https://open.spotify.com/track/6vNBcj4mZh5eFx40SkdCiC - This track tells it all; for the most part but I apologize if you have to login to hear it I apologize. Produced by DG. for Isabella Marie Simon on our 1st anniversary, Valentine's Day. 2025 it's technically Feb. 13th (2024) since I accidentally made the reservation for the Friday before, and so many places in Columbus were booked-up (Sycamore, Plas, Basi, Rossi, Speck, Marcella's, The Pearl, Barcelona, allove our favorite haunts and hideaways, The Duck and The Dimepiece AKA Ginger Rabbit Jazz Club, in Short-North Victorian Village, Goodale Park), we got to celebrate both nights and have dual-dinners, a duet: and we still do so, monthly as we still make time to celebrate our anniversary, every 4 weeks, 12-24 times a year...

I like to say that Isabella and I were Romeo & Juliet in a past life, when people ask us how we met I get insecure, or is it self-conscious? Afterall it sounds a whole helluva lot more romantic than, we were friends on the original (social media) online dating platform: Facebook? She worked with my cousin Jimmy in a restaurant across from Mr. Anthony's, after she moved home from college (Ohio State, 2014), but was not quite "single and ready to mingle" for about 8/9 years later, almost a decade; but who is counting? Sidenote: if she mentions or anyone care to know our age difference, it is 7.5 years, not quite eight. I was born in June of 1984 making me an elder-millennial and Bella was born in January, 1992 I was in 2nd grade, preparing for my First Communion at St. Anthony(s), of Padua. in Brier Hill with the Oblate Sisters (nuns).

I was an innocent little boy, a child who was chosen to crown Mary, that May. By the time Isabella was 10, plaing soccer for the Maronite Youth Club Team and cushing on Adam Levine (good-taste) I was living in Brazil before graduating and moving to Cleveland (State). When she was in college, I sent her a t-shirt promoting Peace in the Middle-East and Midwest a brand I called "Dove Life," made in Saint Louis, with style (stl-style.com). Back then, I was under the impression that she was a Conflict Resolution major, not exactly criminal law (prosecution). Nevertheless...

I knew her father, from the Upstairs Mediterranean restaurant through my Godfathers' half-Lebanese family, and his work all around town but especially in places like The Golden Dawn because Ray Simon is a Northside icon and Youngstown celebrity artist. I also knew him in the mid-late 2000s when he and I both worked downtown, me for the City Planning Dept. (2010), and Ray's studio being in the old Pharmore center, Federal Place. While our humble beginnings on Helena, Flora, Carlotta, Columbus, Lisbon, Warren and now Madera might not be the most storybook start we hope our ending with triumph over our inception.