Looking But Not Seeing

A few months ago, DW decided to go to a hair salon to add blonde highlights and get her hair styled. Nothing drastic: she just wanted her hair to look more the way it used to.

How I always imagine DW.

DW has been a blonde her whole life. When we lived in South Korea, it lightened such that it looked almost bleached. It was naturally bleached from the hot, summer sun.

Over the decades since Korea, DW's hair has gradually darkened to a deep blonde to light brown, but overall it was still blonde. In the past few years, she's found a few grey strands, but because her hair is naturally light, I barely noticed the grey.

DW wanted her hair to look more blonde, and so she made an appointment at the stylist's.

When she returned home, she approached me. "What do you think?"

"It's nice," I said. "Your stylist did a good job."

"And?" she asked.

"And what? It suits you."

"What about the highlights?"

"Oh, you had highlights?" I looked more closely but couldn't notice anything.

"No grey," she said. "You really don't see the highlights?"

I guess it came down to the fact that I have always imagined her as a blonde and haven't really noticed the change over time. When she came back with the added colour, it was the colour that I imagined that she always had.

She was happy that I always imagine her as her youthful self.

The same thing happened, yesterday, but the other way around.

I've had my beard for about two months. And throughout its existence, I've often wondered how long I would keep it. Usually, after a month of growing out my face, I inevitably try to trim it, and find that I have made it uneven. And in trying to even it up, I make it more uneven until I finally get frustrated and just cut the whole thing off.

That didn't happen, this time.

We were sitting in our family room, having a very lazy Sunday. DW had started thinking about our next big vacation, for next year, and we started watching a bunch of travel videos on YouTube. While I watched TV, I was constantly running my fingers through the hairs on my chin, which were quite long.

Usually, when the hair on my head gets as long as my chin whiskers, I start thinking about a haircut.

I noticed that my whiskers were quite rough and were straggly in places. I wondered if I should risk trimming it, knowing my track record.

I went upstairs to our ensuite bathroom and closed the door. For the longest time, I looked at the face staring back at me, and I thought, do I want this beard? How long am I going to keep it?

"No," I said aloud. "It comes of right now."

I never made a conscious decision to grow the beard. I just stopped shaving for a few days and when an outline of a beard turned into something more significant, I just let to grow. There was no plan at all.

I grabbed my electric razor, extended the trimmer, and removed the little triangle that had formed under my lower lip. Next, came the moustache. I then went for the right side of my jawline, working down to my chin before switching to the other side and repeating the process.

The chin went last.

It felt more like I was peeling off a layer of fur than cutting off the beard, as severed hairs just clung to the whiskers below. When the long hairs sat in a ball in my sink, I scooped them with both hands and deposited them in the waste basket.

Should I have put them in the compost?

I then gave my face a proper shave, eliminating stubble and any stubborn whiskers. The whole process took about 10 to 15 minutes.

When I was finished, I rejoined DW in our family room.

"What were you up to?" she asked, nonchalantly, looking right at me. I said nothing but smiled and looked her right in the eyes.

"What were you up to?" This time, the tone was accusatory, as though I had snuck upstairs to eat a box of cookies without sharing.

Again. I remained silent, just looking straight back at her.

"You've been up to something," she said, and then her eyes widened, realizing I wasn't the same person who had gone upstairs a few minutes earlier. "I have my husband back!" she exclaimed, rising from her chair and coming to me, covering my lips and cheeks in kisses.

DW hated my beard. She didn't like how it looked, didn't like the feel of it against her own skin. In the past few months, kisses were rare and reluctant, followed by an "Eww," and a grimace.

"It took you long enough to notice," I said. It had, indeed, taken almost 15 to 20 seconds.

"I'm just used to this face and I guess it's what I always imagine you to look like."

It took Kid 1 about five minutes or so to notice, and only after a bit of prodding from her mom. And last night, when DW and I visited my parents—who were among the few who praised my beard—they didn't notice for the three hours we spent with them. It was only when DW mentioned it that they noticed.

We tend to look at people but don't always see them. We see them the way we imagine them. Any variance of that person is forgotten, as though it never existed in the first place.

Looking into my face, before bed. I saw the old me. And I thought only one thing.

I really need a haircut.

Happy Monday!

Growth and Healing

I don't know if the beard's going to last.

I mean, when I see myself in the mirror, I sometimes don't recognize myself. I see an older man who looks like he's got some wisdom yet can still be fun. I also think the beard makes my face seem slimmer.

Despite my on-again, off-again exercise regime, though, I have lost a bit of weight. It's the occasional cycling, the weekend kayaking, the sporadic core exercises, and the fact that I've greatly reduced the amount of sweets, chips, and beer that I consume.

I'm feeling better these days. Not back to my old self—the permanent damage to my lungs has seen an end to that—but there's a noticeable improvement.

And that improvement was verified by my recent visit to my lung specialist.

After my last visit, where I had learned that I've lost about 20 percent of my lung capacity, I was wondering if this was the beginning of the end. The respirologist performed the capacity test and had listened to my lungs, and told me he heard a crackling and wheezing in my breathing.

I was put on some fairly strong medication: capsules that I would place in a chamber, pierce each side, and strongly inhale. Once a day, every day, for the rest of my life.

At that appointment, he told me to visit him in a couple of months, when he would perform a pulmonary test and check to see how the medication was working.

I have to say that I didn't care for these meds. Even though I had to rinse out my mouth and gargle well, I was developing what felt to be a lump in my throat. In the past month, I was always finding phlegm in my throat, was always clearing it, and my throat was becoming sore.

The pulmonary test was a shorter and simpler version of the capacity test. My doctor listened to my lungs and said that the test showed that my lungs—what I had left—were clear. The 80 percent was working at full capacity.

Listening to my lungs, he declared that there was no crackling, no wheezing. And I agreed that my lungs did feel better, although my throat was feeling the effects of the powder I was inhaling daily.

So he wrote out a new prescription for another type of inhaler that was similar but gentle on my throat. As soon as my current prescription runs out, I'm to start using this inhaler twice each day.

I'll see him again in another six months.

So I'm at a new baseline. Hopefully, my lungs will stay clear. They feel better, anyway. And when I start the new inhaler, hopefully the lump in my throat will go away.

So this is the new me, both inside and out. My lungs are stable. Now all I have to do is decide if I want to keep my current face or go back.

At least, in that respect, I can easily go back to normal.

Beer O'Clock: Not Done With Summer

Summer's not over yet.

During the hot season, when I want a refreshing beer, like many other people I tend to reach for something lighter. Something thirst-quenching.

On a hot summer's day, it's not unusual for me to drink a radler: a light-bodied, low-alcohol beer that is usually diluted with lemonade, or grapefruit juice, or orange juice. Some type of light juice.

I've reviewed many radlers in the past but recently, I've come across one in a place where I didn't expect to find one: in Costco.

And yet, strolling down an isle, I came across an entire pallet of radlers, bundled in 24 packs. And also, to my surprise, I recognized the producers as one of my favourites for this summer beverage.

Usually, a radler is low in alcohol, ranging anywhere from 2 percent to 4 percent ABV. This radler was alcohol-free, with 0.0 percent featuring prominently on the label.

Without hesitation, I added a case to my shopping cart. Let's take a closer look at this Costco find.

Waterloo Grapefruit Radler (0.0% ABV)
Waterloo Brewing Ltd.
Kitchener ON

Appearance: pours a clear, effervescent, pale amber with a foamy-white head that settles down to a faint ring around the edge of the glass, much like a soda.

Nose: candied grapefruit. Before your first sip, you know it's going to be sweet. There's also a biscuity aroma that lets you know that barley is one of the ingredients.

Palate: as promised by its nose, the sweetness is apparent, yet it's not cloyingly sweet. The grapefruit is apparent, and the body is somewhat malty. It's light, though the finish lingers due to the residual sugar.

Overall impression: I'm sure that if I placed a glass of this radler next to Waterloo's regular, alcoholic version, I would note differences. But on it's own, to me it tasted every bit as tasty of the alcoholic radler. If it had been given to me in a blind tasting, I couldn't tell you it was non-alcoholic.

In a way, Waterloo Brewing has marketed a very smart soda-pop. There's sugar, flavour, and bubbles, but no booze. So why would you reach for one of these radlers instead of, let's say, an Orange Crush?

First of all, this grapefruit radler has less sugar and fewer calories that your average soda (19 grams and 110 calories, respectively). By comparison, a similar 355 ml can of Orange Crush has 43 grams of sugar and 160 calories.

Also, I like a good radler and would reach for one over another sugary drink. Drinking this radler, I'm enjoying the benefits of a preferred summer thirst-quencher without taking in any alcohol.

So, this grapefruit radler is a hit.

Beer O'Clock rating: 🍺🍺🍺

You can find this brew in select Costco stores (I found mine in the Barrhaven location). Sadly, I couldn't find the non-alcoholic radler listed in the LCBO. And, even more surprising, I couldn't find it listed with the other three alcoholic radlers on Waterloo Brewing's Web site.

If you see it, grab it while you can. After summer is finally done, we may not see this radler again.

Cheers!

Westport

More Memories

The second-ever post of this blog was a memory that was triggered by a get-together with an old friend from my journalism school days, Michel. I was also trying to get a feel for what sort of content I wanted to write on this blog—at the time, it was just called The Other Blog (it didn't become The Brown Knowser until more than two weeks after I first started publishing posts).

Seeing the post about my friend and journalism school made me realize how long it's been since we were in school together, and it's hard to wrap my head around the fact that it's been almost 40 years. Michel and I became friends on the first day of college, in September of 1995.

Shortly after school started, Michel started dating one of our classmates, Becky, and the three of us hung out a lot, along with Marc, Kristen, and Mary. But we were basically a close-knit group of students in our program, and everybody eventually knew everybody. 

Becky, with Michel in the background, in Algonquin College's fluorescent-filled cafeteria.

There was Charmaine. There was Cindy (who I also ran into, a couple of years later, when I enrolled at Carleton University). There was Janet. There was Carter.

And so many more. We all hung out in Bert's Bar, on campus, and at the Chances R, a restaurant in the shopping plaza nearby.

The decades have gone by in the time since journalism school, and almost all of us went in our different directions after graduation. Some of us, moving on to newspapers; others, eking out whatever jobs we could find.

Michel, Becky, Marc, Mary and I kept in touch with each other for a few years after graduation. Eventually, Mary seemingly disappeared. Marc moved on to work for the Canadian Security Intelligence Services (essentially, becoming a spy, upon whom Roland Axam was very loosely based), and also vanished shortly after he attended my wedding (though, our paths have crossed a couple of times since).

That left Michel and Becky, who I still see even to this day.

Recently, while browsing through my Threads feed, I saw a random post from someone in Toronto who was looking to connect with other writers, photographers, nature lovers, helpers and travellers. It seems that the Threads algorithm was placing another like-minded person in my path.

When I saw this person's name, Carter, I was reminded of my old classmate from journalism school, and so I went to his profile. And, sure enough, it was the only Carter I knew.

We connected online and now follow each other on Threads and Instagram. And, because he lives in Toronto, we're going to try to meet up the next time I head down to that city to visit Kid 2.

Since we've reconnected, I've been remembering my time in the journalism program, and it's made me think of what an immature goofball I had been a lot of that time.

I was in my early 20s and had a lot of growing up to do. I hope that in the 40 years that have elapsed since then, I've wisened up and become a better person. With DW's help, I think I have.

At least, I try.

As I think back onto my Algonquin College years, other memories of that stage in my life have come back. Yesterday afternoon, looking at old blog posts, I came across a memory that I turned into what I still think are the best two blog posts I have ever written. If you haven't read them before, they are called "Mind Flood" and "Mind Flood, Part Two."

My short-term memory isn't what it used to be but I hope that I don't lose those memories from the past. I'm glad that I've written some of them down on The Brown Knowser and I hope to continue to do so.

Hopefully, for your entertainment but mostly, to preserve my memories for me.

Like Kids at Christmas

I think that in the 35-plus years that DW and I have been together, we have never once, without hesitation, decided to drop a chunk of change on something that we didn't need, but simply wanted.

Until this weekend.

A house: needed. Cars: needed. An HVAC system: needed.

For years, I've told DW that I've really wanted a good telephoto lens for my camera. In our travels and nature outings, we've been taking more wildlife photos, and my current 70–300mm lens really isn't sharp enough.

The lens I've been looking at, lately, sells new for about four grand, though I've seen some used ones for about $2,500 to $3K.

DW isn't buying it, figuratively, and so I haven't been buying one, literally. "That's an extravagant expense," she's said. "Think of the great vacation we could do for that money." And so, even though I've been in a camera shop and held one of these lenses in my hands, I'm going to have to wait for a benefactor to help me out.

Four years ago, we decided that to preserve our sanity during the pandemic, we were going to buy some kayaks so that we could venture out without fear of getting too close to other people. Years earlier, we had shopped for kayaks and even tested a few in a pond near Carp, but were never able to justify the expense then, which was about $1,000 each at that time.

We decided to buy our kayaks in early 2020 and we haven't regretted doing so. We're nearing the end of our fifth season with them and we've been out at least a dozen times each season. The number of times that I've created YouTube videos of our kayaking adventures hasn't even scratched the surface of the outings we've had.

I have a couple more videos coming out in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

In August, DW returned to Killarney Provincial Park, off Georgian Bay. She wanted to circumnavigate Phillip Edward Island, which we paddled along a couple of years ago. I didn't want to go on this five-day camping adventure, so she went with one of our Paddlefolk friends.

Because DW wanted to have as much storage space as possible on her trip, she borrowed my kayak, which is a bit longer. "I could really use your extra 10 inches," she said.

I swear, those were her exact words.

On the first day, she and our friend battled a strong headwind. Our friend has a 14-foot kayak with a skeg (a retractable keel), and did a bit better than DW in my 12' 10" kayak, which has no skeg or rudder. When they reached their campsite, that night, DW texted me.

'We need longer kayaks."

Last year, DW and I went to Algonquin Provincial Park and paddled 15 kilometres on Opeongo Lake, with strong headwinds and whitecaps on the huge lake. It was the toughest paddle and I hated it. With no skeg or rudder, we had to edge quite a lot, plus paddle largely on one side of our crafts.

It was exhausting and was the only time in our five seasons that I honestly didn't like being in my kayak. I captured video footage of our trek but hated the paddling so much that I never used any of the footage.

When DW said we needed longer kayaks, I immediately thought of that Opeongo paddle. We've looked at 14-foot kayaks with a bit of envy but we still really loved our kayaks. We had no real need to upgrade.

And there's that word again: need.

We've never dropped a lot of cash on anything we haven't needed before. We've talked a couple of times about someday, when our kayaks were long in the tooth, of upgrading them.

On Saturday, we drove out to the place where we bought our kayaks, Frontenac Outfitters. During the height of COVID, this kayak and outdoors retail shop offered to deliver our kayaks for next to nothing. The next year, we ordered skirts for our kayaks but paid way more in shipping than we had for our kayaks. And about a month ago, I ordered hip padding for my kayak, as I've been doing more edging in it and it makes a big difference.

It was high time that we actually paid them a visit.

The outfitters were sold out of the kayaks that we were interested in, a 14-foot version of our Delta kayaks, but they offered to honour the 2024 price if we ordered the 2025 models, which were expected to be $100 more, each.

Frontenac Outfitters is close to Pearkes Lake, to the southwest of Frontenac Provincial Park, and they had a couple of 14-foot Deltas that they rent out: one, with a skeg; the other, with a rudder. They took them down to the lake and let us play with them for about an hour.

DW and I took turns using both. They're both impressive crafts, and the weather on Saturday gave us some good training, with rain and wind gusts. Both kayaks were impressive in cross winds, keeping a straight line.

Overall, we decided that we liked the kayak with a rudder because it takes up no room in the aft storage space. I've seen our friend's skeg get some debris in the recess, which prevented the skeg from dropping down.

The rudder sits on top of the aft section of the kayak and easily deploys down when needed. There are pedals that turn the rudder, making tight turns easy.

When we were done playing, we brought the kayaks ashore and headed back to the shop, where the person who helped us was waiting.

"What did you think?" she asked.

DW and I didn't hesitate. We didn't need these kayaks but we wanted them.

"I think you've just sold two of the kayaks with a rudder," I said.

And that was that. Without hesitation, DW and I dropped more than $5K on new kayaks. We don't know when they'll be ready, whether we'll be able to acquire them in the fall or have to wait until next spring. But we're in no rush.

This might be the new colour of mine or DW's. It's complicated.

In the meantime, we'll enjoy our current kayaks for the rest of this season, getting out in them as much as we can. When the season's over, we'll lovingly clean them up (the rubber on our roof racks leaves little black marks on the hull, but they clean up easily), hang them in our garage, and sell them in the spring, when some adventurer is looking to head out on the water.

I love my kayak. It's treated me well. Apart from that weekend on Opeongo Lake, it's been a dream to paddle. Whoever takes it next will be very happy with it.

Now, if only I can convince DW that I can have the lens that I don't need, but want.

Windmill Sunset

I always thought that I made a trip to Andrew Haydon Park at least once a year. And indeed, when I pulled into its parking lot at sunset on Wednesday, I thought it hadn't been very long since I had last stopped in for an evening photo shoot.

It's been more than two years.

Granted, DW and I passed by the park, along Carling Avenue, a few months ago on our bikes, as we headed from Britannia on our way home. But we only passed the entrance to the parking lot and didn't actually enter the park.

I like to visit Andrew Haydon Park for sunset. It's a great spot for photography, as years of photos on this blog have shown.

I had met up, earlier in the day, with a couple of my friends from our days in journalism, in college. We've known each other for nearly 40 years and try to get together at least once a year, though the pandemic made us miss a couple of years.

We had dinner on a patio near Pinecrest and Iris, and after a few hours, we said goodbye and headed our separate ways. My initial plan was to simply drive home, but when I saw the sun hanging low in the sky, glowing a peachy orange, I knew I wanted to capture it.

Sadly, I didn't have a D-SLR with me, but the best camera is the one you have on you, and I always have my smartphone with me. And I only had about 10 minutes or so until sunset.

Andrew Haydon Park was the closest place that I could think of to capture the fading light.

I was able to park next to the path that takes me to the most popular spot that I visit for taking sunset photos. It's opposite the pond from the little windmill, and I like how I can get both a silhouette and a reflection of the trees and windmill, with the sky also reflected on the water.

I took a couple of photos at this spot but then decided to get closer to the windmill. There were only a few clouds in the sky but luckily many of them were close to the horizon, in front of the sun, which itself was already obscured by trees in the distance. I thought that I would get some interesting colours in the sky as sunset turned to blue hour, and I wasn't wrong.

I took a few more pictures before heading home, before the darkness took over.

Timing was everything, and everything about that evening, from being with my friends, making my way to the park, capturing sunset photos, and getting home with still a smidge of light was perfect.

You can see a couple more photos from my stop on my Instagram page.

Happy Friday!

Remembering a Seoul Portrait

I'm getting to that age where I'm becoming forgetful.

My short-term memory has been terrible for the last few years: if I don't write something down or add it to my smartphone, I'll forget it. I've always been proud of my long-term memory and how I could recall minute details of something from decades ago or even in my childhood, but even that's starting to get a bit foggy.

I've written close to 3,000 blog posts on The Brown Knowser (or will have, by the end of this month) and sometimes, I forget if I've written about something in the past 13 years of this blog. In fact, several times over the years, I've written a post, scheduled it to be published, only to later remember that I had already written about that particular subject in the past.

Once, I even had to pull down a published post because I learned, after it was up for everyone to read, that I had written a nearly identical post years earlier. I had to pull down the newer post after it had already been viewed dozens of times.

Oops.

(I'm not counting the various Christmas—and now Easter—posts that I repeat, on purpose, annually.)

As I was putting posts together for this week, I came across an old photo from when DW and I lived in South Korea. It was just after Christmas, 1998, and we were visiting friends in Seoul. One of our pocket 35mm cameras had stopped working and we wanted to replace it. A Korean friend told us of a shopping district in the capital city, where we could find good deals on electronics and cameras, and we sought it out.

We found a Pentax point-and-shoot for a very good price and snapped it up. The shop even threw in batteries and a roll of film, and they made sure that the camera was good to go as we left the store.

DW wanted to take a picture right away, so as soon as we stepped out of the store and onto the sidewalk, she captured this image of me.

Recognize this jacket? I wore it this past Monday as I de-weeded my back garden.

Returning to this week, I remembered the picture and thought I could share it for Throwback Thursday. Only, I was sure that I had shared this photo in an earlier Throwback Thursday post.

I tried to remember the post by clicking on the keywords on the right-hand margin: selfies, South Korea, Seoul, Throwback Thursday, remembering. None of these keywords brought results (and it took a long time to scroll through all of the posts with these keywords!).

I don't mind occasionally reusing photos in various posts but I never wish to unintentionally repeat a blog post itself (or, retell the same story). The day that happens, it's time to shut down this blog.

So, this photo was of me, in late 1998, in Seoul, South Korea, outside an electronic shop in Namdaemun Market. The first photo from our Pentax 35mm point-and-shoot camera.

I haven't forgotten those details (especially, since the date is printed on the photo). And while I have shared a cropped version of this photo on various social-media sites, it appears that I've never shared the full-sized photo before today.

Happy Thursday!

Negligence

This summer, we've spent the least amount of time in our backyard than in any other summer.

Because the weather was warmer than usual in the spring, we tended to make dinner at the barbecue and eat under the gazebo. We even invited friends over to join us in our backyard.

But when summer got hot and the rains came, I would only venture into the backyard to mow the lawn or pick vegetables that grew in our garden. I would still grill food on the barbecue but because it was often too hot, we'd dine indoors.

I knew that the space at the side of our house was becoming overgrown. It's an area that I don't mow because there's no grass. There is a strip of dirt and some concrete tiles that separate the dirt from the house, but that's basically it. We don't access the backyard from this side of the house so letting the weeds take over has never really been an issue.

But because we've had so much rain, this summer, this neglected part of our backyard has grown out of control. Creeping vines had taken hold, goldenrod had sprouted up, and we even started growing bushes with thick trunks.

It was becoming a small forest.

Last weekend, we repaired parts of our wooden fence on that side of the house. The cedar boards that we had erected more than 23 years ago were rotting in some spots and we even had some slats that had fallen off, leaving large gaps that looked into our neighbour's backyard.

We replaced all the rotted lumber but had to do all of the repairs from our neighbour's side of the fence because we have a tended garden through much of that side of the yard, and our little forest also prohibited me from setting up a ladder.

I made the decision that enough was enough, and I had to cull the overgrown space. At the very least, I needed to clear the area with the cement tiles, where we wanted separation between the weeds and our house.

I knew that I just couldn't go in wearing a t-shirt and shorts, which is what I often wear when I mow the lawn. Who knew what was living in that space? And one year, when I cleared out that space, I found a tick on a sensitive spot when I showered afterward.

I needed rubber boots. I needed to protect the back of my head and neck from bugs. I needed to protect my face from any flying debris and from the spray of any liquids in the branches and roots.

In essence, I felt I needed a HAZMAT suit.

Not having one, I improvised as best as I could. In retrospect, I should have also worn an N-95 mask.

I snipped. I pulled. I broke up.

I could see an unused rain barrel through the growth before I started work. What I discovered, as I cleared space, was that we also had a disused fire pit and a wheelbarrow.

In just over an hour, I filled four yard bags. And I was hot and exhausted. Also, my lungs were on fire.

That was enough work for the day.

I managed to make a substantial dent in our mini forest. The path is mostly cleared but there is still a bit of work to do to finish it up. But that was as far as I was able to do on a day that I really hadn't planned to do on Labour Day.

This was supposed to be a day to relax, wasn't it?

Labour Day

I always wondered why they called it Labour Day when it's a holiday and I don't have to work.

Back when the kids were small and were still in school, it was our last hurrah before the new semester started and new routines were formed. Now that they are grown and living mostly independent lives, it's DW and I who usually relax on this holiday.

But actually, today we have some chores to get done. The lawn needs to be mowed (please hold off, rain!), household cleaning is required, and we have a bunch of surplus dirt and concrete to take to the city dump (thankfully, they're open today).

At least yesterday, we got to take some time for ourselves, putting our kayaks in the Mississippi River, at Appleton Falls, and paddling with our friends to Almonte, some eight kilometres away, halted by the falls that run through that picturesque town. Round-trip, we covered nearly 17 kms.

The lower part of the falls in Appleton.

The beginning and end of each leg of our trek were pretty enough, but the in-between part was pretty dull. But kayaking is always relaxing for us.

Today, after the morning chores are out of the way, I'll work on my next YouTube video and will hopefully have it completed by next weekend. Stay tuned.

I hope your Labour Day is relaxing and recharges you for the rest of the week, whether it's back to the same-old grind or the start of a new routine.

Happy Monday!