I attended a panel discussion last month titled “Own Your Future – Where to Start When STARTING OVER”. Love the title. It was hosted by The Thypin Oltchick Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship (TOI) and every seat was taken by women of all ages and backgrounds. Some of them (1) knew what they wanted to start up and were doing it; others just (2)had an idea they were tossing around in their head; the rest (3) hadn’t much of a clue. These types of gatherings can guide women in all three of these stages and are not only enlightening but also empowering. And they are ubiquitous too, offered by such organizations as Ladies Who Launch, Springboard, Golden Seeds and Women 2.0 to name a few that run similar workshops, seminars, conferences and training courses every week. (Just Google “women entrepreneur organizations” to find more and check a list from one of my earlier posts.)
But back to the four panelists, who are all TOI clients and recipients of their loan fund, and their four tips to restart your work life:
Two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, three Emmys, honors at Cannes and Berlin film festivals and numerous other accolades are testimonies to her highly crafted skill as one of America’s most beloved actresses. Sally Field must know what it feels like to be liked by now (see reference to her 1987 Academy Award acceptance speech), without even taking into consideration her most recent convincing performance as one of this country’s most unliked First Ladies, Mary Todd Lincoln. She’d been lobbying for this role for over a decade as she’s had to do with most of her roles since we first saw her as Gidget on the TV screen in 1965.
It’s
hard to miss her with her trademark Pre-Raphaelite red hair.And, though Grace Coddington, Vogue's creative director, is a highly-visual person
she was mostly behind the scenes until her surprisingly spunky and strong
performance in TheSeptember Issuewhere some say she stole the show from
the steely, stealth Anna Wintour. Today
Coddington’s memoir Gracegoes on sale.
Worn favorite cookbooks and torn family recipes are being opened up on kitchen counters across the country as Thanksgiving hosts prepare their holiday menus. Certain traditional dishes should never change but the fact is that our palates and digestive systems do. We become more educated, dare I say, sophisticated with our food choices and that bloated, unsettling feeling we ultimately experience as we push away from the dinner table is no longer acceptable. So how should this change be considered when planning our Thanksgiving Day feast?
Three weeks ago my husband and I crossed the river we view from our coop and boarded a cruise ship headed to four Caribbean islands. I will preface this post by saying that we’re not your habitual cruise vacationers. Typically the people you meet on the ships are on their third, fifth even tenth cruise. We had taken one before with our daughter to Alaska, which while it was great fun, we agreed we like spending more time than an eight-hour stopover in the various cities and countries we visit. But I was taken with the idea of being able to travel without having to go to an airport and instead getting on a ship we see going in and out of the harbor every week. And that ship was visiting four islands we had planned vacations at in our youth when we first became a couple.
You’ve seen this face before. That was years ago, but it looks the same, doesn’t it? Look harder. This face has definitely known a few decades since the first time you saw it; a fine tracery of lines lies over it, and resignation now shapes the set of its mouth. And yet you keep thinking, “It’s the same,” while you know it isn’t — couldn’t — be the same at all.
The face in question is Karen Allen—and the one looking hard at it is Ben Brantley, the New York Times theatre critic. Brantley writes about her timeless and yet time-etched face in his review of A Summer Day, the first play in which Karen Allen has acted in more than a decade. Karen Allen looks much the same as she did in 1981 in undoubtedly her most famous role as Marian Ravenwood in the initial Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark film. Though Karen Allen seems to have hardly aged physically in more than 30 years, the 61-year-old actor has lived at least two successful lives that we know of.
Here at Second Lives Club, we are well-acquainted with the gray hairs that come with the job of living a purposeful life. Much was made of how the hard work of governing had grayed President Obama's hair during the campaign. And, now Bloomberg BusinessWeek has come out with an arresting cover of the how the president will look in his second term. We ask: When will gray hair be a badge of honor rather than a battle wound of aging or stress? We HOPE for CHANGE.
Who doesn't remember the memorable words of Lesley Gore's "You Don't Own Me". She recorded the song in 1964 at age 18, not old enough to vote. Nearly a half century later Gore has produced a version that is an anthem for women's rights. By voting today, our impact will be felt and our voices will be heard. Over 50% of those voting in the 2008 Presidential elections were women, and over 50% were 45 and older. It is estimated that 10 million more women and men will vote in this election. We're still fighting for the same issues that we were when Gore originally recorded this song. Listen to this chorus of women of many ages. When women vote, women win!
This next post was to be about my husband and I rediscovering the playgrounds of our youth in the Caribbean. I finished a draft while still onboard our cruise ship, the Norwegian Gem, but will post at a later date. Right now I feel more compelled to write about the devastation of other playgrounds--those of our earlier youth, as a high school friend put it. St. Thomas, Puerto Rico and St. Martin experienced some of the storm surge but the New Jersey boardwalks of Point Pleasant, Seaside Heights, Asbury Park and Atlantic City--where I spent fond summers in my teens and 20s-- are gone.
