I will not deny that since I was 14 or 15 in Mexico City I would buy whatever magazines featured Brigitte Bardot and in particular those quite lame publications that showed only cleavage. When my mother started working for the school for the children of the engineers of American Smelting and Refining in Nueva Rosita, Coahuila we lived in the American Hotel. The hotel had a reading room with American publications.

One of the engineers, Juan Jaime, was subscribed to Esquire, True and Argosy and he would leave his magazines there when he was finished reading them. In those years Esquire was quite racy so I savoured a bit more than just cleavage.

In my years of admiring cleavage and breasts (nobody would  wag the finger at you negatively for that preference in the past 20^th century) I have never understood in particular our masculine obsession for a concavity that is really just empty space between two small, medium or large masses.

Strangly Spanish has no exact equivalent word for cleavage. Escote (the word in question) defines how a woman wears her dress be it low cut or high. A dress that is escotado is a low-cut dress.

But being Argentine has not diminished my fascination with women wearing a low escote. In my 20s I compared notes with my fellow sailors in the Argentine Navy and we discovered that men were more often gentlemen (giving their seats to women in buses) in the summer as they could then look down on them once they had gracefully ceded their seats.

I am 77 and when possible I keep my fascination in transit using such excuses as convincing women I know to pose while holding a rose or other plant from my garden on their chest.

But some women are either uncomfortable with the fact that their breasts may be too small (my snobbish preference) or two big.

I know of one particular modern dancer plagued with large breasts. She hired a most capable dressmaker to design dance costumes that kept everything in check.

From an early age I remember my mother telling me that when she had me, she was plagued with an oversupply of milk and at the hospital where I was born they used some sort of pump so she could share her milk with other babies whose mothers were not so lucky in the lactic sector.

Not too long ago I convinced a friend to pose for me holding one of my garden roses up close. She had told me that she was not comfortable with her chest since sometime in her middle 20s they grew and grew.

I am happy to report here that I was able to both please her and myself with the collaborative effort.

My sister-in-law Ruth Brooks is in town for week’s visit. She came by train from Brockville, Ontario. The visit of a relative always provides us with the excuse of a family dinner. This time it was at our younger daughter’s house in Burnaby. It was a splendid occasion to celebrate 3 mothers' day.

I packed a portable lighting system in the trunk hoping to lure my two granddaughters, Lauren, 16, and Rebecca, 21 to pose after a group family photograph. I crossed my fingers and in the end the two did pose for me.

These family gatherings, as small as they may be bring me memories of gatherings in Buenos Aires with that ancillary branch of my father’s, the O’Reilys. There are lots of them and Rosemary and I are made welcome.

The two of us and our two cats in Kitsilano can be isolating sometimes.

Our Burnaby dinner was just right and driving home I felt glad that the granddaughters did consent to a few pictures.

Rosa 'James Mason' May 11 2019

You find a beautiful and rare rose at a nursery. You pay for it and put it into your car. For me it is almost guaranteed that damage will happen in the car trunk or in the back seat. A carefully grown and tended rose suffers on its way home.

We are preparing our little deck garden (and laneway garden) for a Vancouver Rose Society open garden on June 8. In these preparations of snipping black spot leaves or moving one of our plants from here to there, there are little accidents.

One such accident happened when I tried to tie back a very large modern Gallica, Rosa ‘James Mason’. It was falling over onto the deck from its narrow flower bed. A bud broke off and I was about to throw it away when I noticed (something that I do know about) how handsome and elegant the unopened bud is.

We have been in Vancouver now a couple of months since we returned from our trip to Italy.

I have since experienced  malaise/weltschmerz/ennui/ with a generous touch of melancholy with a desire to do nothing and stare at the ceiling or at our two cats Niño and Niña.

My sister-in-law Ruth is arriving tomorrow via train from Ontario. Rosemary and I have been busy with a double spring cleaning in preparation for her one week stay.

In the middle of this pleasantly gentle turmoil, I have found comfort in the “I-am-here” stability of an Ikea solar lamp. Every evening it is a beacon in our garden that makes me smile. And consider that I spent $9. The other calming factor is Niño.

I am sure he would make an excellent hospital cat. I look at him and my stress dissipates. Both he and Niña must have never been faced with turmoil, fear or aggression. They don’t scratch, except the leather sofa that is now protected by a Hudson’s Bay wool blanket. They just stare.

They are not mal ojo but buen ojo. Could they be in cahoots with my Ikea lamp?