A Haircut

It's been over a year. I couldn't take it anymore. So I called the hair salon I used when I last went - March 2020. I took pictures.

The barber was not the one I used last. I had a young man of about 22. This time I had a woman about 45. I explained to her how I wanted it cut. She did her best.

She cut it a little shorter than I wanted, but to tell the truth, it feels good not to have all that hair. And some of it will grow back.

And we all had masks.

A Reading Challenge

It's almost the end of the month and there will be nine reading months left in the year. Trying to decide on what classics to read has been a chore for some time. So I have decided to make it a little easier. I am going to choose 10 authors I have either not read or if I have read them it has been so long I can't remember what I read of them.

Why ten authors, not nine, so each could have their own month? Because that would be too easy. This is more of a challenge. I have a couple more limitations/rules, but first, here are the authors in no particular order:

1. Jane Austen
2. George Orwell
3. Anthony Trollope
4. Sherwin Anderson
5. George Elliot
6. Charles Dickens
7. J.R.R. Tolkien
8. Thomas Hardy
9. Aldous Huxley
10. (TBA later)

Looking at the list I see that male authors greatly outnumber female writers. Even if I chose a woman writer as my tenth choice, it won't make much of a difference. So be it.

Any other rules or limitations on the title selections? I don't think so at this time, but that may change.

How will I update the list? I will enter an update in a future blog post and include the label "Reading Challenge" with any others for that post. 

Reading and Re-Reading

 This was a weekend of re-reads. I re-read The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan and A Pale Horse by Charles Todd. I read the Buchan mystery again principally because I have saved a film by that name on the TV and it sounds nothing like the story as I remember it. The film said it was about a man and woman fleeing while handcuffed together. And oh, by the way, they hate each other.

See any woman on the cover? No, just a man running towards an automobile. And this correctly sums up much of the story. The only women I remember were a wife and a housekeeper who briefly play a good samaritan role in helping our hero get some water, food, and clean clothes. That's it. Everyone else is a man: police, spies, bad guys, and some ordinary folk. Fly fisherman, road worker, milkman, train passengers, and others. 

The other book is the tenth episode of my favorite mystery series of all. Written by mother-son writing under the name CharlesTodd, the series is about a Scotland Yard inspector, Ian Rutledge, who suffers from shell-shock effects of WW1. The time period is after the war, with the first book taking place in June 1919. Each book after the first one takes place a few weeks or a month or so afterward. This one is June 1920.

I won't give the plot away, but it is typical of the series. Peppered with many towns and villages, and peopled with many, many characters, it is not uncommon for me to write names down so I can remember them.

There are currently 23 in the series, published annually in February, the most recent coming out last month on schedule. I should warn you: read them in order! Some series might give you some slack in not reading in order, but this one won't.

A word about re-reading books versus reading new books. Most of my re-reading is fiction. In fact, while I was typing the previous sentence, I was trying to think of a nonfiction book I have read more than once. Not counting The Bible, I can only think of a couple of fly fishing memoirs. I'm sure there are others, but now pop into mind right now.

So why do I re-read? I guess because it is a lot like visiting an old friend: it is comforting. And probably a little safe. I know I will enjoy the book and won't be wasting my time. I hate reading a book, getting about 50 pages in, and then deciding I don't like it. Often it takes me two or three times before I actually can get through a book. It has to be the right time. And then, I will decide if I will likely read it again.

And that is why I keep so many of my books.

Lapsang Souchong Tea

 I may have written about Lapsang Souchong tea before, but that would have been before I was using labels, and in any case, I'm not going to try and find that post.

The tea has a very distinct smokey and peaty smell and taste. It actually reminds me of drinking a very peaty single malt scotch whisky. Very much like Lagavulin from the island of Islay in Scotland, known for its several peaty single malt distilleries.

There are a couple of stories about how the tea was first made - both by accident - but the one I like best is about when the Chinese army was marching through the region in the mid-1840s and delayed the tea-making process. The soldiers made beds from the freshly picked tea leaves, and when they departed, the tea had to be quickly dried before it was shipped to market. 

The solution was to quickly dry them over a fire from pinewood chips. The result was a very husky, woodsy, and peaty aroma which became very popular.

You can easily purchase it today online, but you normally won't find it on the shelves except possibly a specialty tea store; and then probably in loose form. I have one and a half boxes left of the bags that I had bought several years ago when I came across them in a grocery store in New Jersey. I bought six and they have held up very well.

An Old Friend - Running Shoes

 Recently I came across a photo of my old Brooks running shoes I bought in 2012. I actually used them for walking.

I thought I'd take a photo of them now and show the amount of weathering on them.

While I tried to place them in relatively the same positions - we were living in Lexington in the first photo and the floors were different - something still seemed different. It didn't take long for me to notice what it was. The soles were different colors!

Once I realized that I knew what must have happened. There was another pair between these. The second photo, my current pair, must be the third pair. Still, not bad for nine years. The model, barely readable, is GTS-1S. I'll have to see if they still carry the model.

Here is a closeup of the present pair where you can see a hole in the toe of the left shoe and the wear on the sole of the right. But they still have good cushioning.