What girls can solve given the opportunity

While I was returning from Europe, I picked up a Herald Tribune. I had been avoiding news while there and had glanced once or twice at Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal while in hotel lobbies but on reading the headlines had opted not to be in the know. The Tribune was pretty interesting as it was dedicated to the global concerns of women from every angle imaginable – from microfinancing success stories to US business women who had touched the glass ceiling and decided they were more interested in helping others up the ladder than shattering the barriers erected by men.

I went on my annual girl’s trip this weekend. It was an inopportune time given that I had been away for vacation just beforehand, that mom was still no better, and I was up to my ears in work alligators. But take it, I did.

This was my third trip – I missed last year because of my sabbatical and Croatia. We met once again in Nantucket and although I had made ample preparations for Tatjana and the animals to evacuate in the event of a hurricane, I didn’t think I was walking into one myself. Hurricane Danny decided to follow, as if I were the magnet.

Trapped in our Noah’s Ark wonderful house on the island, we were afforded the opportunity to problem solve on a micro and macro level as we could do little else. Returning home, I felt I had been away to a woman’s seminar on all of Life’s major issues and I felt like I came back armed with good advice, suggestions, insights, and warm fuzzies from spending time with five other terrific women – with personalities that some might describe as larger than life – and I felt grateful I had gone on the untimely trip and I felt more than ever that Hillary Clinton is very correct in stating in areas where women are fully vested, terrorism, fanaticism, and hunger seldom occur.

Here’s to women and the continued ascendency of their voice in global affairs.

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