Never The Empty Nest

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...

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...

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 m...

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 laug...

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...

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...

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, Wen...

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.

Yoda Mom freaks out this week as we’re joined by Asha Walker, whose dad is the OG (Original Gardner), Dr. Marvin Dunn. Asha’s organization, Health in the Hood, brings abundance, education, nutrients and true greens to food deserts in Miami. And, she’s working on expanding beyond Florida! We talk about good-food, favorite veggies, and what it means to really spread the love in our communities.

As Vanessa welcomes a new pup into her nest, Maman falls hard, and Nicole goes brunching, we welcome Bad Papi! Amelia Leon, whose drag name is Bad Papi, and who shares their journey from abuse to self-discovery with us. They share what it meant to discover drag kings, and the nest that made them feel things they didn’t know they could. Journey with us!

In this episode, we discuss that ever-present, ever-frustrating, unbreakable, annoying, beautiful, one-of-a-kind bond between…hermanitas! Sisters, sisters! The fighting, the make-ups, the anecdotes of madness. It’s all in this episode. Also, one of the Rivera sisters (Christy) is actually the person responsible for making Richard Blanco (from Season 2) a poet! Oh, and there’s even a ladybug infest...

Ruben Rabasa, who just played Uncle Walter in the 2022 remake of Father of the Bride , alongside Andy Garcia, is about to take the stage in his one person show, at 84-years-old. The show tells us the story of his spectacular life. Ruben has been in more movies to mention, sharing the screen with the likes of Adam Sandler and Colin Firth. Vanessa is the co-writer of his one-person show and Victoria...

Mom is still gone because she’s got some protruded discs. Ouch! Rest-up Yoda Mom.  Niko turns into a massive Mamma bear who actually has to get bleeped. Oops. Let’s just say there’s trouble in the first grade (Niko’s daughter’s class). Vanessa, meanwhile, is a walking zombie because she’s lost a close friend. She’s heartbroken. Together, Nicole and Vanessa tackle what low-grade depression means ri...

Nicole’s husband, Jonathan, broke his jaw! Vanessa’s releasing @theamparoexperience on Instagram. Mom is missing (don’t worry, she’ll be back), but their guest, Natalie Cabo, who has acted with the Garcia sisters is now on a reality show called Twenty Somethings: Austin (Netflix) and she’s sharing all. Nat opens up about what it means to move out of the family nest for the first time with a robo c...

Richard Blanco was President Obama’s Inaugural poet, but he also means a whole lot to the Nest Crew personally because his poetry resonates on so many levels. This week, Blanco joins the nest to talk about how smaller, character-filled nests in Maine can sing beautifully, how you can be a Turkey on the outside but picadillo on the inside, how to make a holiday out of spam and peanut butter, and ho...

Work/Life balance, it’s a thing. Jackie, Vanessa, and Nicole take a work/life balance test on air. Follow along with them, or just laugh with (at?) them as yoda mom gets called out for her secret-tortilla-chip obsession, Vanessa finds herself bragging, and Nicole tries to keep it cool (she’s the jelly). But who's the most balanced? Find out on this episode of NTEN!

The nest processes a problem they are having “live” on the program: When to get a caretaker for Maman (Jackie’s mom; Vanessa and Nicole’s Grandma). Jackie is in denial, Vanessa wants to do a family vision board, and Nicole can, typically, see all sides of the problem. But what’s the solution? This is, of course, a problem many families and nests are having as people live longer and more and more f...

Emotional, Intellectual, Physical, Material, Spacial, and Sexual boundaries – the ladies hash all of them out in the hopes that breaking a few eggs will make an omelet and not a disaster. Meanwhile, Grandma is seeing kittens and blondes, which are making boundaries blurry, not to mention Covid-residue boundaries taking a toll on Jackie. Plus old anecdotes including one about teen-crossing-boundari...