Friends

Farewell 2010…and a decade

Farewell 2010…and a decade

Cindy McCain

While many may think I’m at a salsa party on NYE, I’m not. I wanted a last night by the tree, my son in the next room playing video games. He’ll graduate in 2012…too soon…and I haven’t had the chance over Christmas break to look back on the past year and thank God for all His blessings.

Many firsts in 2010…my students doing a book study with Sherry’s class in Ecuador via Skype. Classic Coup featured in Her Nashville, then my writing for the magazine. Examiner interviews with amazing people, like Alberto Fuguet and a salsera who inspired me with her story, soon to be published. Loving Middle Eastern food and eating it while watching the Super Bowl. First trip to Vegas and to Kansas City. Sharing Go-Jo with a friend before he hit the Road Less Traveled. Our bathroom restored over Thanksgiving when 8 Days of Hope came to town. The kindness of strangers.

And speaking of Tennessee Williams…my first trip to NOLA. Why had I not gone sooner considering it’s the most European-feeling city in America? There Kim did a reunion concert with her former husband/band member that loyal fans, Kim’s high school friends, and five of us from Nashville traveled to see. She sang like an angel, he played up a storm, and they bantered like June Carter and Johnny Cash. I’d met Kim post-Bill and her Rockabilly days. Seeing them slip back into something onstage so familiar and so different reminded me of the lives we all live and leave behind. Their reunion foreshadowed my own last fall when I saw girls–classmates most of whom I hadn’t seen since my high school graduation. Girls from ’77– different and yet the same.

2011 marks not only a new year. It begins a new decade. Since 2000 I’ve lost both grandmothers. Others have moved away or moved on. I look back each year to embrace the comfort of Wordsworth’s words: “We will grieve not, rather find/ Strength in what remains behind;/ In the primal sympathy / Which having been must ever be.”

In the last decade ten more senior classes graduated. My kids, pets, and I continued celebrating life with birthdays, vacations, Pokeman, American Girl, movie nights, soccer, drama, cheerleading and wrestling. I’ve seen my nieces grow up one street over, alongside my children. I became part of a salsa family that taught me to celebrate EVERY birthday–even the once-dreaded milestones. I’ve seen my sister, mother, and daughter see Italy for the first time. I’ve gone to the beach and Barcelona with friends, explored from Santa Monica to Malibu with Taylor and Cole.

New friends, new passions, new places…like Garden Brunch Cafe, Lassiz, Cantino Laredo, McNamara’s Irish Pub. And old favorites, comfort food, like clam chowder and beef stew, Radnor Lake and Mad Donna’s. A tradition, taking my sis out for her birthday, became new when Penny and I saw A Scattered, Smothered, and Covered Christmas at the new downtown dinner theater. Family and friends still here…passages as we change and move on. Welcome home from Africa, Sally, friends forever since we started Mrs. Monday’s K-5 class together. And hello friends-yet-to-be in 2011.

Once Upon a Time in Dublin in 2000…

And in Destin circa ’05 or so…

Throughout Italy…

Salsa…

And all the time in-between…

It has been a wonderful life…decade…year…

NOLA–January 2010
Court of 2 Sisters

Full Circle…I grew up near Fairview where family reunions were held at the “Jeff Davis” monument.

Home in film, The Curious Case of Benjamen Button

Sandra Bullock’s home

One school of Brad P and Angelina J’s children

Mike, our Southern gentleman and host, showed us sites after my first night of Zydeco.

High school friends of Kim at Stanley, my favorite restaurant named for the character I love/hate–especially when played by Marlon Brando.

Carnival at Lime with Em

Classic Coup featured in Her…photo by Jude Ferrara

Birthday dance …photo by Anthony Jure

Author/Director Alberto Fuguet

Teaching my seniors to salsa in the park

Taylor reading my favorite contemporary Southern novelist in Destin

Thanks to Emily and Cindy D, our resident photographers.

Fun with Nashville Writers Meetup at Southern Festival of Books

Founder of Hands on Nashville, Hal Cato, speaks at our Career Day

Senior Prank…my knight captured

…and out-on-the-town

My TA, Margarita, consoles me with random acts of kindness.

Examiner article covering Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Awards–Spanish translation

Sonja and Elle’s launch of the Superwoman benefit for battered women

Volunteers from 8 Days of Hope…two families rich in love who blessed mine

Christmas Catch-up

Christmas Catch-up

Cindy McCain

Apologies for disappearing since September…too busy living the “Rich Life” to record it. Since returning from Magic, I was more motivated than ever to grow Classic Coup…and meanwhile the mom/teacher/writer/salsera world kept spinning…

Now there’s the holidays when I really run behind…family coming to my house for dinner tonight and still grocery, cooking, gift wrapping to go. No complaints. At Christmas I catch-up on what’s most important… friends and family.

Tuesday Angela was in town and rather than talk Classic Coup, we met at Marche just for fun. Check out her pics of her first East Nashville experience–a part of town I adore. Also see her pictures of her European tour this fall, grab design ideas, pick up some recipes.

Finding an Old Love in New Venue…Italian Lights

Finding an Old Love in New Venue…Italian Lights

Cindy McCain

Last weekend was full. Saturday at lunch I caught up with Andrew, a former student who graduated almost a decade ago and wants me to read Replay by Ken Grimwood. That night I danced with friends at Jonathan and Pablo’s, the guys who invited Kim and me into the salsa world in March of 2008. Sunday night I ended the weekend with the usual suspects at Las Cazuela’s. But that was after I rekindled an old love…

In 2000 and again in 2004 I fell in lust with Italy–the food, the beauty, the romance and history of Venice, Rome, Pompeii. But when I taught English in the summer of 2005 to adults from Torino and Milan, I fell in love with people who would become life long friends. At Le Due Cascine I was taught the meaning of La Dolce Vita by Italian pals. I’ve sustained it not only in their homes on return visits but also in Italian classes and events in Nashville, often thanks to Patti Franklin Nelson of Italian for Fun. Last Sunday was such an event.

My friend April invited me to Nashville’s first Italian Lights Festival where we listened to live music, checked out the bocce court, and found jewelry that spoke to and from my heart. Apparently designer Shelbi Lavendar shares my determination to “Live, Laugh, Love…and never forget what made you smile.” And then there was a new adventure… Ernesto, former owner of the The Italian Market, insisted I enter the grape-stomping contest. I did. As I stepped into the tub I romantically remembered the wine-making scene from A Walk in the Clouds though I’ll admit fellow Examiner Kathryn Darden was closer to the truth when she wrote: “In a scene straight out of “I Love Lucy,” there was also a grape stomping competition with fresh grapes and bare feet..”

In my head…

So Long Summer…

Cindy McCain

It has been a great weekend. And a great summer. Saturday I made a video for Classic Coup and saw Buckwheat Zydeco at the Franklin Jazz Festival with friends, April, Carole (her children Emily and Ewin), Emily, and Cheryl. I danced salsa at Mad Donna’s for the first time in much too long. Sunday I celebrated Bionic Woman/Best Bud Kim’s cycling 100 miles…and wished Happy Birthday to four of my favorite virgos on Sunday…Greg, Tonya, Sherry, and Beth. Today I lunched at Taco Mamacitas with friends, including Mayuresh who after cycling 62 miles Saturday helped me plan on Labor Day Classic Coup’s new website. Cole and I watched Star Wars and Big Daddy again. Still love that Scuba Steve.

Before the new week starts, here’s the remains of the day…
Favorite stores I discovered in Vegas at the trade shows for my Christmas wish list …and memories of a final summer trip to Kansas City.

In Blissful Company

Cara Lyndon Creations

Sora Designs

Ornamental Things

Hazel

This one is for my daughter, Taylor:
Alter Ego

Kansas City was full of surprises…the Country Club Plaza might have been the biggest. Designed after Seville, Spain and built in 1922, it was the nation’s first outdoor shopping center. Lights twinkling below the balcony of Brio Tuscan Grill reminded me of warm nights in Spain or Italy. KC even had great gelato at Balsano’s and… gondolas. I had my first experience at Fogo de Chao. Amazing. The Saturday Market and Middle Eastern lunch with Angela, Matt, and Haz was fun. I loved the live music, seeing Angela’s home, and planning the next phases of Classic Coup.

Check out the quilt Angela made and the place where the Magic happens…her studio…used for not only designing tees and sewing purses but also for “the dress.” No doubt Baby Muir will be the best-dressed boy or girl in the Midwest.

Staycation Stop #5: Jaunt in Germantown

Cindy McCain


When I was a little girl, Sunday afternoons were spent visiting relatives. My grandparents, Mama Lou and Granddaddy, would pick up my sister and me in their green Ford and we’d take off—windows down–to the country where great aunts and uncles waited in Sunday best. Tired and hot from collecting eggs from the hen house, harassing hissing geese that gathered in disapproval around the pond, and chasing wild kittens we could never catch, we’d sit with the grownups in Aunt Cat’s parlor. A master storyteller, her voice would melodically rise and fall over the hum of the air conditioner. Too short to reach the pedal, Penny and I would take turns pumping and playing the Victorian organ in her cool living room, curtains drawn, lit by lamplight.

Adored as the most beautiful sister, the eldest of my grandmother’ s siblings resembled Catherine Hepburn—tall, statuesque, and confident. Gracious in a grand way. The original Lady Antebellum, she’d serve refreshments despite my grandmother’s protesting we had just eaten so she shouldn’t go to so much trouble. It was a Big Sis/Little Sis game they played because, as cousins can confirm, guests never came to my grandmother’s without Aunt Lou offering them “cream” from the “deep freeze” either. Holding tongs with pinky extended, Aunt Cat would fill glasses from the ice bucket, offering us Cokes, coconut macaroons, Fig Newtons, and shortbread cookies with chocolate icing. Classic treats made special by a silver tray.

Something about Germantown reminds me of those genteel weekends in Gracey, Kentucky. It also transports me to adult getaways in Savannah and Charleston. The gardens and architecture of the 19th century neighborhood recall what’s best about the South—Sunday afternoons, good manners, hospitality. Last week I strolled through Germantown with my friend, Sara, and her son, Trent. She bought dinner from the fish market and I introduced her to The Cupcake Collection, a place my sister had previously shown me. In fact, Penny and my niece, Emily, had just left there. She had wanted to treat her daughter, home from SCAD, to the bakery–no doubt because Emily frequents a cupcake shop in Savannah and has learned to decorate cakes from my sister, a Master Baker herself. Turned out Penny and I were simultaneously celebrating the spirit of summers spent with Aunt Cat and Mama Lou. The Cupcake Collection is gearing up to deliver, but last week I was glad I returned to the family tradition of taking time to “just visit.” To enjoy loved ones with a whole lot of sugar going on.

Sara and I caught up while noticing gingerbread latticework, entrance gardens, and courtyard fountains. Years before she became a wife and mom we walked and talked around Rome, stopping for a gelato rather than a cupcake beside Trevi Fountain. With much behind us and more to come, it was nice to staycation in Germantown and remember the best times at home or abroad are sharing simple pleasures with special people.















Happy 2010

Cindy McCain

So it’s January 2nd and I’m already a day late. But not really.

I’ve vowed  to write more regularly on this first blog in the coming year.  I plan to continue writing freelance pieces, articles as the Latin Dancing Examiner, blogs as owner of  Classic Coup all while grading essays, dancing salsa, and being a fulltime mom.   I may even paint again and try tango.  But perhaps these are more good intentions than resolutions… considering I’ve already blown writing a post on New Year’s Day.

Instead,  craving Indian food, I shut my MacBook yesterday and met four friends at Sitar.   During the workweek, we can never get together for lunch. Teachers don’t get grown up lunches off campus and even if I did, we’re spread out between a Brentwood health care company, Vanderbilt, The Tennessean, and, well, Holland.   We needed to celebrate Kim’s new job and welcome Patrick back for another visit to the States.  And so it goes…By the time I returned home, my teens were finally awake.  Rather than sticking to my plan to begin 2010 blogging and starting Crush It! (recommended by a friend to draft my game plan for Classic Coup this year), I watched a movie with my son instead.  Time for bed and still no blog post looking back on ’09 or looking forward to ’10.

But then I realized…  yesterday was a living example of what I’d say in a January 1 post anyway.

It was spent exactly how I’ve tried to live my life the past few years and especially since I started this blog in January ’09 with the post My Cup Runneth Over.  Though a cliche, I really want my priority to stay “People before things”–including my laptop.  I’ve vowed to enjoy the moment rather than missing it looking too long at the past or future.  I appreciate the last year that brought three of the four friends at table yesterday into my life.   I know a year from now we may not all be in Nashville.  Who knows what the new year will bring, but starting the rest of my life over some chicken tiki marsala with good friends felt right.

So today… the second day of the new year,  I will look back in some sadness,  much joy, and all gratitude for the surprises of 2009.  There were the big events: my grandmother’s birthday last August (though when she died the next day we realized she had held on to see her family gathered for one more celebration);  for a cookout at Heather’s, a road trip, and a  party at Mad D’s for my much dreaded but greatly enjoyed milestone birthday; for seeing Monico and eating in Montmarte with my mom; for an afternoon in Venice with my old friend, Giorgio, who took the time to travel from Milan;  for the ride up the coast to Malibu in a convertible  with Taylor and Cole and watching fireworks with them at Marina del Ray; for falling in love with Gaudi on a trip to Barcelona with Kim and Patty; for starting Classic Coup with Angela;  for friends met through salsa and especially the deeper relationships that have extended beyond the dance floor; for spending a last Christmas with our Annie.

And there were other great moments, the ones that don’t revolve around holidays, birthdays, or vacations.   The ones I too often take for granted:  laughing at dance lessons with Michael, James, and Kim followed by Las Cazuela’s and Los Arcos; a new movie to add to Life is Beautiful and  Chocolat as my favorite movies of all time; interviews for Examiner where acquaintances became friends (like when Sheyla talked of Cuba over an impromptu dinner Kenny cooked for us and served  in the backyard as the sun set) and where friends, like Dann, told me more of their story; calls “just checking” on the kids and me; a kitty my children fostered; Shakespeare in the park with my children, my sister’s family, and Sara, Greg and Trent;  calls from Angela to discuss designs for the next shirt;  discussions with Sherry and Darin on how Classic Coup can support the children of   Quito, Ecuador.   Attending the reunion of one of my favorite graduating classes ever and the daily antics of Nick and Trey, two students I’ll never forget,  who said I looked like Angela on The Office and made sure everyone noticed.  Discovering churros and chocolate in Barcelona and making fresh tortellini and gnocchi in an Italian cooking class.  Seeing my oldest friend (dating back to kindergarten) marry off her oldest daughter…then the wedding party dance out of the church to “Forever.”  Watching every episode of The Office with family.  Hearing from SO many over the death of Annie.  Being convinced to join friends on New Year’s Eve.

I look forward to 2010 with specific hopes and dreams but know that what is IS enough.  I thank God for an abundant life.

Nashville Latin Dancing Examiner: Salsa bash by Funtopia…passion lives here

Cindy McCain

NOTE:  Updated January 2017.  From 2009-2014 I wrote  for Examiner.com as the Nashville Latin Dancing Examiner and published some of the links on this blog.   Summer 2016 Examiner.com closed and many reporters lost their online content (including  me who had published 50+ pieces).  Sadly interviews with many amazing people vanished.   This article written about two special people was salvaged from the Funtopia website.  Thanks again, guys!  I credit these two with introducing me to Latin dance which led to my meeting new friends in Nashville and abroad from around the globe.

Funtopia was my passion passport and I am forever grateful.  You can still read their story… Profile of Passion… linked here.

Girls’ Night In–Happy Valentine’s Day!

Cindy McCain

let-em-eat1

My Hopeful Romantic Valentine’s Eve Party theme was “Celebrating the Many While Waiting for the One.”  I wanted to honor the women in my life with a Girls’ Night In. How and why I started these parties to survive…even thrive on V-Day is here and here.

Keep the menu simple: “Let ’em Eat Cupcakes.”  Cupcakes stacked on crystal cake plates makes an elegant centerpiece.  (I propped a picture from Marie Antionette against the base.) Last year my sister, Penny, made cupcakes for my party.  Her cakes are perfection, and if she ever opened a bakery, Gigi (of Nashville’s Gigi’s Cupcakes) would have some competition.  A black fitted sheet makes a great tablecloth, especially with a pink and red ribbon as a runner.  I used  mirrored squares as serving trays (You can buy six in a box at Lowe’s or Home Depot for about $20).

If you are serving more than cupcakes, easy suggestions would be  chocolate truffles (boxed), stuffed mushrooms (caps filled with cream cheese, onion, garlic, and fried bacon–broiled a few minutes), chocolate fondue with fruit, pecans (boiled, then tossed/coated in confectionery sugar, deep fried in peanut oil, and sprinkled with paprika), and artichoke/spinach dip with corn tortilla chips or simply  cheeses with crackers.

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table

To get to know each other better,  have guests draw slips of paper with the following questions.  The person has to answer the question and then choose someone else to answer it. (Or have guests write a question they want answered when they arrive and draw from those.)

Suggestions for Girl Talk:

What was your most romantic date ever?

What guy from your past would you most like to run into?

What was your worst date ever?

If you had a time machine, what day would you revisit and why?

If you’re married, how did you meet your spouse?

What did you first notice about your guy?

What’s your  movie scene?

What’s the best book you’ve ever read?

Who is your favorite male singer/actor?

What’s your love language–words, touch, gifts, service, quality time?

If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?

What’s something none of us know about you?

My movie pick to watch or have muted in the background…Chocolat.  The only guy allowed is Johnny D.