My Fading Agenda
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Fortunately this May 2015 I don’t need an appointment book,
a diary or an agenda. And the reason for this has nothing to do with the fact
that my now old-fashioned 3G iPhone might help to organize me.
The little organization in my life depends on my memory and
a Royal Bank calendar that is held to our brand new Frigidaire,the cheapest we could find at
the Brick just a couple of days ago. The calendar on which Rosemary writes down
our medical appointments (we are old) or our theatre outings (many) is held by
two of the most powerful little magnets (rare earth they are) money can buy at Lee
Valley Tools.
My last hard copy diary was a cheap (fake Italian leather that I bought in 2009 at Sears, the Robson and Granville store. Since then I have done without.
Every time I open the Italian job and go to the phone
numbers at the end I am faced by friends and contacts that have died, moved on
or gone bankrupt. But I still make the motions of opening the diary. It is
comforting.
In the 80s I had Letts Diaries. I liked the full pages at
the end for telephone numbers and the full page per day for my illegible scribblings.
Sometime at the end of the 90s Letts eliminated the full
page telephone number pages. I switched to the more expensive (beautifully made
with real leather covers. These were made by Graphic Image in Melville, New
York. The only place I could find these were in a store in Seattle. Then in the
later part of the 2000s I found out that Holt Renfrew sold them and if I bought
them early they would put my initials on the cover at no charge.
I am reluctant to throw away my Graphic Image diaries (I
have long since done away with the Letts.) but I know it is inevitable as I
prepare to lighten my many possessions load.
I still use the Italian job and I always smile at the
book mark I used even though the diary came with a black ribbon. The book mark
is still there.
Addendum:
A diary in Spanish is bitácora. It comes from the French
bitacle or habitacle which was a sort of cabinet where a marine compass was
stored in a ship. In Spanish it is the case next to the wheel where the compass
is stored to be viewed. A captain's log is a bitácora.
But in reference to this blog (web log) about diaries I must
note that the proper (but seldom used) word for a blog in Spanish is that
lovely bitácora. With globalization and the universal importance of English a
blog in Spanish is “un blog”. To properly say in Spanish “click here” you would çommand “presione aquí”.
But Spanish speaking people opt for what they call a galicismo which is “cliquee
aquí”. And, of course, while página red ( a page net) is the correct term if I am to make myself understood to those friends of mine who only speak Spanish I must say, "La web," or "página web."
