It’s day 26 of National Women’s Friendship Month and we’ve been celebrating at Girlfriendology with daily blogs, four local events and lots of great inspiration for women.

As a member of the Cincinnati.com blog network, every Saturday we celebrate our city and the wonderful women, events and opportunities for women. Last week we celebrated girlfriends in Cincinnati with four events for women. Each event and get-together with new and old gal pals reminded me how much I love my girlfriends and my city!

It kinda ‘hit’ me when we were at the Cincinnati Ballet, about how special our city is and how wonderful the women are who live here. I’ve lived in bigger cities but never had the personal access to or support by women like I’ve had here in our ‘big enough for pro sports (go Bengals!)’ but ’small enough to run into a girlfriend when you’re out shopping’ town. I’ve never felt like I could make a difference in how things are going in my city, nor have I felt the responsibility that I should make a difference because I may have just considered it too big and me too little to make an impact.

Bigger cities are great and offer things we may never have here in the Queen City, no doubt. But give me a neighborhood where we can laugh at a no-stress book club (like we did on Wednesday night!); a city where if I need to connect with someone, we probably know someone who can make a personal introduction; where my ideas can be heard and considered for action; and where I can always find a friendly face walking down the street of my neighborhood, at Finlay Market or my church, or when waiting in line for Graeter’s or Skyline.

So, as girlfriends share, here are some great things about Cincinnati that I’d recommend to my girlfriends:

• THIRD THURSDAY with COOKING WITH CAITLIN – Molly, Kelly and Caitlin are three girlfriends (and two sisters) who have creatively created an entrepreneurial business based on food and fun. They do catering, special events – like Tuesday burger lunches on Fountain Square, a summer TV show (with guests like Bootsy Collins, Buddy LaRosa and Freekbass), a weekly radio show and a fabulous month tradition of ‘Third Thursday.’ Cincinnati hasn’t totally discovered Third Thursday but no doubt soon will. It is one of the best events in our city and one of my very favorite events in 2009. We were honored to be part of the planning as Caitlin designed several courses inspired by girlfriends, National Women’s Friendship Month and the Girlfriendology orange gerbera daisy. We started the evening with a shot glass of (orange) yummy sweet potato soup (shown here served by the beautiful Molly!). This great teaser let us know that wonderful things were coming and they did – all eight more courses! Consider some of these tasty treats: homemade graham cracker, topped with a homemade marshmallow place over a tiny chocolate martini – amazing! And, the ultimate girlfriend dessert, trays of chocolate chips, M&Ms, nuts, etc. with spoonfuls of cookie dough to roll in your favorite ingredients. We’ll be back next Third Thursday and every Third Thursday we can! Thanks Caitlin, Kelly and Molly (as well as your great helpers and fun families) for a memorable, perfect evening!
• CINCINNATI BALLET – This is definitely another best-kept-secret in Cincinnati. I have never attended the local ballet nor did I realize what an amazing organization this is. They have over 1000 dance students and put on performances on-site as well as at the Arnoff for large performances. We’re fortunate to have a dance company filled with amazing dancers that is part of our Cincinnati community (not just a visiting tour). On Sunday we attended the Cincinnati Ballet’s ‘New Works’ performance. The Mickey Jarson Kaplan Performance Studio is beautiful and the perfect setting for the ballet. This performance featured Cincinnati dancers, choreographers and music in five 15-minute performances. Music included blue grass (with ballet to it – very creative!), to my favorite local (but loved internationally) Over The Rhine, and to our local rock star, Peter Frampton. And, not only did we get the ‘girlfriend discount’ and it was a superb event, we also got to sneak up to a private room for mimosa’s during the intermission! Thanks to all who attended and made it a great girlfriend event!
• WINE TASTING & HAPPY HOUR – Owner of the Wine Store, Mary Fruehwald, offered her great wine store for a wine tasting on Friday event. The Wine Store (is on Twitter!), on Montgomery Road (near Kroger/Camargo) and has tasting every Friday night from 4-7. They made this one special by serving four wines by/for/about women (shown here). Thanks to Mary for making it a great night. And thanks to Margye and all the women who showed up for Happy Hour on Monday. It was just a fun way to get together with, and meet some new girlfriends!

These events all happened because women support women, and girlfriends support each other. The Cooking with Caitlin girlfriends (Kelly, Molly and Caitlin) made that evening perfect with their special ‘Third Thursday’ girlfriend menu, great energy and fun conversations. Margye, Terry (from the Cincinnati Ballet) and Mary all offered their venues, time, ideas and support for these wonderful events for women.

Thanks to the girlfriends who made this celebration of National Women’s Friendship Month so much fun. Let’s keep this celebration going. And, thanks to all the women who have contributed to our great city and who will continue to make it even better. Life really is better, together with your girlfriends!

What do you LOVE about Cincinnati? (Or your city) And, what do you LOVE about your girlfriends? Please share a comment and your girlfriend wisdom, insight and recommendations!

p.s. Want to meet some fabulous women in Cincinnati? Join us for our monthly meeting of the CINCINNATI WOMEN BLOGGERS, today (Sept. 26th) at 10:00 a.m., Bridge Worldwide (office/downtown) where we’ll learn about intellectual property, blogging and the FTC from guest speakers Stacy Cole, Graydon Head & Dennis Hetzel, Kentucky Enquirer. Hope to see you there!

Tags: Ballet, cincinnati, Cincinnati Ballet, Cincinnati Bengals, Cooking with Caitlin, findlay market, Fountain Square, graeter's, Over the Rhine, Peter Frampton, women bloggers

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 26th, 2009 at 6:35 am and is filed under Be a Better FRIEND, FUN Stuff we share with Girlfriends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.