Sharon’s Second Birthday in Sydney
Sydney, Australia: Sharon gets older and drunker than ever before.
Craig has been in England for the past couple of weeks, and of course I’ve been missing him a lot. So I message him, asking him when he’ll be back, to which he instantly replies: I just back. Talk about perfect timing. I get him to promise he’ll come over for Sharon’s birthday as a surprise, since she doesn’t know when he’s back either.
Sharon’s birthday falls on a Wednesday this year, and she has work until 6. I am running around in Bondi most of the day, buying things for tonight, when I get a call about a job interview. I’ve been applying all week and haven’t heard back from anyone, so when I get the call, I am relieved, but also super stressed, as I now have to buy an outfit that is appropriate for a call centre, and I have only a few hours to get things ready for dinner. I buy a pencil skirt, go home and sew it, greet Craig and drag him out to buy chips, and start cooking. I have plastered birthday banners to the wall, put candles in the cake I bought from Coles, put out two bottles of champagne, and now I’m making burgers and garlic cheese sauce for the fries, because I am a great friend.
Sharon arrives pretty late, and she’s on the phone with her mom, but when Craig jumps out from the kitchen, she is so happy. We sit down to eat dinner and have drinks, and then I give her the present I’ve got her: a tattoo money jar with $100 and a rose gold necklace that looks like the one from The Little Mermaid. You know, the one with the shell Ursula keeps Ariel’s voice in. We almost eat the whole cake in one sitting and I am half passed out on the couch after that.
On Saturday, the Mildura/New Years crew rock up at Coogee Pavilion to celebrate Sharon’s birthday with drinks. First, Sharon and I sit in the dining area because it’s the only table we can find, and from then we upgrade tables every few hours. Since we are total lightweights, I stop drinking pretty early on and stick to water for most of the night – this never happens, ever – and Sharon gets shitfaced, because people keep buying her wine. Around midnight I drag her to the kebab place around the corner to get a Halal Snack Pack, but they don’t have chips, so I have to settle for an unsatisfying döner kebab, and then we grab a taxi for the 2 km trip home just because we’re lazy. Needless to say, Sharon’s birthday has been a success.