Rosemary and her cat Casi-Casi

This blog is 6998. I am already thinking what I will write for the700th.

Because I was in the Argentine Navy as a conscript I like to use nautical terms when I think or talk. There is a fine one in Spanish - a la deriva which translates most disappointingly in English as drifting. The original meaning of l a la deriva – in Spanish is about a ship without a working rudder or with a broken engine. In my Spanish it also has a most important meaning of a person, institution or nation that is drifting without purpose in a confusing state of mind.

At my soon to be 86 I am at –la deriva. I have a sort of easy daily routine that involves feeding my cat Niña, riding my bike, scanning my plants, taking photographs and writing these blogs.

The Spanish language has been bombarded by anglicismos – blog, internet, googliar, whatsappiar,etc.

I like to point out that we have a lovely word for blog in Spanish. It is – bitácora – which means a ship’s log. It is a finer sounding word than the noun but also verb blog.

I started this blog when I had my webpage (alexwaterhousehayward.com) designed in January 2006. I have no recollection who suggested I add a blog to it. I had no idea what a blog was. It took me a few years to figure out it was almost a – Dear Diary.

One aspect of my blog that I did not count on, as I was ignorant, is that my blog is Blogger and Blogger is Google. Because of my many blogs my internet presence is very large and I get requests (good money) for use of my photographs in magazines, newspapers, etc.

Because my memory is fading, if I want to find out in what year I went with Rosemary to Venice or photographed some famous (or not famous) person, I just go to my blog search engine or Google.

While I am rudderless with most of my creative and shared life with my Rosemary, writing this blog somehow ameliorates my confused (Rosemary purposely pronounced that con-few-zed) melancholy.

These three framed photographs of my Rosemary are on my dining room credenza. At least in one of them Rosemary has a nice smile without those sad eyes that were her trademark.