Growing Bolder Community

"Smokey and the Bandit" used to hang at my house. Smokey is the sixteen pound housecat, and Bandit was the chocolate lab that had to adjust to him when he first came home as an itty bitty kitten. Bandit passed on a year and a half ago from old age, and running true to form, there's a new dog Lucky barking at the wild turkeys in the yard.But every once in a while my front door seems to become a...

I'm writing from Wisconsin, which over the past couple of weeks has been "ground zero" in the conservative governor's fight to bust public sector employee unions. Seventy thousand people showed up at the state capitol yesterday to rally for the cause. Today's major Wisconsin daily newspaper noted that the level of hatred and vitriol in the debate across the state, in bars and restaurants and...

For a birthday today where all I'll admit to turning is..."thirty-nine again"...this one was a pretty good sampler. Started off with a surprise chocolate cheesecake with candles on it for breakfast. Then fulfilled a long-time itch by checking out the Door County Sled Dogs rides in Milwaukee's Whitnall Park. Even the weather cooperated--after ghastly stretchs of sub-zero wind chills making me...

It's been just a year since the "teacher extraordinaire" who was my godmother passed on at the age of 82. And would you believe, on that anniversary I was busy preparing for a class of my own that I'm teaching these days. Whodathunkit? A year ago, certainly not me. But, then, I say that a lot lately. Mary Therese Griffin set quite the example for her family and her high school and grade...

As though working out on land wasn’t tough enough, try doing it while suspended in mid-air! The NBC affiliate in Philadelphia recently did a feature on the “aerial silks” class at the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts. My yoga-teaching artist daughter, Sarah Muehlbauer, is one of the students. You can watch the video. Sarah is the one in the purple tank top, dangling from two white...

As the mother of three adult children with serious pre-existing medical conditons—one case of cancer and two of Crohn’s disease—I’d like to add my voice to the current health care debate. After years of emergency room visits, consults, surgeries and medications, all are currently doing well. But the need for continuous and decent health insurance coverage perilously hangs like the Sword...

As winter sinks its fangs in deep, and snow and slush bank the roads up here in the northern U.S., it's nice to think back to the Labor Day weekend in Milwaukee and the wind in our faces! www.runningwithstilettos.com

Photo credit by Robert Vrshek of Chicago Anybody's who's spent much time writing knows that it's a pretty solitary pursuit. Just you and the keyboard, or the typewriter, or the legal pad and a sharpened pencil or fountain pen. Sometimes stuff absolutely flows, more often you have to drag it out of hiding, from under sofas, the backs of closets, the deepest recesses of your brain where it digs in...

My first book, "Running with Stilettos," just got a very nice review in the U.S. Review of Books. As we turn the page on 2010 and look to 2011, I felt like sharing!And looking ahead, I expect to be publishing a third essay collection in spring of 2011. I have a tentative title of my own in mind...but I would absolutely LOVE more suggestions. If I run with your title instead, I'll send you an...

Last night I sat through a truly remarkable acoustic concert by rocker Richard Marx and had to share! He's still on tour for anybody who's lucky enough to be in the neighborhood of his shows and get a ticket. That would include both sides of the Atlantic in 2011.We watched him last night at the Hamilton Fine Arts center in Sussex, Wisconsin, which is near Milwaukee. Richard Marx is a familiar...