Never The Empty Nest

While Yoda Mom tends to her company Christmas party, Vanessa and Nicole give life updates and share their thoughts on “Parenting Hacks” from the online community.  What even qualifies as a hack?  What are your favorite ways to “solve” your parenting issues?  We’d love to hear from you!

Vanessa and Nicole are back in this episode to chat about the daunting prospect of a child’s first “crush.”  Aren’t they too young for this?!  Is this a product of coeducation?  Nicole gets some guidance on the subject from a kind, (and unlikely) source.  On this episode, it is all love.  And community.  Who was your first crush?  

Yoda Mom is challenged at the moment with Maman, so Vanessa and Nicole tackle the topic of memory.  Why do we even have memory? The very young, the very old, even slugs make use of memory - in different ways. Often times, our memories come back to us when we don’t expect it. Join us to hash it all out! 

In this episode, we discuss nesting as a lifestyle, its ups, downs, and all its circles...and cycles. Meanwhile, Yoda-mom turns back the clock and teens-out, escaping through Vanessa's back door. Vanessa is accused of "storytelling" (though you should judge for yourself). Roles reverse and irony ensues, but the warmth is turned up, even as Jackie's apartment goes topsy-turvy. This one's a big laugh -- hope you'll laugh with us!

Sabina Murray is an award winning author born (and now living) in the States, raised in Australia and Manila. She’s won a Guggenheim, been a Bunting Fellow at Radcliffe, received the PEN/Faulkner Award, a National Endowment for the arts, and the list goes on. In her new book, The Human Zoo, she takes on a particular political moment in Filipino History — Duterte’s presidency — and she wraps it in a suspense-filled, love story which meets a journey of self understanding. The nest is everywhere as we chat with Sabina and we find the places where Filipino culture and Cuban culture meet, diverge, and swing as part of the bigger human net.

This week we break bread! We talk about all things Guava Babka with Cristina Fernandez, founder and Head Baker of I Knead More. And we definitely need more of her.  She talks to us about climbing the foodie/chef ladder as a woman, and what it was like in NYC, learning from the best of them, then coming back to Miami and how the pandemic helped her actually launch her business. And, of course, this all goes back to her nest. It was her dad, after all, that told her: bake bread, girl, bake bread! 

This week we have all the cousins gathered to talk about what makes their nest special. Yeap folks, we ventured to bring the kids on (that’s why this week’s is so short)! There’s furniture involved, boogies on a mic, and a pulled plug. Yoda mom calls it a “fracass,” but we also call it family fun. 

Wendy White, whose short film ROSES ARE BLIND, has won so many awards the laurels hardly fit on the poster, is now sharing her story with us. The film is based on her life, whose beginnings were founded on a bumpy nest. She was wrongly institutionalized at the age of 19. Now, Vanessa is working with Wendy on a feature length film of the short, and they’re both very excited. The girls (Vanessa, Wendy, and Nicole) revisit their past, trips to Amsterdam, Vanessa’s first play, Barnard, the Ann Frank Museum, Edinburgh, and even Shoes & a Show.

In an effort to help the elderly, the undocumented, and those facing food insecurity during the pandemic in 2020, Jessica Gutierrez co-founded Buddy System MIA bringing artists together to work with the community. In this episode, we talk about what it means for a community to really come together, the flow you follow to make that happen, and the perseverance it takes to keep it all budding.

A place called Casa Cuba is blooming in Miami. It’s a spot where the Cuban and Cuban-American story will be archived, where it can be studied, where it can root from. Maite Morales talks to us about what it’s like to build this nest. We meander through her visits to the Smithsonian, Celia Cruz, Maite’s dissertation about the emotions of the Cuban revolution, and archive fever.