few months has given me some, but she hid them beautifully.  Needless to say, I was rather overdressed for my afternoon meetings *g*

This is clearly how I go to work every day

Took the indoor route to the train as I was trying to avoid the windstorm's battle with the hair cement.  Had to find a train that actually stops at the ex -- all the ones I usually take are express.  But once that was set, good to go.  Actually got there within a couple minutes of Chris.  So we got all dressed up (yeah for the surprisingly roomy Greenhawk change room ;) and then had all of about half an hour to wander around.  That is not nearly long enough *sigh*   Can't say I actually saw anything and I certainly didn't buy anything.  But such is life.  Completely reminds me of the year I was shopping for horses I didn't actually own yet *g*  That was a fun trip.  And actually rather the extreme opposite of this one.

Anyways -- today's story.  Eventually it was time to go, so we followed Rebecca to a secret passage that lead upstairs to places only special people know.   Okay that might be slightly exaggerated, but not much.  A woman sitting a the desk checked off our names -- well really, Rebecca's name -- and gave her her tickets for the evening show.  We would be at table 6.  Sure -- can't say I had any preference.

People were very well turned out -- complete with the woman with the long white kid gloves.  We were offered champagne pretty much as soon as we walked in and there was live music playing off to the side.  We were the youngest people there by at least a generation -- in some cases two or three ;)

Eventually we were asked to find our seats and we introduced ourselves to our table-mates.  All super welcoming and an interesting combination of people to talk to.  Beside Rebecca and Mike was her boss (who shared his tickets) and his step-daughter.  Next to Chris and I was the VP of marketing for Pizza Pizza and his wife.  And between them the ring steward for the Royal and his wife.  He had to leave early to start the show but we saw her again later.  Very cool combination of people.  There was a brief introductory speech after which we were all asked to stand for the arrival of the Lieutenant Governor -- she gave a speech which was more interesting than I'd anticipated.   We were served three courses of fancy food -- well two fancy ones and one steak ;-P   And endlessly full glasses of award-winning wine.  Might've been a good day to take up recreational drinking ;)

Dinner was concluded with a video and another short speech and then it was horse show time.  Box seats at the royal are exactly the same as regular seats -- just wrapped in red.  Hahaha awesome.  But the show was good and we were late enough from dinner that we missed most of the boring classes.  Watched two coach drivers collide -- seriously?  How does that even happen?  It's not like they were going fast or there was a lot of traffic.  All were okay so not tragic.

Horse show was a horse show.  They're way more fun to play in than watch, so if you're interested -- catch it on TV or online -- I hear GH was live tweeting the event ;)   Afterwards we had to fight the crowds and convince some very frustrated security guards to let us back in the booth area to retrieve our jackets and, more importantly, keys!   Fortunately Steph met up with us and had both a pass and the key so it wasn't that hard a sell.

Even the traffic cooperated.  Once we got out of the immediate area, was a fairly easy ride home.  Of course then I was wired!  Suffice to say I went to work with basically a power nap today ;)   But what an amazing experience.  So much fun :)   Huge thanks to Rebecca for letting us tag along!