Bits and Pieces in my Life
Saturday, November 01, 2025
Frequently
here I harp how our ability to associate disparate things is what makes us
human. Since my Rosemary died on December 9 2020, just about everything I look
at, listen to, smell or remember, connects me immediately with her.
In the
mailbox today was this unusually nice catalogue called Bits and Pieces. We have
been getting it in the mail for many years. Rosemary and I would go over it and
look for Christmas gifts for our daughters and granddaughters. I would
particularly look for a Christmas-themed jigsaw puzzle as we all love to put
them together during that season.
The Bits and
Pieces immediately linkked to my past when my mother, father and I would
put together our English castle “rompecabezas”.
There is a
deep melancholy in me today as I think that all those moments will never
return.
Halloween at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Thursday, October 30, 2025
Pay-Wall Free Article on Halloween from the NY Times
Yarilo concert at Orpheum Annex 31 October
This 83-year old has been
learns stuff every day because of a long gone friend, Mark Budgen. Over 28
years ago I used to buy the NYTimes every once in a while at a store on
Granville and Broadway. Budgen told me, “You know you can subscribe to it and
that the Globe and Mail will deliver it to your door?”
That began and adventure
into learning that I shared with my Rosemary with breakfast in bed until she
died five years ago. Now I have an almost lonely breakfast in bed (not quite
lonely as I have the company of my cats Niño and Niña).
While my yearly
subscription is somewhere near $1700, there is one singular prize to being
daily subscribed. Every month I am able to send up to 10 gift pay-wall free
links. Unfortunately I cannot put these links into social media but I can
email, WhatsApp and Messenger them. One link in one email I can send to as many
people I want.
Today’s NYTimes had a
lovely two-page on a Halloween themed show at the Metropolitan. As I looked at
the illustrations, my idea of what Halloween means to me ran through my mind.
Most involve noisy door knocks which always made me go crazy. Luckily my
patient Rosemary was always the one who opened the door and handed out the
candy.
Because Rosemary and I
lived in Mexico City between 1967 to 1975, my memories of El Día de los Muertos
are much more pleasant. I miss the pan de muertos that were sold in all
bakeries. For years I tried (successfully) to take photographs of my two
granddaughters in gruesome death situations with that Mexican theme.
This Halloween I have
decided to not be home. I am attending a Yarilo concert at the Orpheum Annex.
A Petal that Love Waits
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
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| Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' 20 October 2025 |
Alex, I stumbled across
this Williams Caarlos Williams quotation and thought of you, your garden and
the role it played in your relationship with Rosemary: "It's
at the edge of a petal that love waits". I'm not at all convinced I know
exactly what he was getting at, but I like it.
Yesterday I receive and
email by my good friend Dominic Schaeffer. Today at the Sylvia Hotel we met
with other 23 artists, writers, photographers, etc and I explained what the
Williams quotation would mean to me.
Since the death of my
Rosemary now, almost 5 years ago for a while the Kitsilano garden was our
garden. Little by little I have slowly given that concept up and the garden is
my garden.
There is a problem here
which is melancholic and that it that my garden has many of her plants. Some I
don’t know how to prune, etc.
Because she was
Rosamaría/Rosemary and in 1991 she pressured me to go to a meeting of the
Vancouver Rose Society I eventually became a rose enthusiast just like her. Her
roses may be my roses now, but when I look at her roses her face is on them.
This morning wanted to
show my Portland guest, Curtis Daily how my back lane garden English Rose, Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’ seems to be ignoring the coming
winter and it has a few solitary blooms and buds that I know will never open. I
showed Curtis the one that was open with a bud next to it. It was high on the
bush so I used my secateurs and cut below on a branch. It fell to the ground
and many of the petals fell out. I told Curtis that I was going to scan it as
it was and there would be beauty in it.
A rose before it opens,
that bud, that opening rose, that rose that begins to fade and lose it petals,
they are all the essence that a rose is. I like to think that the edge,
translated to borde (border in
English) represents that transition from my very much alive Rosemary, which
would be that open rose. As the rose deteriorates just like my Rosemary became
very sick, that rose edge was that moment when it was on the rose. When it fell
on the ground, the petals became my now gone Rosemary at the moment of her
death.
The lovely rose scan now
is that Rosemary before those 6 minutes before she died.
Lovely she was even then.
And Orange Marmelade
Tuesday, October 28, 2025
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| Hosta 'Forbidden Fruit' - 28 October 2025 |
Today I had to scan some more of the beautiful leaves of
my Hosta ‘Forbidden Fruit’. I am aware that the bible is not precise on what
fruit Adam and Eve was forbidden to eat. This year the best hosta in my garden
is my newish Forbidden Fruit. I had to scan it. Emily Dickinson always saves me
as she manages to write poems that I can connect to my plant scans or
photographs
I looked to find out who had introduced this hosta. What I found is funny as it involves another hosta with a fruit name.
Hosta 'Forbidden Fruit'
was introduced by Marco and Joyce Fransen of Fransen Hostas in the Netherlands.
The plant was discovered as an induced mutation of the Hosta 'Orange Marmalade
Sic transit Gloria mundi – Emily Dickinson
Sic transit gloria mundi,
How doth the busy bee —
Dum
vivimus vivamus,
I stay
mine enemy.
Oh,
veni, vidi, vici,
Oh, caput, cap-a-pie,
And oh, memento mori
When I am far from thee.
Hurrah for Peter Parley,
Hurrah for Daniel Boone,
Three cheers, sir, for the gentlemen
Who first observed the moon.
Peter put up the sunshine,
Patti arrange the stars,
Tell Luna tea is waiting,
And call your brother Mars.
Put down the apple, Adam,
And come away with me ;
So shall thou have a pippin
From off my father's tree.
I climb the hill of science
I 'view the landscape o'er,'
Such transcendental prospect
I ne'er beheld before.
Unto the Legislature
My country bids me go.
I 'll take my india-rubbers,
In case the wind should blow.
During my education,
It was announced to me
That gravitation, stumbling,
Fell from an apple-tree.
The earth upon its axis
Was once supposed to turn,
By way of a gymnastic
In honor to the sun.
It was the brave Columbus,
A-sailing on the tide,
Who notified the nations
Of where I would reside.
Mortality is fatal,
Gentility is fine,
Rascality heroic,
Insolvency sublime.
Our fathers being weary
Lay down on Bunker Hill,
And though full many a morning,
Yet they are sleeping still.
The trumpet, sir, shall wake them,
In dream I see them rise,
Each with a solemn musket
A-marching to the skies.
A coward will remain, sir,
Until the fight is done,
But an immortal hero
Will take his hat and run.
Good-by, sir, I am going —
My country calleth me.
Allow me, sir, at parting
To wipe my weeping e'e.
In token of our friendship
Accept this Bonnie Doon,
And when the hand that plucked it
Has passed beyond the moon,
The memory of my ashes
Will consolation be.
Then farewell, Tuscarora,
And farewell, sir, to thee.