Laurie gets to turn sixty!

Laurie is the youngest of her crowd of Portland friends, and some of them have been gently teasing her for years.

Still in your fifties?
Aren't you EVER going to grow up?
Not even sixty yet?

One of her very close friends was prevented by cancer from turning sixty, so Laurie never took it for granted that she would turn sixty. Therefore when she finally made it to the big Six Oh, she staged a real blow-out of a day-long birthday party, with beautiful autumn flower arrangements set in pumpkins bedecked with chinese lantern flowers (Physalis alkekengi), a vegan brunch for about twenty people, and an afternoon buffet for another ninety. The festivities included a storytelling session (see Extra), a group writing-project, wish-making by each guest, and intergenerational merry-making. For the day's festivities, Laurie rented Historic Overlook House, which bills itself as a “Tudor residence built in 1927” (pause for laughter from blip-friends in the UK).