Monthly Mayhem

 Monthly Mayhem - Link to podcast

Maintaining good friendships is a challenge.  But our friends John and Liz have been in our lives for over 20 years and the way we keep it interesting is “Monthly Mayhem” 

 

One of the most important things in life to me is friendship.  I have lots of friends on facebook and lots of people I have been close to over the years and it’s nice to catch up after a long time away, but often the people we make a connection with drift away out of our lives because our lives simply take us in different directions. 

However, there is one couple the lovely Sue and I have been friends with who we met when our daughters were together in kindergarten over 20 years ago.  John and Liz are not connected in any way to the Salvos and our daughters are no longer close friends, but we have been able to sustain a fabulous friendship for all these years. 

At one point around 2012 we realised we wanted to be more intentional about keeping in touch and so we cooked up a way to help the friendship stay alive and interesting.  We ended up calling it “Monthly Mayhem”.  The idea is that every month one of the four of us has to plan a creative event without telling the other three what it is.   It can’t cost more than $20 per person and all we reveal is where to meet and what to wear.  That can range from formal clothes in the evening to walking gear in the morning and beach gear in the afternoon.     This formula has worked well and even while we lived in Sydney, whenever we visited Brisbane or they visited Sydney we made sure a “Mayhem” was planned and we got together. 

So here are a few examples of the Mayhems we have enjoyed together over the years.  One time we went to Liz’s home suburb of Scarborough and drove around while she pointed out places that were part of her childhood, then we had fish and chips.  Sounds corny but we saw her school and childhood home and got an insight into her early years as she reminisced.  It was really nice. 

Another time we had an Indian cooking class at our home and we dressed John and Liz with scarfs and Indian jewelry at the front door.  They had no idea what was happening and walked into our dining room and met our Indian chef, all set up with cookers ready to teach us how to make parathas and authentic butter chicken curry. 

One time recently we did a walk at the Burleigh Heads National Park along a beautiful coastal path with sections of lush rainforest and eventually arrived at Tallebudgera Creek where our daughter had prepared a picnic.  She then went into hiding and so we arrived and this sensational grazing table feast with things like cheeses, fruit, breads and cold drinks was on a rug just there waiting for us. 

We had a fun Teppanyaki night, had coffee and cards in their scoobie van on a mountain top after watching their son play Rugby one afternoon.  We went to Bowral to see the Tulips, the Planetarium and also to a vintage car show at Old Petrie Town. 

We go to markets to buy our veggies have coffee and meals together and to this day enjoy a fun and genuine friendship that spans two decades and has a richness to it because we have kept in touch regularly.  Our families sometimes join us and we all love each other’s kids deeply, as we have watched them grow up and shared in their lives over many years.  We invite John and Liz to things like birthday parties and they even came to the lovely Sue’s retirement as a Salvo officer the other week. 

They are a part of all our significant events and we have been a part of theirs.  We want them in our lives and make plans.  We have nothing in common in terms of work, mutual friends or even religious affiliations, but we have been witness to the good times and the struggles of each other’s lives for so long that we know each other well and look forward to being together.

John is more rude and disrespectful to me than anyone else in my life and our relationship is often rough wrestling, banter and joking around, but Liz is lovely and makes up for it.  Luckily, I don’t think John listens to the podcast so he won’t know what soppy and endearing things I have said about him and his family.   He’s a bit of a stirrer and would take the mickey out of me for expressing such sentimental guff if he ever found out, so if he does, our next Mayham will probably be a zombie killing frenzy on the X box to get the balance back. 

 

Bless ya.