Sarah's and my friendship began when we met working at the Royal Bank of Canada. She was on vacation when I started at the bank and by the time she got back a week later, I had everyone hating me so I was determined to get her to on my side. I needed at least one friend in my new home city of Vancouver, and by golly it would have to be her. To say that she disliked me at the beginning would be an understatement. We started to click; however, when a fellow teller, Razia threw my wallet in the garbage... on purpose!!! I do have to say thank you to Razia; however, because not only did you give me your OBGYN's number as a joke when I asked you if you had a family doctor in Vancouver and I am glad to say, by the way that I am still her only male patient, but you also made Sarah feel compassion toward me when you let the janitors take the garbage containing my wallet with all of my Scuba certificate cards away.
Over the years we did everything together like crash the bank's Christmas party when I no longer worked there and threw great parties such as "who should have one the Oscars party" the year the 6th sense took home zero Oscars.
Our routine was pretty much the same. After work we would cross the street to her apartment and then go to
Ho rye ya… (Not spelled correctly). We used to walk the ¼ block from her apartment to the Japanese hole in the wall and ordered the same thing every time: Miso Soup, Chicken Teriyaki Don and sometimes an order of Tuna Sashimi to share. We would always be denied a booth because there was only the two of us, making me practically plead on my knees to get one.
One night we got bored and decided that we should create a fake world that would excuse us of our ridiculous behavior. That world was Tuscano Valley.
. We had soap opera names for our soap opera city of Tuscano Valley: Chance & Bethany Harrington. We of course had our little Philipino friend, Melania, who we renamed Donatella – the only Philipino in Tuscano Valley- and gave her an unfortunate back story of her losing an arm due to a piano falling on her outside her apartment building and she was the lucky one as the piano landed and killed Tuscano’s number one villain, Sharlalala. Whenever ‘Donatella’ would meet Sarah and I at Ho rye ya, we would make her put one arm inside her shirt and talk about her feelings toward piano’s.
Over the years we did everything together like crash the bank's Christmas party when I no longer worked there and threw great parties such as "who should have one the Oscars party" the year the 6th sense took home zero Oscars.
Our routine was pretty much the same. After work we would cross the street to her apartment and then go to
Ho rye ya… (Not spelled correctly). We used to walk the ¼ block from her apartment to the Japanese hole in the wall and ordered the same thing every time: Miso Soup, Chicken Teriyaki Don and sometimes an order of Tuna Sashimi to share. We would always be denied a booth because there was only the two of us, making me practically plead on my knees to get one.
One night we got bored and decided that we should create a fake world that would excuse us of our ridiculous behavior. That world was Tuscano Valley.
. We had soap opera names for our soap opera city of Tuscano Valley: Chance & Bethany Harrington. We of course had our little Philipino friend, Melania, who we renamed Donatella – the only Philipino in Tuscano Valley- and gave her an unfortunate back story of her losing an arm due to a piano falling on her outside her apartment building and she was the lucky one as the piano landed and killed Tuscano’s number one villain, Sharlalala. Whenever ‘Donatella’ would meet Sarah and I at Ho rye ya, we would make her put one arm inside her shirt and talk about her feelings toward piano’s.
I have been so lucky to have Sarah in my Life. In our early twenties we were inseparable. Sarah is one of the neatest human beings that I have had the pleasure to love.
I have always admired Sarah. Her humour and crazy sense of fun; the relationships she has with her sisters, the way she cares for her mom, how she puts her relationship with her husband Andy before any other, and how she is raising two well-mannered kids (very rare).
There are few people on this earth who I have laughed long and laughed hard with: My mom, Debbie Mitchel and Vanessa to name a select few. Of course Sarah is at the top of the list! Her and I can also have me in fits of laughter mostly at my expense, but then isn’t that the best source of laughter, when we can laugh at each other, well mostly me in our case. Although our friends no longer think of us as the duo: Sarah and Calvin because of my intensive travel, I always long for the days when we can just sit back and laugh about something as teeny tiny as my putting “Fluent in Foreign Money Exchange” & “Called all Bingo” on my resume or how I told everyone at her family dinner that “the passport inside of me doesn’t say earth, it says heaven” which received a very confused look of her father Darcy and garnered a new nickname for myself ‘Alien’.
It is this day, the day that I always seem to forget, that I want to wish my best friend Sarah, a very happy birthday and to pay respect to history, I will be sending her a Barbie ice cream cake.
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