Blog No. 32 of 2025
Hi there! Happy Friday and welcome the weekend.
I’ve loved this week and having Elizabeth home for a few days before she heads off to New Jersey this weekend for the My Chemical Romance concert.
And here’s what went on this week…
Saturday Vance and I spent the day together around our neighborhood, visiting Greenspace Miami to see the exhibit “When Mangos Last in My Backyard Bloom’d” an installation by filmmaker and artist Jayme Kaye Gershen. She was there when we visited, preparing to host a workshop. She had a very sweet demeanor and was so happy we stopped in. Her homage to the sweet mango, the most Miami/305 of tropical fruits, the show includes plenty of film featuring locals talking about their mango experiences and even eating the fruit on camera. When you walk in you immediately encounter a mango tree she created with ripe mangos for picking and eating. As people consume the mango, they’re encouraged to leave the seed behind where it is properly dried and placed on the wall as a growing installation. The exhibition ends on Saturday, Aug. 9. You can click here to read the Artburst Miami review by Editor Michelle Solomon.
We then grabbed a light lunch at Coffee Break House just a block away where Vance and I split a tasty chicken panini. I washed that down with my new favorite drink, an iced chai latte which was good too. We also popped into a consignment store Fly Boutique and then drove over to NE 4 Ct. around 74th Ave. and wandered around the Ironside Miami complex, peeking into the boutiques and specialty stores. There’s a pizzeria and cafe there too.
Kaitlyn on stage with her bandmates.
Pure joy on stage! Congrats Kaitlyn and bandmates for a rockin’ performance.
That night I headed to Club Space’s The Ground to watch my great niece Kaitlyn shred on guitar at the Miami Girls Rock Camp finale show. It was so nice to hang out with my sisters Ana and Susy, my niece Tiffany (Kate’s Mom) and Kate’s sister Hailey and my niece Elena and her partner AJ and their cute toddler Jojo. I love going out and supporting this grass roots one-week Summer camp where young girls have the opportunity to write music, play instruments and make their own logos.
Wednesday night Elizabeth joined Nick and I at trivia on Wednesday at Old Tom’s. We didn’t win but we had a great time trying. We missed our cul-de-sac crew, our neighbor Ericka and her son Julian.
Last night after a busy day I attended Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s Budget Town Hall Meeting at Oak Grove Park. There I sat with my fellow arts community cohorts from Sandrell Rivers Theater, O Cinema, Juggerknot Theatre Co., Arts Ballet Theatre of Florida and FilmGate Miami in the hopes of having Miami-Dade’s arts funding reinstated into the budget. We’ve got a long road ahead until that final decision in September but we plan to keep showing up. Next one is Aug. 20 where I know we’ll all be in attendance. There’s strength in numbers and from what I’ve been seeing the pressure may just be working.
Tonight I might attend an event Oscar “The Biscayne Poet” Fuentes invited me to, a poetry event he’s hosting “Ciudad Poesia: Poetry in the Age of Connection,” at the Gato Gordo Gallery. Oscar was the subject of my latest article for Biscayne Times that was published in this month’s issue. Here’s the link.
I also wrote a recap article on the recent MAMP (Miami Arts Marketing Project) Conference hosted by the Arts & Business Council of Miami at MDC Wolfson Campus. Click here to read it on the Artburst Miami website.
I also wanted to give a shoutout to Nick’s Caseworker Sophie Maneus who has been a subscriber to this blog for years now. Thanks Sophie for using South Florida on the Cheap as a resource to recommend events around Miami in your newsletter/e-mail to your clients. I mentioned it to our On the Cheap Publisher Teresa Mears and she was very pleased.
I’m also happy and proud to share that I’ve not skipped a single walk this week. That’s right, every morning, even in the sweltering, humid heat of Miami, I’ve gone for a long, brisk walk. I’m sharing a few scenes from some of those walks this week. One is a favorite little bench in the shade that’s a great little spot for a break and the other is two peacocks I encountered just this morning.
If you’re looking for fun stuff to do this weekend you know I’m always going to send you to the Artburst Miami website for all the arts happenings and to South Florida on the Cheap for fun inexpensive events. And now I’ve got another resource for you, the weekly BT Arts Beat column in Biscayne Times, here’s the link.
And this week I leave you with this great video from Karen Peterson and Dancers, a dance troupe near and dear to my heart who have been presenting inclusive dance in Miami for 35 years. My sister Ana and I have attended many of their shows and I also have been catering their Forward Motion Workshop for the last few years.
That’s it for this week. I hope you get out there and have some fun this weekend. Spend time outside (in the shade) or indoors somewhere enjoyable. Let me know if you check out any of the places I’ve mentioned.
Have a great week!!!!
Vance in his office ready for the arrival of Star of the Seas to Port Canaveral this weekend.
