My father would have beamed with pride a few days ago, when his youngest daughter and my FabOverFifty sister, Heidi, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from American Banker magazine at its 9th Annual dinner celebrating “The 25 Most Powerful Women in Banking.”

Daddy had no sons but he always told his three girls “make something of yourselves.” He dreamed I’d become a physician; he was beside himself when Princeton accepted Heidi into its second co-ed class, and he fully expected that Shelley would graduate from NYU, even though she got married in the middle of her junior year.

Four Fab FOFs, from l to r: Sister Shelley, friends Julie, Jackie and sister Heidi

I went into communications, Shelley became a dietician, and Heidi entered the world of banking. And while women didn’t stick out like sore thumbs in my and Shelley’s fields in the 1970s, they were scarce as hen’s teeth in the financial services industry.  Even today, the financial arena doesn’t exactly welcome women with open arms. So Heidi’s rise through the ranks of male-dominated institutions, including Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase, is that much sweeter.

Currently President of JPMC International, Heidi has mentored women, including me, throughout her career. “Thank you for keeping me in the game so long,” she told a Waldorf Astoria ballroom full of bankers, the majority of them women. “Continuing our leadership and mentorship is critical, especially during the next few years, as our industry works its way out of a crisis. We’ve all got to be role models, all the time, to those above us and below us.”

Calling herself “smart enough,” to make it in a man’s universe, Heidi talked about the many transitions in a woman’s life, pointing to the transition she’s about to make when she “retires” from JPMC in 2012. “I’ve never been known as the retiring type,” she said, “so I’m anxious to see where the next phase of my life will take me.”

FOF Karen Peetz, CEO, Financial Markets & Treasury Services Group, BNY Mellon, and this year’s top woman in banking, advised “never get defensive, whatever you do; hold yourself responsible for your own success; take risks; get sales experience; be where the money is, set goals and follow through on them.” She thanked her mother for teaching her “there is no (glass) ceiling and the sky’s the limit.”

And keynote speaker, Huff Post’s own Arianna Huffington, thanked Henry Kissinger. “When I met Henry, I came to terms with my accent,” she mused. Proudly announcing that she’s 61 (she looks pretty darn great for any age), Arianna explained that she’s used every setback in her life to help her on her path to success. Including her divorce. 

After her keynote, Ariana gets to work

 

The Wall Street Journal ran a column today about the FOF Beauty Bash, which reveals more about the  40-year-old woman who wrote it, Anne Kadet, than about the Bash itself.

It is a snarky column, poking fun at FOFs who want to look good and choose the makeup, tools and injections to help them. The snarkster* who wrote it doesn’t seem to like women of any age, so she used her public platform to criticize the choices we make, instead of acknowledging a woman’s right to make choices in the first place. *Snarkster (from Urban dictionary) “Someone who uses sarcasm, irony and/or acerbic (sometimes cruel) wit as a tool or weapon to express him or herself because they typically suffer from some sort of deep self-loathing or insecurity.”

When Snarkster Anne  interviewed me she told me her column was going to be “funny.” That raised a red flag to me, but she sounded like a decent woman, so I took her at face value. Funny can be good. Snarky is not. SA also told me that her  64-year-old “friend”, Sheila, who invited her to the Beauty Bash, really liked the event. SA makes Sheila look kind of jerky. “Sheila thinks you’re supposed to look 35 in New York, while in Milwaukee, ladies are still allowed to go gray and gain 300 pounds,” she quotes Sheila as saying. “Sheila longs for the old life,” when she made lots of money and could “patronize $400 hairdressers and get semiannual Botox injections,” SA continues.  ”Now she’s a tapped-out freelancer.”  She also says pal Sheila is “64 going on 18.”

Poor dear, that Sheila. She has enough problems without “friends” like SA.  Sheila disdains women in Milwaukee, is tapped-out, believes she’s got to look 35, but acts like she’s 18, can no longer afford expensive haircuts, and has nothing better to do with her time than make asinine “jokes” about women who can afford–and do–have $300 haircuts or exercise their facial muscles as religiously as she exercises her caustic tongue. (Note: Sheila managed, however, to “snag” a free haircut at the Bash  from genius hairstylist, Mark Garrison, wrote SA.  Mark’s complimentary cuts were reserved only for Gold Ticket Holders, which Sheila was not. )

Despite the (tall) tales of Sniping Sheila and Snarkster Anne, The Bash was hugely successful because it showcased all the options FOFs can take to make ourselves look as great as we feel. If you weren’t there yourself, here is a wonderful comment from a FOF who was:

Hi Geri!

Just wanted to comment on how much I enjoyed the Bash. It was like Disneyland for big girls; instead of rides, it was booth after table after makeup artist, etc. Had four great consultations, a sexy new haircut and the time of my life. Such fun!! My 28 year old son drove me in and met me afterwards to take me out to dinner. We were seated, ordered drinks and he said, “You look great and I know you had fun, but what did you learn”? Wow. Good point! I learned that there’s always more to learn. I learned that there is never an excuse to throw in the towel. I learned that I look great and feel even greater. I learned a few tips and tricks, and discovered that I can embrace exactly where I am and still plan on where I’m going. I feel energized and a little bit different than I did the day before I attended. Can’t ask for more than that, I say. Thanks to everyone for the hard work putting this event together – it showed; and I’m very appreciative. Definitely do one for our California sisters, they deserve it; but hopefully I’ll be back again in New York next year!!

Regards, Donna

I can’t wait till SA is fifty, only 10 years from now. If she continues to disdain women as much as she seems to now, she’ll remain anything but Fab. And she’s going to need more than plastic surgery to look good. As for Sheila, my case rests.

It thrills me to do things I love to do, but don’t do often. Going to the ballet ranks high on this list. FOF sister, Heidi,  treated me tonight to a New York City Ballet performance of Jewels, choreographed by George Balanchine. I know next to nothing about ballet, but I’m always transfixed by the grace, strength and flexibility of the dancers. Watching their synchronized movements, I  worry that one of them will fall out of step. No one ever does, but I guess I’d never really recognize it if someone did.

Jewels has three parts--Emeralds, Rubies and Diamonds–each costumed  in the color of the jewel. The program said the ballet “isn’t so much about gems as about some facets of classical dancing,” but as far as I was concerned, the ballerinas all looked like dancing jewels.

The dancer and the writer

Charles Askegard, the featured dancer in Diamonds, will be dancing his farewell performance with the NYCB on Sunday. After 14 years with the company, Charles is leaving to start his own company. Married to Sex in the City writer, FOF Candace Bushnell, he is 42, 11 years her junior. Bravo, Charles!

I am happy for Amanda Knox, the 24-year-old American girl whose conviction for murder was overturned today in an Italian court. She has spent the last four years in prison, convicted of murdering her housemate, an English girl.

A court-appointed review of the DNA discredited the crucial genetic evidence used to put Amanda and her boyfriend behind bars for 26 and 25-year terms.

I am happy, too, for Amanda’s parents, whose composure impressed me every time I saw them interviewed by the media. The thought of my daughter in prison–an Italian prison, no less– for a murder I knew she could never commit, is horrifying. I’m not sure I could stand it. I would want to be in jail with her, at the very least.

Edda, Amanda's mother, after the judge's decision today in Italy

And, I am happy for Amanda’s boyfriend, whose conviction was overturned as well. He told the court, before the decision was announced, that he had been living a nightmare from which he could never wake.

I am not happy today for the parents of the dead young girl, Meredith Kercher, because their pain will never go away.

Life is not just for all of us.