16 May 2026

When possible even when I feel lazy I go out in my bike (it has only 3 speeds) and go to Jericho Beach. There is a park on Point Grey Road where I stop to take a photograph with my Fuji X-E3. When I did so this day I had two thoughts. The first one is that somehow by underexposing my shot one stop the sky looks like it has been polarized by having a polarizing filter. I used to use these filters a lot with film but never with a digital camera.

That other thought is, of course, of my Rosemary who brought us from Mexico City in 1975. In a few years, thanks to her forward vision I became an established photographer and by the 90s I was emulating my journalist father.

The view of our skyline is far enough that one could almost (not quite) believe it was that friendly 1975 Vancouver. 

 

Easter - Burnaby 1977

 Julian Barnes - Death & the Lemon Table

I have something of those Canadian Monarch Butterflies and birds that fly south. They guide themselves by locations on the way in their memory. Like those butterflies and birds wherever I drive in Vancouver I remember, “I went with Rosemary here.” It is an inescapable thought somehow connected to the Julian Barnes concept of IAM which stands for Involuntary Autobiographical Memory. These memories will not stop.

What that means is that I am constantly thanking Rosemary for her vision and I do not take for granted that I live in a pretty stable part of the world.

I look at the photograph I took of my family in our home in Burnaby at Easter 1977 and I almost smile. It is a moment that will never come back although Jorge Luís Borges had something to say about first times. He said that those exact first times are repeated in our memory ad infinitum. I can only add that few of us (or at least this guy) never did think when I was taking such photographs that I would be looking back at that moment. We anticipate a future of activities but never the future of looking back at a past. 

Niña 16 May 2026

Today Saturday I scanned some roses to distract myself in thinking of the loss of my male cat Niño on May 12^th.

My friends and family keep telling me that I still have his twin sister, Niña. Since Niño’s death what have I noticed about her?

She is now inseparable from me. She wants to be on top of me all the time. She is eating well but not too keen about going out to the deck to sun herself. I believe that her attachment to me is that she no longer has any competition.

Because cats have personality I wonder why we do not consider them to be persons. I am sure that Niña understands and knows that Niño is gone. She is with me in some sort of grief sharing.

Earlier this morning, when I was scanning some of my roses, she wanted to get up on a chair near me the way Niño often did. This she did and I was almost at peace.

Suddenly she stares at me, bright-eyed almost like Niño did. I am sure she knows.

Hypars, Leibniz, Newton, Arthur Erickson and Félix Candela

Infinity, An Insipid Equivalent of the Unfinished - Borges

An asymptote is a line or curve that a mathematical function's graph approaches infinitely closely, but never actually reaches or touches. As the coordinates on the graph extend towards infinity, the distance between the curve and the asymptote shrinks to zero. Wikipedia

In 1962 a professor called Chicurel (alas I cannot remember his first name) taught me at Mexico City College the quantum theory and the calculus. The latter has in many ways defined my life.

Just before architect Arthur Erickson died he had dementia. At a function he sat alone as nobody wanted to talk to him. I went up to him and told him that our mutual friend Sean Rossiter had mentioned to me that he (Erickson) had been influenced by Mexican/Spanish architect Félix Candela. I will never forget that for an hour we conversed on hyperbolic paraboloids and the calculus.

Now with so much death in my life of family (and my Rosemary) friends and on May 12 the death of my male cat Niño I have been giving it all some thought while feeling a deep melancholy.

Right after Niño died I threw away his medicines, but kept his eating dish and the brush I used on him every evening. Niña has been smelling the spot where he lay and died in the morning of the 12^th. Does she know? Does she remember?

When I used to walk with Niño around the block(no leash) as my Rosemary taught me I came up with the concept of “absent presence”. Without having to believe in ghosts I could sense her walking with Niño. Now when I walk in that back alley will I sense the presence of the two?

The calculus pretty well tells us that nothing ends completely until it hits infinity. Note the concept here of the asymptote curve that hits either the X or Y axis only at infinity.

In this scan of Niño’s brush and dish with a photograph I took of him two days before he died I see a graphic memory of Niño’s persistence in my memory. The other image is of a little spot on the bathroom floor. In the last weeks before he died he could not climb over to his litter box so he began to poop on the floor. I would clean it instantly as it was very difficult to remove once it had dried. Somehow I missed this spot.

Niño is dead, and wherever I go in my house I can imagine him staring at me with those intelligent eyes or begging me to feed him. Something of him including his hair on the brush persists which makes my memory of him that much more substantial.

"The straw that broke the camel's back" originates from an old, likely Arabic, proverb regarding the cumulative effect of overloading a camel until a final, tiny weight causes it to collapse. Wikipedia

I never give my views on politics or religion to anybody. If I were to go to that country down south I would not have any problems with admission as they would not be able to find anything damning in my phone that would make them send me back to Canada.

Today I will waver just a tad. Some years ago I went with my 8-year old granddaughter Rebecca to Texas. At the airport we were picked up by my Austin, Texas former-school-friend Howard Houston. On our way to his home he promised a surprise for Rebecca. We were unable to guess. The surprise was a large property that had a camel and a burro.

As stuff happens these days that defines any kind of logic I keep thinking that the followers of George Washington live in a country with an extremely sturdy camel. When will the camel shout “Enough!” and collapse?

As they say down there, "I dunno.”

Bottom left - Rosa 'Westerland' - Right-  Rosa 'Meikaquinz' and top - Rosa 'Dr.Huey' 14 May 2026

 The Death of a Friend & Companion

When my cat Niño died on the morning of the 12^th, I was in shock and awfully sad. I wrote about it and it sort of ameliorated my grief.  His sister, not having any competition for my attention, has been very cuddly with me.

But today that shock became a terrible emptiness in which I see Niño looking at me with those stable eyes and I think, “Why did you leave me?” At the same time I understand he went on a very long walkabout the evening of the 11^th and I kept going around the block calling his name. I wonder if he just wanted to go and die somewhere. But he did come back and provided me with comfort on our bed to the last.

I have been removing black spot leaves from my roses and fiddling around trying to keep busy. Invariably whatever I do makes me remember the absent presence of the love of my life that was my Rosemary.

I saw these two very large (over 5 inches wide) roses, Rosa ‘Westerland’ and a rose that Rosemary never got to see Rosa 'Meikaquinz'. The third rose, not as large is the root stock rose Rosa ‘Dr. Huey’ that rosemary salvaged from our old Kerrisdale garden lane.

The orange Westerland, which I say smells like synthetic apricot jam, was the rose that finally made Rosemary appreciate a colour she hated which was orange. She would have been ambivalent of the pale yellow and odd-named Rosa 'Meikaquinz'.

Scanning my roses in my oficina brings me some peace. But a few days ago on the 10^th and 11Niño was on a high chair next to me as I worked with my computer. He liked to give me company. Only once did he walk on my keyboard and took me hours to get everything back the way it was.

Niño I miss you. You are here in the garden as an absent presence with that of my Rosemary’s.