Happy 30th Mel!

I've known Mel for 20 years next year, we worked out recently (20 sounds so much more impressive than 19, which is the actual count at present). I met her on the very first day of high school. I remember really liking her, but wishing she wasn't friends with the bespectacled girl she knew from primary school. Soon enough we were besties (in my teenage cruelness, I don't really remember what happened to glasses girl), and had a relationship that was characterised by me not knowing the difference between Prince and Queen, absurd gags relating to Libawyans (don't ask), typical outback scenes and a frightening crush on Peter Scutty. I also remember busking (I played flute, she played sax: a match made in torturer's heaven), Mel accidentally cutting her underarm shaving at Nanna Vi's, and a sleepover at her place where we used her brother's computer to draw pictures of vomit.

Mel moved to Sydney at the end of year 7. I often wonder how we remained in contact, let alone friends. I had family in Sydney and she in Wagga, and as luck would have it we seemed to be going through similar phases at roughly the same time. I had an absolute penchant for cherry docs around the same time she acquired them, and I am sure our mutual teenage love for incense went unsurpassed.

Fast forward til we're 18. I'd just moved back to Sydney and Mel was the first guest to show up at my shabby student accommodation, wielding a huge basket full of fresh produce (something I was destined not to see for at least another 3 years). She made me feel at home in an unfamiliar place. I have always felt that if she hadn't shown up I would never have been able to feel like myself there.

That year, we initiated Happy Week. It went, roughly, like this:
Me: Wow, there are so many happy hours here in the big smoke!
Mel: Yeah, I reckon there would easily be one every night.
Me: You could go to one every night for a week, easily.
PAUSE
Together: What a Happy Week!

And so, we researched and found at least one happy hour each night for a week. As luck would have it, a) we were on StuVac and b) we accidentally timed it so that Happy Week finished on Melbourne Cup day. We did three years of Happy Week. I am not sure whether these events were from the the first, the second, or the third year, but my highlights were: faux surfing at the Roundabout Tavern, drinking with City Rail Staff and scoring repossessed concession cards when they heard of our mission, $2 drinks at Paddy's (although was this every week?!), scrounging money for a taxi to Newtown where we ate nachos, Monte keeping us awake one morning (and being put down that avo) and ice cream at Mel's work for breakfast. I think the main thing for me was it was one week per year where I was guaranteed to get 100% Mel time. A Happy Week indeed!

I could go on all night - 19 years' worth, in fact. We spent a wonderful time overseas together (the sun always shines on Dingle, and who would ever go to Italy and be sober on arrival? Can't ride a tandem that way! And as for Spain - well, let's just all steal cheese from the local!) and since being home we have shared a couple of houses, an hilarious Darwin holiday (Baz we love you, and your incontinence!), one whopping heartbreak each, and now that we've bought properties in the same suburb I can confidently say that the future is looking pretty rosy (hurrah for easy bike rides home!).

So happy 30th Mel! I couldn't be happier or luckier to have a friend like you. Roll on Happy Week 2008 I say!