From Splenda’s own website:

“SPLENDA® is also the brand name for the ingredient sucralose. It is made through a patented, multi-step process that starts with sugar and converts it to a no calorie, non-carbohydrate sweetener. The process selectively replaces three hydrogen-oxygen groups on the sugar molecule with three chlorine atoms. In the case of sucralose, its addition converts sucrose to sucralose, which is essentially inert. The result is an exceptionally stable sweetener that tastes like sugar, but without sugar’s calories. Sucralose isn’t broken down for energy, and is not recognized by the body as a carbohydrate.”

I suspect that many of those Splenda users out there aren’t aware that what you are eating is sugar, with added chlorine, making it indigestible. Naturally, there are plenty of arguments made by the pro-Splenda camp, as well as the anti-Splenda camp, with both citing scientific studies.

No matter what this or that study shows, do you really want to consume a sugar-chlorine mix? Is it worth saving those few extra calories every day?

Unfortunately for many this is an extension of their processed-food-eating ways. All the better to be able to get all the sweetness Americans want, without the calories, right? I say WRONG.

Personally, I’ll continue to reach for sugar, honey, or agave whenever I drink my tea (I don’t sweeten my coffee), and I will certainly continue to stay away from all artificially-sweetened foods.  If you are using enough Splenda every day that it would truly make a significant difference to your total daily calories were you to change back to sugar, then you certainly have a problem.

For starters, maybe you should try and wean yourself off the need for that amount of sweetener!

I got the shopping part done in 10 minutes or so.  Then I sat down next to a man in his seventies, on a bench near the pier.  I had asked him if the space next to him was available and when he answered in the affirmative I heard what I though was an Australian accent.

I asked him if he was indeed from Down Under, but it turned out that he was from England.  This one question turned into quite the pleasurable hour-long conversation.  Not the first time this has happened to me (unsurprisingly enough)!

We covered topics from religion, to family, to rugby, to traveling the world.  I loved it!  There is nothing like making a connection with another human being and enjoying some one-on-one conversation.  Almost like catching up with an old friend at a cafe!

Don’t be afraid to chat up your next bench-mate.  You never know where your next fufilling conversation is going to come from!

I had the pleasure of catching up with a friend of mine recently.  A friend that I haven’t seen for over a year now, and had only exchanged emails with since we last saw one another.

We spoke for an hour or two on the phone and though in-person would have been better, I still very much enjoyed catching up.

It was another reminder how something small like a conversation can put a smile on your face or even make your day.  And what the power of connecting with another person can do as well.

Why not get together with someone you haven’t seen in a long time?

The one indulgence I allowed myself while looking for a job was a cappuccino and a croissant at a local cafe.  And yes, this cafe served up their cappuccinos with the perfect foam!

I would take an hour or so to read a book and de-stress.  In my opinion there aren’t too many better ways to relax than this.  In fact, I have often remarked to my girlfriend what the perfect getaway for me would entail.  Going away to a tropical island or a small European village invariably are the first to come up.  And I always follow up with the reason for the getaway- a place to wake up every day, head to a cafe, and read.

One morning while I was reading at the cafe I looked up to see a man walking by.  He smiled and said “coffee, sun, book… not bad!”

He couldn’t have been more right.  And as I was walking around today on this hot, but pleasant Saturday afternoon I was again reminded that sometimes (maybe even most of the time) all you need is coffee, the sun, and a book.

You’ve got the makings of a perfect day.

It entails watching someone smoking a cigarette mindlessly (there’s that word again) flick the cigarette to the ground.

Now don’t even get me started on how ridiculous it is to smoke cigarettes.  I mean, it provides an individual with nothing more than the temporary relief of a craving and causes terrible damage to the human body.  Is drinking alcohol great for your body?  Studies have shown that in moderation alcohol can actually be good for us, though of course as with most things drinking too much can also cause terrible damage to us.  The distinction is that smoking cigarettes is much harder for most people to do in moderation than having a glass of wine or a beer with dinner.

Anyway, I apologize for my digression.

To put it plainly, I find the act of flicking a cigarette bud to the ground to be revolting.  Without thinking, smokers (not all) literally pollute our environment (or cities) with millions of cigarettes a year.  Where does this “inherent” right come from?  Why should this be allowed?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t enjoy walking in a park or city and seeing the ground littered with cigarettes.  In my humble opinion, we should ban this practice.  Anytime someone is caught dropping a cigarette bud on the ground they should be fined.  And fined hard.  Like $500 per occurrence!

Harsh?  Yes.  Would this provide the necessary incentive to force people to properly throw away their cigarettes?  YES.

Don’t even get me started on cigarettes in general!  I think they should be banned in ALL public/open places where others may be affected, meaning almost EVERYWHERE!  After all, do we let people openly spray cancer-causing chemicals in the air?  Well, actually…

The girl went back to her table, took out the pasty, and then walked over to the trashcan and promptly threw out the paper bag.

Lifespan of this paper bag- approximately two minutes.

This is a prime example of what I like to call “mindless waste”, something that I have been guilty of countless times in my life.

There were two opportunities for this bag to have remained unused.  First, the lady working the register could have asked the girl if the pastry was “for here” and then she could have put it on a plate.  Second, the girl could have said that she didn’t need a bag.

For the past few years I have tried to do the latter as much as possible.  It takes almost no effort once you get used to the notion, and with each refusal of a bag you are doing your part to use less.

It actually hurts my eyes to watch the above take place.  It’s a microcosm of the wider problem of wastefulness our world faces, especially in Western countries.  It’s high time that the throwaway society we live in come to an absolute end.

Start out by taking baby-steps and next time you are offered a bag, just say no!

One of my favorite activities, one that allows me to escape for a bit from the stresses and demands of our daily lives, is to go to a cafe. I absolutely LOVE cafes. I always enjoy good coffee, particularly a well-made espresso, latte, or cappuccino, but for me it has always been more about the company and about the opportunity to clear my ever-thinking mind. While I do enjoy being in groups from time to time, I have always enjoyed spending more intimate time with one or two other people, and what better place to spend a few hours, relaxing, catching up, and shootin’ the breeze than a cafe.

The cafe where the idea for this blog was initially born is a wonderful little cafe named Pastiche. It is located in Federal Hill, the little Italy of Providence, Rhode Island. I was discussing the idea of writing a book with my best friend. Two years (and a failed attempt at writing a book) later, after a lot of thought, I have decided to follow through on my drive to write and to share some of my observations.

Anyway, back to the cafe. It’s a place where Rhode Islanders come for a sumptuous dessert, perhaps accompanied by a tasty and lively espresso or cappuccino. It’s a place to lounge in, and according to their official dinning rules, patrons are allowed to stay for up to two hours after the purchase of their last item. Thus, though they are not a true European cafe, where people can stay for hours and hours on end, having finished their one cup of coffee five minutes into their stay, Pastiche is close, very close. And exactly my kind of cafe.

A cafe has always given me the opportunity to observe, and not just the people around me, but to “observe” my own thoughts as well. It is often in the company of a friend or two, that thoughts I might have been having for some time in the back of my mind, finally make it to the front. It is these thoughts and observations that I will attempt to share throughout the course of the lifetime of this blog.

So back to the meaning of “The Perfect Foam”. As you may have guessed (both by the picture of a cappuccino on my homepage and by the above reference to a cafe), the perfect foam refers to the one-third of a cappuccino comprised of foamed milk.

I have always been an up and down kind of guy. One aspect of my personality is my ability to get supremely excited over small details- the perfect ice-tea on a hot day, some home-made ice-cream, bread and butter, etc. I might have had the worst possible day (at least in my own eyes), but I have always been able to push things aside and get excited over something as small as the perfect foam. I have had more than a few friends look at me with absolute bewilderment as I happily held up my spoon, having just dipped it into a freshly-made cappuccino, and exclaim, “now this is the perfect foam”, with an ear to ear smile on my face. This may not seem like much, and it isn’t the fact that it is foam that has the ability to make me this happy that matters. It is the ability to find joy, even when a day seems completely ruined, and to find this joy in something as small as the perfect foam (I should add that what makes foam perfect, is its thickness- it MUST be thick!).

Personally, I believe that this is what makes our lives so great, and so utterly human. We have the wonderful ability to get excited, and to find joy in the smaller details in life. Whether it’s a certain song, a certain type of food, or anything else, what would life be if we each couldn’t enjoy them?

For me, the day that I stop getting excited over the perfect foam, is when I know that I have my priorities completely in the wrong place. Sometimes it can be helpful for all of us to take a few minutes, take a step back, and realize that there are always details of our lives that we can enjoy.