Until Friday I had never repeated something I had heard about Barbara Walters nearly 34 years ago. I told my daughter Berit. It must have been the rhythm of the highway. At the moment of disclosure I was behind the wheel of my car, six hours out of Minneapolis on the way to Chicago not knowing that I still had another 4 hours in the car --thank you road construction.

When someone finally identifies a geographic area that they really like – where you feel comfortable and happy, where you could see yourself wanting to stay a while – it makes sense that you might start thinking about the possibility of buying vs. renting. But what if the place where you live (Alexandria, VA) happens to be included on the list of America's 5 Most Overpriced Suburbs? Obviously you’re not the only person who wants to live where you live, and real estate prices reflect that.

A dear friend of mine is from England, now living in the U.S.  She sat in my living room recently, telling me that one of the hardest things to get used to in America has been the way that people spend so much time in their cars. 

In England, she told me, life was centered around smaller villages.  Mothers walked their children to school, because they lived close enough.  They walked to the market, and to church.  And it would be nearly unheard of to drive for 15 minutes to go shopping.

A couple of years ago when I was freelancing for the non defunct Women's Business Minnesota I wrote an article about being a fat employee. A facilitator shared a story about employees checking out the training room ahead of time to make sure there were chairs they could fit in s

If you are a Canadian there are certain terms you've likely known since infancy and no I'm not talking about "eh". I'm talking about "double double" and "timbit". For the uninitiated a "double double" is a coffee (two cream, two sugar) and a "timbit" is a doughnut hole that is sold at that Canadian institution Tim Horton's (aka Tim's, Timmy's, Timmy Ho's, etc). A teeny-tiny $0.16 doughnut hole. And giving away a single timbit got one single mom fired.

Was Zoe Cruz, the most powerful woman on Wall Street, fired from Morgan Stanley because she is female? An article in New York Magazine tried very hard to prove so. Long story short: Three weeks prior to asking Cruz to resign, CEO John Mack indicated that she was his first choice to replace him. As people (i.e. - men) jostled for power within the bank, Cruz earned supporters who appreciated her abrasive, upfront style, and enemies who thought she was in over her head. She made many power plays and helped oust many other powerful men, such as Vikram Pandit, the man who currently has the job title she was promised (updated to clarify that he is the CEO of Citigroup), during her tenure there. In her work, she backed a group that was playing games with the mortgage market. When that market started to fall apart, she tried to staunch the flow of losses. When the shit hit the fan, would Mack take the fall or would he leave his heir apparent holding the bag? Thanks to pressure in part from from arch-enemy Pandit, Cruz solely took the heat. Some say it is because she is a woman, but I think it is much more complex than that.