#3 Dance tango

It had been many moons since I had danced. I realized exactly how long and thought: I cannot continue without dancing.


So, I went to a milonga in Aventura. It was a bit of the viejito lonely hearts club, but fun.

I was nervous I'd trip on my feet and stumble on the giros. Luckily, dancing tango is like riding a bike. You just hop back on.

Dancing brings so many emotions - joy, sadness, peace. And many memories of Buenos Aires, friends far away, tango buddies. In my head, I hear the voices of my last teachers -- Valencia y Dina y Luciana en Villa Malcolm.


I feel like I'm back in Buenos Aires. But the song ends, and I'm here in South Florida and want to be there.


Years ago, Enrique Santos Discepolo said tango is a sad feeling that is danced. Maybe instead of sad feeling: nostalgia, danced.

#6 Walk in Coral Gables

I love walks. They are so relaxing, even when it's hot and steamy.


I have three favorite walks in Coral Gables.


One: walking around the youth center, where almost always there's a pick-up basketball, softball practice, or soccer game going on. It's also the lazy, short walk.

And the trees along the street are amazing: huge and prehistoric.

Two: The walk to the Biltmore, the historic, elegant hotel that's millions overdue in rent.

I get to stroll through the lushly green neighborhood.

And there are always lizards scurrying from my path.

And finally, three: the extra long walk around the Coral Gables golf course.

Can you see the steam?

#50 Eat at Versailles & #55 Eat ropa vieja

Versailles is an institution on Calle Ocho - even if it feels kitschy and over the top with all the etched mirrors that line the walls.

Recent example: Gloria Estefan was here when she led the solidarity march in Miami for Las Damas de Blanco a few months ago. So I had to take my friend F. there on her recent visit.


And the food is good. I had the ropa vieja - another Cuban classic of shredded meat - with rice and beans and plantains. It was so tender.

There are a lot of stories of how ropa vieja - meaning old clothes - got its name. One reason is that the meat is so tender it can be shredded into a pile of rags.


A more romantic one: A very poor man has nothing to feed his family. So he grabs his old clothes, cooks them with his love and it becomes delicious meat stew. I like that one better.

# 76 Have a cortado

I love café cortado, or cortadito. It's the perfect combination of espresso with a bit of milk to cut the coffee. My friend F. says it's the Argentina in me. And there's a machine in my office. 

So I can have one for 75 cents every day.

I don't mind the paper cup. Again, a very easy one to cross off the list - again and again.

#19 Write postcards

I love writing postcards and letters.


I'm terrible about mailing them though.


I had my first pen pal in second or third grade. I don't remember the year, just that out of the blue a card arrived from my mom's high school friend from Pennsylvania. I had never met her, but she asked if I would be her pen pal. I felt special. And she promised to always try and find peacocks cards for me, because she liked peacocks and peacocks were special.


I saved them all.


Later I was pen pals with my best friend who moved to New England and  then with my aunt who left to work in Ecuador. I saved all of those notes, too.


Here's to the nearly lost art of handwriting notes.

#26 Meditate at la Ermita

La Ermita de la Caridad is the national shrine to the patroness of Cuba - Our Lady of Charity who appeared as a floating statue to three men at sea nearly 400 years ago.


The shrine itself is built to resemble a 90-foot Virgin, covered with a mantle and overlooking the sea.

People sit alongside Biscayne Bay and pray. The seawall looks toward Cuba, if not in reality at least in spirit. It is the wall of lament, the wall of hope for many exiles.

Some throw ofrendas - bright yellow sunflowers and coins - into the water. (I can't help but wonder what name they call la Ermita in Santería.) Many Cuban exiles want the site to be their last resting place. Some scatter the ashes of loved ones, despite the rules against the practice.


I sit and meditate. The water laps at the shore. The constant bay breeze rustles the palms. Our little boats get so easily lost at sea, I think.


Caridad.

#105 Admire the red trees

Washington, D.C. has its cherry blossoms. Pasadena, the purple jacarandas. In Miami, the signature flowering tree would have to be something loud, gorgeous and the color of sin: the royal poinciana.

The trees are from Madagascar - transplants like so much of South Florida. But they fit right in. I've been spotting them all around town. They are gorgeous.

I took a special walk along the historic South Miami Avenue to admire the poincianas' return to glory there.

On the avenue, the poincianas are blooming for the first time in two decades. People blamed obnoxious lights by the Florida utility for confusing the trees' cycle so much they couldn't flower. Lo and behold, the utility changes the lights and the trees return in blazing glory.

A rhapsody in red, as the story in the Herald describes it.