Never The Empty Nest

The kids are growing up and it’s the moms that have the growing pains. Nicole and Vanessa hash out the trials, tribulations, total glories and love explosions of watching the kids grow. Yoda mom chimes in, an old pro at the emotional roller coaster. You know what they say: “You never stop growing.” “And it all goes so fast…” Platitudes? Maybe. But you know what, they’re also big truths. So, yeah, we better enjoy every second of it.

Alice Marble ruled the tennis court in the 30s and 40s. In 1939, she was ranked number 1 in the world. Among her most important and lasting accolades is her fight against the color line in Tennis in 1950. She hung out with the likes of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, and she even had her own line of clothes. Yet, she is largely forgotten. Blais is working to fix that!

Author Kerri Maher tackles a very specific nest – the Jane Collective -- an underground group of women before Roe v. Wade that worked to help women when the law was working against them. Set in 1970s Chicago, the book rings particularly timely after the 2022 Dobbs Decision.

Ruth Behar: Pepita Meets Bebita

We begin our Bookfair tour with the profound and magical, Ruth Behar, talking to us about writing a children’s book with her son, Gabriel. From Anthropology to children’s book writing, Ruth takes us through her nest, and it includes the history of Jewish Cubans and the snuggles of a little pup named Pepita.

It’s here: the days are longer and the kids are out of school. Now: What do we do with them? How do we make sure they make the most of their time off, and also make the most of their boredom? Nicole and Vanessa explore these questions. Their answers aren’t always the same (are they ever?), but the convo is fun! Almost as fun as summer.

Vanessa is going through perimenopause – aka: that blurry time “around menopause.” It’s come a little early, but it’s here and it’s, well, let’s just say it’s a bizarre little moment in time that’s both enraging and empowering. Vanessa, Nicole, and Jackie, talk about how we’ve been getting women wrong for so many years. They also talk about the movement that’s starting around the oh-so-sexy topic of menopause, which will hopefully set things right. 

Vanessa talks with her creative partner, Victoria Collado about their new collaboration on #Graced, alongside wonderful people like director Sarah Hughes and organizations like the Adrienne Arsht Center for the performing Arts in Miami, Zoetic Stage, and our podcast producer, Matt Corey! This episode is all about the nest that is the theatre – the artistic nest that catches us all, and how we all make it work, cast after cast – family after family. 

Best-selling author Dr. Katharine Esty speaks with the nest about her book “Eightysomethings”, and what she learned about herself and others in the process of interviewing over 100 octogenarians.   Do you know what “upside down parenting” is?   Listen, and find out from an expert on the subject.

A follow-up to the last episode, the nest carefully approaches Nicole and Vanessa’s grandmother, Maman, and comes to the realization that sometimes love means throwing your plans, your scripts, and your outlines out the window, and just going with it: improvising. That, and Vanessa might be having a “mid-life crisis” – just another can of worms the nest is starting to crack open. Oh what fun. 

And The Oscar Goes To…. The nest discusses all things Oscars and, also, talks about the performances of their lives – trying to live inside the fictional (based on a true story) world of Maman, improvising along the way. Maman, Jackie’s mom -- and Nicole and Vanessa’s grandmother -- has been suffering a deepening of her dementia and in it, she’s reliving a particular past trauma: the loss of her mother. The nest struggles, trying to find the way out through story and love.