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Archive for July 11th, 2004

Marlene C’s Birthday Party

Sunday, July 11th, 2004

My friend Marlene Cameron had a 50th birthday party this Saturday. I really enjoyed myself. They have some really wonderful friends, some of whom we only typically see at Wheatland Music Festival.

It was a relaxed and enthusiastic crowd… smart people who are not self-centered, interesting people who are easy to converse with. Talented folks… especially when it comes to cooking and music. The food was gorgeous as usual… it’s just a great food crowd. Homemade pies, all sorts of wonderful salads, bean salads, fresh fruit, you name it.

And we played music (actually, one of the children assigned herself the master of ceremonies, it was quite amusing), and laughed and smiled, and sang, and danced. Ben Hassenger, who is a member of both Mystic Shake and Blue Jello (they play at Altu’s on August 31), was the guitarist and kazoo player and singer and creator-of-instant-songs. The rest of us played different percussion instruments, as Marlene and her husband Art tend to collect instruments so there were plenty to go around. Ben made up songs about nearly everyone in the room at one time or another. Very funny, very entertaining.

Marlene is quite an artist in many ways. She and Art have these magnificent gardens (he is a Horticulture professor at MSU). She has been making mosaic stepping stones for the garden, including this eggplant one I photographed. And although it was pretty dark when I was taking the photographs, you can see how lush their garden is on the front bank of their yard. (Notice the reddish nasturtiums in the middle of the photos… hers are thriving!) This area is nearly vertical, a sort of interesting garden challenge that they met with flair! To illustrate how vertical this is, you can see in the second photo, at the very top toward the left, the crowd of people on the deck off the back of the house.

Marlene also spins and knits. She dyes wool, silk, rayon, whatever. She taught me how to dye with commercial dyes on wool, back in August of 2001. She and I share the work of publishing the Working Women Artists newsletter. She also has illustrated a knitting book, at least a decade ago. She’s very talented. And she’s a gentle, kind, thoughtful, artful, colorful person, a real treasure in my life.

Happy Birthday, Marlene!