I am 900 miles from my brother, aunts, uncles, cousins and dear friends who have survived Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey and New York. Actually, people I love are all up and down the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast — from the Carolinas to New England. Everyone is physically fine. To say I feel helpless in the [...]

It would take you not living in the place where you grew up — far from the daily tastes, smells, sounds you love — to truly understand the joy I get when I discover Cuban/Miami-home-style food and products in Nashville’s grocery stores. In the morning, I ran into Publix to grab some coffee creamer and [...]

I doubt my eyes will be open at midnight tonight. I know for sure I won’t be wearing yellow panties, despite the good luck they promise. (I don’t own yellow panties. Bad color for me. But, on this New Year’s Eve of 2011, I will be mopping and throwing the dirty bucket water out the [...]

…meet your future mandolin player. She can kind of play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. And tune the thing. Get ready. So yes, city folk, we’re taking mandolin lessons around here. Even I grab the lovely piece and hit it some. La Nena also is taking two other classes after school. That’s three extra-curricular activities…There are [...]

I used to know where all the hot new Nashville restaurants were. It was the double bonus of sitting near the newspaper’s food critic, gossip columnist and music writers. Those people know everything. These days I am more suburban soccer mom than reporter-on-the-spot and I don’t get out much to places when they make the [...]

In the last week, I have dunked myself in the Harpeth River, taken a jon boat out on the lake at Montgomery Bell state park, and swum at the faux beach on the park’s lake. A few nights ago, my daughter stripped off all her clothes and danced in a torrent of cool summer rain. [...]

Have you heard the NPR series on Summer Sounds? Lawnmowers, beans in buckets, bull frogs. I love that series as much as I do Story Corps. Delicious. In my back woods, the summer sound is frogs in the pond. I have no idea what kind of frogs they are, but they’ve been with us for [...]

My husband tells me on the telephone, while I am 900-miles away in New Jersey, that hey, something got in the coop and got a bird. “Feathers everywhere,” he said. We were down to three guineas, from the original 12, plus two babies who hatched last July. (They’ve passed on with the help of cars [...]

I am not sure why I am surprised to find Spanish language goods in local stores. Maybe because when I was growing up, the Spanish seemed insulated to the Miami and North Jersey zips where I lived out a bilingual life. I think it was two years ago that I got all sentimental in the [...]

A post for Sundays in My City, an Unknown Mami regular feature. Visit her site to see other lovely spots around the globe. I love it because it encourages me to show you the wonder of Boonie Life. There’s a park not far from our home. It is where Maria crawled around in the grass [...]