"The girl with the cute haircut"

Last night was the movie meetup holiday party. We saw Remember the Night, a rather obscure Christmas movie starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray.* I can see why it's not as popular as Christmas in Connecticut (last year's movie). It does not have a conventional Christmas feel-good ending. But still I enjoyed it.

Even more, I enjoyed the Meet Up. My usual girls weren't there -- Joanna's flight from New Orleans was delayed; Martha remains incommunicado for the third month in a row -- so I was forced to talk more to other people than I normally would. And, after all, that is the point of these Meet Ups.

These two other ladies and I somehow got on the subject of Barbra Streisand. Funny Girl and "My Man," specifically. I joked that I loved that number because falling for the wrong fella is specialty of mine. One of the ladies recommended match.com or eharmony.com, and I said that with my luck I'd end up with the new millennium Ted Bundy. The ladies laughed and one said, "I can just hear us asking each other, 'What happened to the girl with the cute haircut? I hope we didn't lose her to computer dating.'"

That made me happy because (1) I made them laugh and (2) they liked my new haircut and (3) they referred to me as "a girl" and I know I'm well within 10 years of them. This last birthday -- when I hit 57 -- made me feel very old and any reassurance I get that I don't look like I'm knocking on 60 makes me feel better.

*I grew up on MacMurray on My Three Sons, as boring a dad as TV ever produced. His long movie career reveals there was much more to him than that -- humor, cynicism and even a little sex appeal. Who knew?