Cheers to you, Mags!

A Toast to my friend, Magnet:

I raise a toast to you, my sister friend, for being the magnetic, most effervescent personality one could hope to find in a friend. I thought you were a biatch in high school but you grew on me, like a fungus, to become an honoured member of my inner sanctum. Welcome and please stay. While I know that I'm crazier than you, to the outside world, you make me look somewhat normal.

You are no Nana Mouskourri, though you wished yourself to be in Grade 12 when being a cheerleader was all you aspired to. Today, you look more like Celine Dion without the French accent but with a French last name. Damn Frogs. They should all be put in a stew.

But, not you. You're gold, Pony Boy. Stay gold. I don't know what my life would be like without you. Normal? No, I'm afraid not. I'm beyond helping. It would, however, be a little boring - comatose actually. I'd like to think it would be the same way with me. I guess we'll just have to wait to see if we follow through with our bucket list, you with your gold lamee bikini, tits up, and me with my aviator sunglasses and free rings for the taking. Open casket, of course. Oh, and their must be Brugal. And martinis. And U2 for you, Styx for me. I think I hear Anasatan crying already - not for our choice of entertainment but in complaint that her ears are bleeding. Suck it up, princess, we'd both say. This is our bucklet list. Back off and get your own.

So here's to Mags. May all you continue to fly like a big bird, so high up in the sky and may you remember that Linda still means beautiful in Spanish (... oh Leeenda!).

Leeenda out.

Last week, my friend Mags and I attended a Toastmasters meeting to see if public speaking is something we need help with. According to the toast I just made, we do. Well, I do. My first Toastmaster speech will certainly not be the post above. Clearly, that was verbal diarrhea, full of inside jokes that no one else will get. So, that one goes in the vault. For now.

I might write about our bucket list. Now, it's not even close to the bucket list that was immortalized on film by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman where they break out of a hospital to fulfill all of the wishes on their "bucket list" - the things you would want to do before you bite the big one, sign off, over and out. Our bucket list is a list of things we'd want done at our funeral. A little morbid, I know, but a girl's got to think of these things 'cause no one else will. Unless you're Mags. We've taken a pact - the first one to go will honour the other's wishes. We spit on it. It's sealed.

Of course, it would be an open casket because open caskets are just ever-so welcoming and comforting. And Mags, my friend, would be outfitted in a gold lamee bikini, with U2 blaring and Bono delivering the eulogy. Me, I'm not sure about my outfit, but I would be sporting aviator sunglasses, just in case people could read my after-life thoughts. My rings would be displayed around the top of the open casket, not just for decoration but for the taking. It's like I'd be bequeathing my incredible good taste in jewellery and fashion. "If there was a big, gaudy, over-the-top ring that you must have... take it 'cause I can't take it with me."

There would be no tears but laughter and music. I'd request the funeral director to rig my feet so I could still tap away to the beat, beat, beat. The fact that it would freak people out is a side benefit. It's just what I do.

I'm sure I'll think of something a little less macabre for my first "icebreaker" speech. After all, I don't want to give too much of myself away too fast. What then would I do for an encore?