Friendship is Magic

 This isn't about My Little Pony.  It could be.  I've been told that I am what is called a Pegasister.  But this isn't that post.

I have a friend who, through a series of baffling coincidences, has been convinced that I lead a much cooler life than reality would suggest.  See, every time we hang out something magical happens.


A few months ago, I invited this friend to a going away party for a friend of mine.  He had specified "black tie" in the invitation, and left it up to each guest to interpret that.  I told my friend this, and she pulled out all the stops.  Velvet cocktail dress, fishnets, swanky hairstyle: she looked great.  I was dressed slightly more casually (since I had to come straight from work) but still nice.

This friend lived downtown, above a wine shop that, to the casual observer, doesn't have apartment above it.  In our heels and finery, we wandered downtown until I pulled her into a nigh-invisible alcove.  I called my host-friend, who came down and let us in through a glass door.  Up the stairs we went, down a narrow hallway, and suddenly we were at a studio apartment with about thirty people inside.  All of the women were dressed to the nines, and the men were in jeans, random shirts, and a few token ties.  Neither of us knew the majority of the people there.  We met a public defender who hands out party-favor-sized bubble tubes to clients who "look sad," and someone struck up a conversation with me about cats based solely on the healing Jude-wounds on my arm.  Occasionally, someone would climb in or out of the one window in the apartment, because that was the only way to get to the balcony.  The party was still in full swing when we left, and my friend made it home still unsure of where, exactly, we had been.


Fast forward a month.  I asked that we have a girls' night, so the two of us and another female friend decided to go to Bear's Tooth, because they have good margaritas.  When we got there, it was packed, so someone suggested we go downtown.

So we did.

We parked at a small string of parking spaces that access an even smaller park and have a great view of the inlet, arriving at sunset.  After admiring nature, we tottered off in our wildly impractical shoes and began our trek.

We started at a fairly upscale place, where my friend accidentally spilled a lavender-based drink on herself.  She smelled delightful the rest of the night.  Incidentally, through the course of the night we found, frozen into the frost on the pavement, two sets of wet, bare footprints leading in a random direction, as well as adventures in dancing where I discovered that I was right, I can't really dance.  And I really can't really dance in 5 inch platform heels.  By the end of our escapades, our feet were so sore from out poor choices in footwear that we sang "The Ants Go Marching One by One" all the way back to our car.


Two weeks ago, my friend called me, asking if we could go shopping together.  I said sure, and we headed to the nearby mall.

Since I was mostly there for the company, I did a lot of lollygagging while my friend tried things on.  In the first shop we visited, I found a series of large sunglasses.  Like, comically large.  Which, normally, I would shrug off, but these sunglasses took themselves seriously.  They weren't novelty items, they were intended to be worn unironically.  I am not exaggerating when I say that the largest pair obscured my face from my cheekbones to my hairline.

So I did what anyone would do, and waited for my friend to go into the dressing room, then stationed myself outside, sunglasses in place, so that I would be the first thing she saw.  She was as amused by this as I was.

Through the course of this shopping trip we found some truly hideous clothes, the most apathetic fast-food worker I've ever met, and got ourselves some giant bouncy balls.  But that's not what makes this magical.

The Harry Potter-themed figure skating expo, however, does.

This mall has an ice skating rink at its center, which hosts, among other things, an adorable junior hockey league and a series of figure skating classes.  Their recital was that day, and they had put together a series of routines based on the books, as well as a short scene referencing Potter Puppet Pals that was absolutely precious.

This culminated in a final battle between Harry and Voldemort, and it was definitely the coolest thing we could have stumbled upon in a mall.

See?  Super-cool.

Now, however, I have a problem.  She's convinced that I lead a life of beauty and mystery, and I have no idea how to keep it up.

I guess I'll just have to leave it up to happenstance.