Boomer Chick Musings

I know next to nothing about them.  But they gather religiously nearly every weekday.  They are retired.  But they aren't in church.  They are at a local coffee shop, shooting the breeze, sharing a tons of smiles and some heated conversation.  Of course there are big guffaws over the bad (and probably oft-repeated) jokes. What I like so much about this locale is that it's noisy enough to keep conversations private.  There is a bit of an echo due to the high ceilings.  It's bright with a lovely hand-painted mural.  The room is long and narrow towards the back, not conducive to more than two per table so groups are in the front of the store.  If anybody wants liquor, they need to go elsewhere.   One day I came up with a name for them.  The Men Hens. Some time later I was in line at the shop behind one of the men.  We've recognized each other for a long time.  The gang was there.  I smiled and asked how he was.  He's always upbeat.  I told him I had named their gr

I'm not referring to the Maxine cartoon character , although I totally love those cartoons! This is about the neighbor lady across the street when we moved to Fullerton when I was 5 years old.  It was my folks first owned-home, a newer small rancher in a tract development, with untouched orange groves at the end of the block.  Maxine was her name.  She was a wonder to me.  She was everything my mom wasn't.  She had short jet-back hair.  She was always super tan.  Her finger nails and toe nails were always painted a bright fire engine red.  She wore stylish pedal-pushers.  I thought she must have been a model.  She was old.  I figured she was in her 20's. AND....she always wore thongs.  No, I don't a thing about her undies....I just know that's what we called those flat rubber-sandal shoes, that everybody else has since called flip-flops for decades.  (Of course the word flip-flop is also used as a political term .)  I also remember calling them go-aheads. 

A TRUE CHRISTMAS STORY...   T'was several days before Christmas when the invitation came. Come to a party all looking the same (kind of). The assignment was easy...just look at your folks and wear a Christmas sweater of which people made jokes. The 20-somethings searched and searched all around.  Christmas sweaters were in demand.  None could be found. Couldn't borrow mom's she wore her seasonal covering a lot.  She even forced dad to wear the Santa sweatshirt she'd bought. The Goodwill and Salvation Army Stores might have something they could wear with pride.  But alas all were gone.  They nearly broke down and cried. To the festive department stores they reluctantly turned hoping whatever they found there would not leave them financially burned.  They looked for Christmas-themed sweater treasures high and low, on shelves, on floors, this was amazingly slow. Suddenly much to their delighted surprise, wedged between shirts something ugly caught t