An affair most fowl

Upon our return to Indonesia, honey lips and I had a ball to attend a few weeks after touch-down. Yes. You read that right. A ball. There are many women's organizations which do a variety of things to raise money for their social welfare programs. These ladies, and gentlemen, work hard to raise cash to provide everything from free cataract surgery for people in need, pediatric walkers for those who have no access to such things, toothbrushes and toothpaste and instructions on how to use them, to medical supplies and school supplies. These groups hold bazaars, bar-b-ques, and in this case a ball all in the name of funding programs that help the local population.

ANZA is the women's association for Australian-New Zealand. Each year they put on a huge ball with a different theme. This year, those wild and crazy folks from down-under picked a very raucous theme based on the movie "Priscilla - Queen of the Desert." If you have never seen this movie, it is basically the Aussie equivalent of "Rocky Horror Picture Show." It is an over the top flick but made for a very fun theme to assemble attire for.

While in the US, I looked for a ball gown to use for the affair. Being off-season, I was able to buy something appropriate, yet inexpensive. The AWA (American Women's Association) thought it would be fun to make things patriotic. So its members were encouraged to dress in red, white, and blue or some combination of our proud colors.

With that in mind, I bought a lovely blue gown with lots of sparkles and rhinestone accents. I had full length white gloves on order in Jakarta, so I purchased great looking high heel shoes with rhinestones, and long false eyelashes from Walgreen's while I was state side. This was my foundation to build from.

Sweetie pie on the other hand, took this as an opportunity to have a custom-made tuxedo crafted to wear to the ball. Since tailoring is very reasonable here, he had a beautiful tuxedo made for a great price. He selected the fabric for the tux, chose the lining of the jacket, had a tuxedo shirt made and even a cumber bun, matching bow tie and pocket hankie. After looking through photos he decided on a style and then they took all his measurements. Less than a week later they had the tux put together and were ready for his first fitting. Adjustments were made and a week later we had a custom-made tux hanging in the closet. Truly amazing to me that all that can happen so quickly in a place where grid-lock and sllloooowww traffic is the norm. Oh! And the real clincher is that his name is embroidered on the inside of the jacket and the inside of his slacks. WOW!

Once back in the land of mega malls, mega traffic and mega motor cycles, I re-joined with my best partner-in-crime, we hit the mean streets to find bling to go with our outfits as well as some bling to share with some of the other attendees. We ventured to a place called Manga Dua. It is a massive market. Multiple buildings, each maybe five or six stories tall. They sell everything from electronics to knock-off purses. Shoes to wigs and everything in between. We headed for the building that houses beads, buttons, jewelry, feather boas, wigs, assorted clothing and goodness only knows what else. HOLY COW! What a day we had.

On our list were feather boas in patriotic colors, tiaras to really top things off, jewels to accessorize, and wigs if possible. My friend and I had not been to this part of Manga Dua so we wandered around and went up multiple levels and down. First thing we saw were wigs. We decided to rule them out as we were afraid it would be really hot wearing a wig. So we began to search for boas. We found some at different stalls and examined them. While the colors were good, the feel of these boas creeped me out big time. The feathers used were very course and it felt way too much like you were wearing a chicken. Visions of a plucked fowl just kept entering my mind. We kept searching, but they were all the same. It then became a matter of how much we needed the boas for accent and visual appeal. With those things in mind, we bought numerous boas in red, white and blue and just had to endure.

We had previously purchased some feather fans in our national colors. The fans had the same issue as the boas. The white fans really looked chicken-like. But as the feathers were attached to plastic handles you didn't really have to have a lot of contact with them. But the fans and the boas really looked great together - in a plucked chicken kind of way.

My buddy and I next went in search of tiaras. What a treasure trove we found!! At one shop we visited there were all kinds of tiaras, hair ornaments, and combs for your hair. All encrusted with mega rhinestones. We bought multiple tiaras and hair combs of all sizes. I then spied stunning hair ornaments that I just could not pass up. Two lovely rhinestone stars attached to hair combs. They were joined together by three strands of rhinestones. I knew I was going to wear my hear up and I had plans for these beauties. Hair up. Combs on either side of a bun. Strands of rhinestones draping across the back of the bun. My eyes glazed over with that vision of loveliness.

The week before the event, I went to the hair dresser to see if they could help me figure out how to do my hair. I gave a very open ended idea of what I wanted. My hair jewels and combs created a stir at the salon. Multiple people crowded around to see what I had. Lots of squealing, giggling and handing my treasures back and forth took place and all were in agreement, we had done "good." So with hair adornments sitting on the ledge , hair pens, curling iron, and hairspray at our finger tips. We began.

At the beginning she teased my hair and used the curling iron and hairspray to sculpt it in to her interpretation of what I asked for. Unfortunately, I came out looking a bit like the queen. Sweetums said all I needed were a couple of corgies, a hat, a purse and the "wave" to complete the look. The owner of the shop intervened and changed it up a bit and with the addition of all of the hair bling it looked pretty good. So, one hour and one can of hairspray later, we were somewhat prepared for the final style the day of the ball.

I walked out to the car and my driver could hardly keep from laughing. Yes. This was not the ibu who had gone in an hour earlier. Now what really made this a bit difficult was that I needed to go to the grocery and had told him we would go to the salon then to the store. My expectation had been my stylist would put my hair up and then make it look normal again. Silly me. To me it was perfectly obvious that I could not parade around the store in my current "get-up" so I told him we will just go home. Unfortunately, if you tell your driver that you want to do things in a certain order, they feel ever so obligated to stick with that plan. We leave the salon and I look down at my phone to check for any missed messages that might have come in while I was getting beautified. I look up and OH MY GOODNESS he is trying to turn in to the grocery parking lot. I am panicking and saying "Oh no. Oh no. I can't go in looking like this." Sometimes men just don't get it. Needless to say, we don't go through the gate and we have to make this very complicated move to get back across the road and going down the street that leads in to our neighborhood.

Upon my return home, my housekeeper, my gardener and the jaga all greet me. My housekeeper is giggling. I can only interpret it as that it is so out of character for me to have all this junk on and in my hair that she finds it "cute." I also give her money and tell her what I would like her to buy. Seems only just since she had such a good giggle. I leave it all in place and when honey pie comes home we eat dinner with me decked out. It was a regal affair.

During the time between the dry run of my hair do and the night of the ball. My friend found great false eyelashes at one of the department stores. I went over and checked it out. I already had ultra-high quality lashes from Walgreen's, but a girl never knows. Sure enough I found a pair that I just had to have. These were not just regular eyelashes, they had rhinestones on them. How could I not get them?

The day of the ball, I had a 10 AM hair appointment. This meant that I had to wear this style all day. By 11 AM I was all teased-up, curled, sprayed, rhinestone encrusted and ready for the night. Some of us had rented rooms at the hotel where the ball would be held. So, my buddies and I met at the hotel around 3:30 and began getting all decked out.

For those of you who know me, you know I don't wear a lot of makeup. So here I am with not one, but two set of false eyelashes to apply plus all the other appropriate makeup to apply to help me look stunning. Thank goodness my friends are much more accomplished at this kind of thing than I. Otherwise it would have been a very grim situation.

So we sat on the floor of the hotel room with makeup, eyelashes, glue and mirrors scattered around. After a glass of wine and discovering that one member of the group was the world's best false eyelash applier we were ready to rock and roll. With a steady hand and a lot of glue, my double lashes were stuck to my eyelids. We each took turns getting our lashes on and then we had to do eyeshadow and eyeliner. After being told I was not putting my makeup on heavy enough for this kind of affair, I kept adding layer after layer. I finally passed inspection and we moved on to the next phase.

In the middle of all of this transformation, sugar pie came in from a long week at work and joined in the festivities. It was three girls and one guy and the girls all voted to use one set of extra false eyelashes we had along with eyeshadow to dress up sugar pie. What was a guy to do? We were like little girls dressing up their kid brother with our play clothes. What an amazingly patient person my sweetie is. We glued lashes and applied eyeshadow, to match his tuxedo of course, put styling product in his hair to make it stand on end, as if that weren't happening already. At the end of all of this fun, he looked great. In fact, it is a bit distressing when your honey looks better in eye makeup than you do! But it was all in fun and went with the theme of the ball. We also knew he would only be one of many, many men who would be outfitted for the affair. In fact, he would look practically tame compared to what we had heard some of the guys were going to wear.

Once the makeup was finished, my friends departed for their respective rooms so we could all don our attire for the big shin-dig. We agreed to meet back in our room for a glass of champagne to kick the evening off. At the designated time couples began to arrive. Of course we all looked absolutely stunning. We managed to talk another of my compadres' husband in to claiming the last pair of eyelashes we had and we dolled him up too. His outfit was topped off by a great looking do-rag with small American flags on it. We added a red bow tie. He looked simply smashing! We also had to give her the last red feather boa, tiara and ring we had bought for her. The boa had to be fluffed up a bit. Thankfully, we knew what would happen so we told her to take it in to the bathroom and shake it really hard over the bathtub. There were red feathers all over the place when she was done. It looked like we had some kind of fowl massacre in there. The poor housekeeping people. Maaf.

Now all of this sounds a bit bizarre, but in light of the theme it really wasn't. There were guys in all kinds of wigs, dresses, boots or really large size high heel shoes dancing the night away. My question is where in the world did they get their shoes? My feet are not out of proportion to my height and I have trouble finding things here that are my size and my feet were definitely smaller than theirs. I must be shopping in all the wrong places.


By the end of the night we were exhausted from all the dancing. I had only one rhinestone eyelash malfunction. We had seen some great outfits, We had helped raise a good size chunk of money for a very deserving charity. We had an amazing time with our friends and we all had great fun being ever so silly.

As far as my boa is concerned. I deposited it in the trash can in our hotel room at the end of the night. It had its revenge however. I looked at my white gloves as I was changing out of my formal wear and there was red dye from my boa on them. The good news is that just like it came off on my gloves, it washed off my gloves as well. Guess chicken feathers don't hold dye very well.

We have been left with some great memories. Some great photographs. Stellar hair ornaments. Fabulous new tuxedo and gown and anticipation of what ANZA will do to top this next year.