California Baptist University opens ticket sales earlier than ever for its popular performing arts lineup, encouraging Riverside families to secure seats now for a season of musicals, plays, and a beloved holiday tradition.
Bar Ni Modo’s tacos spotlight chicharrón, suadero, and carnitas—each tucked into a freshly made, house tortilla. (Courtesy of Bar Ni Modo)
Sunday Gazette: June 8, 2025
Hello Riverside, and Happy Sunday! Our friends at Bar Ni Modo, a new-era Mexican cocktail bar inside the Farmhouse Collective, have cooked up something special for Gazette readers: free tacos! Just flash today’s newsletter during your first visit in June—valid Sunday through Thursday only. While you're there, catch a free outdoor screening of Space Jam, watch the Dodgers take on the Mets, tune in to the NBA Finals, or join Board Game Night—there’s something happening almost every night over at the Farmhouse Collective.
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Thank you to the Subscribers who became paid supporters this week: Chuck Beatty and Sue Nicolaisen. Your ongoing financial support is vital to our success in serving Riverside with the news it deserves!
Each week, we will introduce a new neighbor. This is not a who's who list. These are regular Riversiders doing exceptional things.
Kim, founder of Ladies of the Hills, greets guests with a warm smile and a coffee mug—her signature invite to slow down, sip coffee and build community one neighbor at a time. (Brenda Flowers)
When Kim retired in 2019, she started taking morning walks with her dogs—and something surprising happened. She began meeting other neighbors she hadn’t encountered during her usual evening strolls. Like many dog owners, she quickly learned the names of everyone’s pets, but not always their humans. As the months went by, an idea began to form: what if she brought together the women in her neighborhood for something simple and meaningful?
And just like that, Ladies of the Hills was born.
Kim invited a few women from each street in the hills to join her for coffee, asking them to spread the word to others on their block. What started small slowly grew, and though the pandemic briefly paused things, the group resumed in 2022 with even more momentum. Today, about 50 women are involved, and each month a different neighbor volunteers to host. The format is simple—bring your own mug, maybe bring a friend, and spend time connecting. No agenda. No pressure. Just neighbors becoming friends.
Kim is the one behind the scenes, sending the invites and supporting each hostess along the way. Under her quiet leadership, Ladies of the Hills has become more than a monthly coffee klatch. It's a circle of support. Whether celebrating life’s joyful moments or navigating its challenges, these neighbors have come to count on one another—not just as neighbors, but as true friends.
Plan Ahead for a Season of Spectacle: Tickets for A CBU Christmas and 2025–26 Theatre Now Available
California Baptist University opens ticket sales earlier than ever for its popular performing arts lineup, encouraging Riverside families to secure seats now for a season of musicals, plays, and a beloved holiday tradition.
(Courtesy of California Baptist University)
California Baptist University's School of Performing Arts has released tickets for its upcoming theatre season and A CBU Christmas earlier than ever before, responding to high demand and consecutive sold-out performances.
Driving the news: The 2025-26 season, themed "Grow Where You Are Planted," features two plays, two musicals, and the popular A CBU Christmas event.
Performances include "Our Town," "Shrek the Musical," "Steel Magnolias," and "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat."
Why it matters: A CBU Christmas has become a signature event for the Inland Empire community, with both 2023 and 2024 performances selling out.
The eighth annual presentation is expected to involve more than 500 students and faculty.
The big picture: The early announcement allows theatergoers to plan ahead and gives students something to anticipate.
Auditions and rehearsals won't begin until September 2025.
What's next: The season kicks off with "Our Town" on October 10, 2025, and concludes with "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" in April 2026.
A CBU Christmas performances are scheduled for December 6 and 7, 2025.
This week, we're delving into another intriguing kind of mark: the stain. From the ghost of spilled tea on a favorite shirt to the weathered discoloration on an old garden wall, stains are often seen as imperfections, accidental blemishes. Yet, like fingerprints or ancient hieroglyphs, they are also records—testaments to past events, telling tales of what happened and when.
A stain compels us to look closer, to deduce, to infer. As humans, our brains are hardwired to seek patterns and meaning, often mistaking inanimate forms for familiar figures, like faces in clouds or eyes in tree knots. This tendency to fill in the blanks, to complete the incomplete, isn’t just a quirky evolutionary trait—it’s a powerful engine of creativity.
