ANANAS

There was the picture of an apple cake on Facebook this morning with a very easy recipe.  I copied it and shared it.  A friend commented "Arpie, you can make this for me.  Thank you."  I wished him Happy Birthday which, coincidentally, was today.

I have not baked too many cakes in my life having had a penchant for the easier to make muffins, but this apple cake seemed also very easy to make.  It looked delicious, moist and crunchy.  It reminded me of the first cake I ever baked.  Upside down pineapple cake for a sweet 16 birthday celebration.  

I was 18 and had never baked anything like a cake.  Mom did all that.  I took the challenge and hollered from my balcony to Zepure's some 200 feet away where she lived with her family on the top floor "ZEPUUUUUUUUURRRE!"  She showed up and I hollered "DO YOU HAVE A RECIPE FOR AN UPSIDE DOWN PINEAPPLE CAKE?"  She hollered back "NOOOO, BUT DALITA HAS."  "WHERE DOES SHE LIVE?"  "IN THE BUILDING NEXT TO THE DENTIST'S, THIRD FLOOR."

I went, found Dalita, brought the recipe home, baked the cake and took it to the party.  It was a hit.

Now that we can find all kinds of recipes on the internet I meant to look for it all day today but each time I remembered something more urgent had to be done first.  Then I forgot.

This evening, I went to the grocery store to get a few items and the first thing I saw upon entering through the doors was a row of upside down pineapple cakes.

Of course I got one.  When the cashier told me that they had sold quite a few of them today, I told her this whole story without mentioning the hollering from one balcony to the other part.  It was shorter.

Thank you for your attention.

The City of Melancholy (Spoiler: Happy Ending)

There is no question about it.  I have emotions.  I have had them for a long time.  Among the array of emotions there is one that used to get hold of me every Sunday afternoon and into the evening.

Melancholy.  It is an amalgam of feelings and a disease. 

Among the inspirations one finds outside of themselves to ease, albeit temporarily, the state of melancholy, are books, movies, art, writing letters to far away places, being of help to others but on top of my list was music.  Whether to listen to, to dance to or to sing.

Enter Anne Sylvestre. She holds my hand.  She speaks to me.  She makes me discover a world hetherto unknown to little me in Beirut.  A friend had sang a few lines from one of Anne's songs and I was hooked.  

The first record I ever bought with my first paycheck was hers.  It was an odd size between a 33 rpm and a 45 rpm.  I was 17 years old then and I still have the cover.

From New Jersey, ten years ago exactly today, I took the train to Montreal to see and listen to her live the following day, for the first time in my life.  I had the cover of that album with me to show my dedication and perseverance to this great singer-songwriter if I ever got that chance.

There she was, on stage, singing the songs I knew and some I didn't what with living outside of an area where I would have heard them for sure.  The internet helped me find her again.  

At the end of the concert, it was announced that she will be glad to meet all who want to meet her at the exit area of the venue.

We rush to that area and have to wait because there is a lot of people who want to meet her.

Others, like me waiting for the madness of adoration to settle down in order to approach her, are hanging out and seeing the cover in my hand are interested to find out where I got it.  "In Beirut" I was happy to explain.  "I bought it with my first paycheck" I was happy to add.  Did I say happy? I was very proud of myself, yes, but there was this feeling of I am going to cry, oh God, don't make me, please, please! I need to be happy here.  I am meeting Anne in person.

I couldn't help but cry when she gracefully asked for my name to write something on the cover.  I couldn't talk, I couldn't smile.  I was catapulted to that 17 year old me state in Beirut.  She wrote on the cover, I thanked her and returned to New Jersey the following day.  I was devastated by my outburst and total paralysis during our meeting although she was absolutely charming, understanding and accommodating.

A couple of years later, her new CD came out entitled "Bye Melanco"...

  

I have come a long way since 17 but if it happens that I get in that state of melancholy I remember the first song on the album that speaks about morose Sundays and holding back tears when growing up, it then closes the curtain on them so they won't echo...reopens the curtain to a sky full of birds and I am instantly demelancholized.

Anne Sylvestre still sings to packed audiences in France and Quebec and in June she celebrated her 80th birthday, on stage, with her peers. That, my friends, is inspiration.

Merci Anne. Un grand merci.