On being … addressed

By Ingrid Sapona

This week I decided to finally go through some of my oldest file boxes of paperwork. I was determined to finally get rid of files, notes, tax receipts, and other such things that I’ve kept for too long as it is. Among the items I came across were old address books. I had kept them all these years because I haven’t always been good about including full contact information in my digital address book, especially when it comes to entries for friends and family members. So, for example, if I was sending a get well card to a long-time friend, I’d have to consult my address book.

In the spirit of the cull, and yet realizing that there definitely were some addresses I still need, I decided it was time to input information from my address books into my digital address book. I knew the address books were old – but it wasn’t until I started looking at them that I realized how old they were. One of them, which was held together with a rubber band, dated back to university. I started the project thinking it would be a pretty straightforward task of data entry. While it was that, it was so much more.

First and foremost it was a trip down memory lane. Though I used to hate messing up my address book with crossed out entries and white out, seeing all the address changes I had for many of my friends reminded me of how much our lives have changed. It was fun to trace the phases of their lives as they moved from college, to graduate school, and through jobs that took them to different cities.

It was also sad to see names of people that have died over the years. Many of them were family friends who were contemporaries of my parents – but not all of them. A handful were my age. It was sobering to think that that list will only grow, and likely at a pace that’s more rapid than I like to think about.

A few names were startling in a very different way – folks that ended up in the news – but not for particularly good reasons. (Disbarment and jail, to mention a few transgressions I’ve heard about over the years.)

It was also a head scratcher, as there were more than a few names that I simply could not place. For some of them the address provided hints as to possible connections (for example, an Ohio address is likely someone I knew during law school). But even so, I’ll be darned if I can remember them. One set of entries that had me especially perplexed was the name and address of one girl and an accompanying entry for her parents. The thing is, I usually only made note of the addresses of parents of close friends. If it seems odd to you that I’d have the addresses of my friends’ parents – think again. After all, parents tended to stay put and they usually knew where their kids were, so one could at least try to keep in touch via their original home address.

The exercise also drove home how the internet has changed the way we behave. There were lots of entries of addresses for institutions and organization I had reason to contact periodically. (For example, I used to have to formally request an absentee ballot for every U.S. presidential election, so I had the address of the board of elections in my address book.) There’s certainly no reason to keep such information now because it’s so easy to find it on-line.   

One of the biggest surprises was realizing how many people I’ve completely lost touch with. So many names produced a flash of a face long forgotten (and, of course, frozen in time) and a flood of memories to go with it. With some of the names, like people I worked with briefly, I wasn’t surprised that our paths diverged. In other cases, I felt a sadness, as I guess I thought the bond we forged was stronger and that our relationship would be longer lasting.

When I finished the project of transitioning entries from my old address books to my digital one, I had to laugh at the coincidence of finally getting around to doing this and it being Thanksgiving time. What better time to think about and give thanks for people that have come into my life at one point or another, even if we’re no longer in touch – they all enriched my life in some way.   

© 2013 Ingrid Sapona

On being … not just alone with my thoughts

by Ingrid Sapona

One of my favourite movies is What Women Want, with Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt. Like most women, I could instantly relate to it. After all, the notion of “self-talk” – that internal monologue that so many of us seem to have running through our head every waking moment –is a well-documented phenomenon. (You can even find information about it in Wikipedia.) Self-talk isn’t what I’m writing about here though.

The topic for today’s column came to me the other day when I saw the new Robert Redford movie All is Lost. It’s about a man (Redford) sailing alone in the Indian Ocean. His troubles start when his boat hits a shipping container that’s fallen off a cargo ship. The container punctures a hole in the side of his boat a bit above the water line.

All the reviews I had read mentioned that during the whole movie, Redford says only a couple dozen lines. In fact, nearly all the lines are part of a voice-over at the very beginning of the film. In the voice-over he’s re-reading the last entry he’s written in his ship’s log. Clearly, the dramatic reason for the voice-over is to make viewers wonder who the entry is intended for, who he has left behind in taking this journey, and so on. About the only other time he speaks in the film is when he tries to radio an SOS call and when he tries to get the attention of a loud cargo ship that’s streaming by. (Oh, and once, just once, out of sheer desperation he does say – actually, it’s more of a scream – the f word.)

As I was watching the movie, I understood that the whole no talking thing was a dramatic device, but I found it really odd that Redford (or should I say, the character he was portraying) didn’t talk to himself at all. Not a mumble, not a murmur, not even so much as a sigh – other than the one swear word.

I first realized how unnatural his silence seemed to me in the scene where he attempts to radio the SOS. The scene is quite dramatic because it unfolds over a series of actions that start with him lugging the heavy marine battery up on the deck from below. The VHS radio is also up on the deck – he brought it up in hopes the sun would dry it out.

As he carefully attaches the first lead from the radio to the battery terminal I suddenly felt as though it was me attaching the radio and as I was mentally going through the motions, I found myself (silently) mumbling: Please work, please work, please work. I repeated this mantra silently only because I was in a packed theatre. Had I been alone, trust me, it wouldn’t have been some form of self-talk – it would have been clearly audible.

Many times during the movie I felt almost transported into the action. And, whenever that happened, I also inevitably noticed myself (silently) saying something – whether I was imploring some line to hold fast, or reminding myself to close the cabin hatch, or sometimes just letting out the odd “whew” when something went right. And every time I suppressed a word or sigh (so as not to bother those around me in the theatre), I just couldn’t believe that Redford didn’t utter a sound.

I saw the movie with a friend who’s also a sailor and afterwards I mentioned that I found it hard to believe that a guy all alone wouldn’t be talking to himself as he did things. My friend said the only thing he found odd was that the guy didn’t swear more out of exasperation. Not sure if my friend’s comment was just in jest, I explained that the character’s silence made me feel oddly self-conscious about how much I talk to myself when I’m alone.

I was sure that after more fully explaining what I meant and giving him an example, my friend would say, “Oh, yeah – I guess I do that too”. But instead, he thought about it and said, “No, I don’t really talk out loud to myself – other than the occasional swear word …” I let it go at that, but since the movie, I’ve thought about it a lot.

I can’t help wonder whether it’s particularly uncommon to talk out loud when there’s no one else there to hear you. I’ve also wondered whether doing so might be more common for those of us who spend more time alone. Is it some sort of need to hear a human voice every now and then?  (If that’s the case, then surely a guy alone for days on end in a boat in the middle of a big, lonely ocean would have felt compelled to utter a few words out loud.) Or is talking to yourself out loud just a quirky habit?

Don’t worry – I don’t think I’m going crazy or anything. (Besides, there’s that old saying that there’s nothing wrong with talking to yourself out loud – it’s only when you start to answer yourself that you have to worry.) But I do wonder whether others talk to themselves out loud much. What about you? What do you hear when you’re alone?

© 2013 Ingrid Sapona

On being … all in this together

By Ingrid Sapona

Last weekend was haul out at my sail club. We’re a self-help club, which means members must contribute a certain number of volunteer hours every year. Many members get the bulk of their work hours by working launch and haul out. The only paid workers we use during haul out are professional crane operators. And, since renting cranes and hiring crane operators is expensive, the goal is to haul out all 280 boats in one weekend.

For years I’ve been on the crew that’s responsible for putting the boats in the crane slings. It’s not physically hard work, but like all the tasks involved in hauling out boats, there are special safety issues and things to pay attention to. Honestly, one of the hardest things for me about the weekend is just being on my feet for so long.

It can also be pretty boring because after we hand off the boat in the sling, it takes time to place it in the cradle, which means there’s a lot of waiting around. The down time provides a chance to socialize and catch up on club gossip. But, as the day goes by, there’s less to chat about and the boredom seems to lead to grouchiness and snarkiness.

Because there are so many variables that come into play, every haul out is different. The shear variety of sizes and weights of the boats make it tricky. This year, for example, we hauled out everything from a 22 foot sailboat that weighed 2200 lbs. to a 39 foot cement (yes, cement) sailboat that weighed 33,500 lbs,, not to mention a 34 foot trimaran (it weighed only 5000 lbs. but imagine trying to put slings on three separate hulls) and a 44 foot power boat that weighed 33,000 lbs.

One of the biggest variables every year is the weather. To maximize the amount of time the boats are in the water, we launch early (the last weekend of April) and we haul out late (the last weekend of October). Though there has been the odd snowflake at haul out, wind and rain are what most of us dread. Foul weather gear helps keep your body dry but I’ve yet to find gloves that keep my hands warm and dry and that afford the dexterity you need for most haul out tasks.

Wind is by far the most troubling because it adds to the danger and chaos. Wind makes it challenging for boat owners to bring their boat over to the dock where the crane is stationed. But that’s nothing compared to the danger of having thousands of pounds of boat sitting in cloth slings dangling from a crane in high winds – picture a 10,000 lb. pendulum swinging 20 feet above the ground.

The past few years we’ve been pretty lucky in terms of the weather at launch and haul out. The forecast for this past weekend, however, was worrisome. Saturday we were expecting rain and winds from 25-30 knots (which is 29-35 mph or 26-56 km/hour); Sunday looked to be a bit better, with some sun and less wind. Though it seems the weather forecasters are as wrong as they are right, to our dismay, their prediction was accurate.

Remarkably, despite the forecast, everyone who had committed to working showed up at 6:30 on Saturday morning. Because of the weather conditions, before we hoisted the first boat our crew chief reminded us of the safety precautions and stressed that safety trumped speed. It quickly became clear that more teamwork than usual was required, given the conditions.

The rain and wind made it seem colder than it actually was, but no one seemed to complain. Indeed, by mid-day I couldn’t help notice that the camaraderie seemed stronger than usual and there wasn’t any of the usual mumbling and grumbling under peoples’ breath that so often seems to be in the background. I pointed out the lack of the normal bitching to a few of my crew-mates, and they agreed that it was a pleasant change.

On Sunday afternoon, after the cranes were shut down and we were all enjoying a celebratory drink, we learned that we had hauled a record number of boats with no incidence of property or physical damage reported. In short, it was the smoothest haul out in some of the least pleasant conditions in memory.

There were probably a variety of things at play in peoples’ moods and behaviour during haul out, but I can’t help think that the crappy conditions and added risk helped everyone appreciate the need to work together and helped everyone appreciate each person’s contribution to the overall effort. I think that in today’s society, where many of us pride ourselves on our self-sufficiency, sometimes it takes sub-optimal conditions to remind us of a very basic truth: we’re all in this together.

© 2013 Ingrid Sapona

On being ... a guilty pleasure?

There’s a popular morning radio show here that I sometimes listen to. The show has three DJs. Over the weekend I tuned in mid-way through a taped replay of a discussion they had one morning last week about food. DJ #1 said that there are just some times when all she wants is a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips. The other two DJs (I’ll call them DJ #2 and #3) murmured in agreement. DJ #1 went on to say that when she has that craving, she knows she could buy a small bag of the chips, but she knows that that just won’t satisfy her and if she’s going to give into the craving, she gets the big bag.

Then DJ #2 said, “Oh, I know. I do the same. I get the big bag. And then, when I’m about two-thirds of the way through,” he said, pausing. “I feel so sad …”

“Yes!” exclaimed DJ #1 in agreement.

Then DJ #2 continued, “I feel so sad because I know I’m near the end and there won’t be more!” DJ #3 then voiced his agreement about always wishing there were more. I was floored by the reason DJ #2 gave for feelings sad two-thirds of the way through a bag of chips. When I pause to note my feelings after downing more than a healthy serving of a fattening “treat”, I’m not feeling sad because I’m near the end. I’m feeling guilty about the calories I’ve consumed and I’m mad with myself for being out-of-control. Pretty different from the feelings DJs 2 and 3 were expressing, that’s for sure! (The segment ended without DJ #1 clarifying the nature of her feelings after downing most of the bag.)

A few different things about that conversation got me thinking. The most obvious was the very different reasons people might feel bad two-thirds of the way into a bad-for-you treat. Also, the mere fact that part way through indulging in something, people often pause to think – whether to feel sad or bad – is pretty striking. I can’t imagine that other animals do that. (Of course, for all we know, they do – maybe squirrels who come across a yard of acorns contemplate whether they’ll need all of them or whether they should leave some for other squirrels to find. Who knows?)

After the radio conversation I thought about a segment on a talk show that I had seen earlier in the week. Ann and Mitt Romney were on and the hostess was testing how well they knew each other (they’ve been married over 40 years). One of the questions to Mitt was: what is Ann’s guilty pleasure? Turns out it’s chocolate and, of course, Mitt got the answer right.

Though I can, without hesitation, identify two things that are guilty pleasures for me (cheese and nuts), when you get right down to it, the idea of a “guilty pleasure” is pretty complex. It entails a variety of emotions: likes, preferences, and the concept of guilt. Indeed, the idea of such different emotions even being associated with food strikes me as a uniquely human phenomenon. Also, how you define a guilty pleasure is pretty subjective. For me they’re things that I love and that I know I have trouble controlling myself over. Basically they’re things that I try not to bring home!

I’d like to think that there’s some evolutionary reason for our guilty pleasures, but since we’re not talking about food consumed strictly for its nutritional value, it’s hard to imagine such a justification. And besides, the vast variety of foods that different people consider guilty pleasures, not to mention the very different reactions folks have when they’ve over-indulged such pleasures, makes it seem even less likely that such indulgences serve a purpose other than to quell one’s craving.

What about you? Do you have a guilty pleasure? I’ll bet you do…

And, if you give into it (or should I say, when you give into it), do you go for the big bag (or serving) or just a little one? And how do you feel when you’ve indulged and there’s just a bit left? Do you feel bad because you feel guilty, or maybe you’re sad because you know there’s only a bit left?  Or maybe it’s a little of both?

© 2013 Ingrid Sapona

On being … a matter of taste?

By Ingrid Sapona

I’ll start with a confession: other than having had pumpkin pie, I’ve never had a pumpkin spiced candy, coffee, or other store-bought goodie. Or have I? I guess that depends on whether you consider any foods that have cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, and cloves “pumpkin spiced”.

I realize there are many reasons we associate pumpkins with the fall. In fact, in many ways, it makes perfect sense, since pumpkins are ready for harvest about now. And, given that they’re in season, it’s natural to find pumpkin-based food on menus this time of year, everything from soups to breads, to muffins and, of course, pies.

I also can imagine how the rich blend of spices we’ve come to know as “pumpkin spice” came about. I’m sure that when folks first thought about making a pie out of the erstwhile orange gourd they realized they’d have to do something to jazz it up (or cover it up, depending on your view). In addition to using a healthy dose of sugar, aromatic spices like ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg worked well with the otherwise fairly bland pulp. And once that caught magic blend on, spice sellers started pre-blending the spices so that folks could simply buy “pumpkin spice”, much the way we buy other blends, like chili and curry powder.

I get all that. What I don’t get is why so many food companies have suddenly decided we all want pumpkin spiced things. The first time I noticed something “pumpkin spiced” was Starbucks’ latte a few years ago. It wasn’t until later that I noticed it was a seasonal offering. Though I’ve never tried one, I can see how those spices would work with coffee.

So, when McDonald’s recently announced it too was offering a pumpkin spiced latte, I assumed they must figure Starbucks has done pretty well with them so why not serve up a little competition. And of course, Dunkin’ Donuts and my Canadian favourite – Tim Hortons – weren’t going to let the bandwagon pass without hopping on.

But when I was in the states on the weekend I couldn’t believe it when I saw pumpkin spiced M&Ms. Yes – M&Ms! (I should mention, they’re only available at Target in the U.S.) Apparently there are also pumpkin spiced Hershey Kisses, Planters pumpkin spiced almonds, and Kraft makes pumpkin spiced marshmallows – to name a few of the current offerings.

Until this explosion of pumpkin spiced foods, I thought – naively – that food trends were taste combinations that naturally caught on. The whole bacon-infused everything rage from a few years ago is an example of a “trend” I assumed spread naturally. I was introduced to that trend at a fine restaurant (one with a pedigreed chef), where a bacon-infused (chocolate) truffle was included on a cookie plate I ordered. (I didn’t care for it.) More recently “salted caramel” and “red velvet” seem to have become the IT flavours. (Sorry to say, I won’t be making room on my bar shelf for either salted caramel or red velvet flavoured vodka – they just don’t appeal.)

This whole pumpkin spice phenomenon brought back memories of an eye-opening discovery I had years ago when I was introduced to the ColorMarketing Group (CMG) for a magazine article I was writing. The CMG is a non-profit association that “forecasts” colours that are used for pretty much all products – from all housewares to wall paint, to clothing and cars. According to CMG’s website, the association’s “major focus is to identify the direction of color and design trends”. The reality is that they pretty much dictate the colours that virtually all manufacturers use.

When I first heard about CMG their forecasted colours included light, bright greens and purples. Well, sure enough, after that I couldn’t walk into a store without seeing CMG’s finger prints on everything. Personally, I found it disheartening. I’d noticed that tastes in colours seemed to go in cycles, but I never imagined that an association of international manufacturers actually drives these trends – but they do.

I can’t help but think that this whole pumpkin spice phenomenon is courtesy of some food trend “forecasting” association having its way with us. I realize no one’s forcing me to eat pumpkin spiced anything and there’s really no point in letting it bother me that pumpkin spiced products are everywhere. Besides, I’m sure pumpkin spiced goods will give way to eggnog flavoured things long before the first snowflake flies this winter.

So, maybe I should just phone a few friends and meet for a latte – perhaps a salted caramel, or red velvet, or maybe even a pumpkin spiced one. After all, if the food industry has its way, our resistance is futile.

© 2013 Ingrid Sapona