The Meaning Of Mechado

Wednesday. 29th of October. One minute after One. PM. I am in the middle of finishing a lunch that consists of pork mechado and brown rice. The pork mechado is left over from yesterday's dinner. Our kasambahay, Daya, has left for her annual vacation to her hometown in Bacolod and she cooked enough mechado and adobo to last us several days.

So sometime before One, I decided... make that MY MIND... my mind decided to heat it up and eat it for lunch. Not a mind-boggling, spectacular decision. Except my mind is making up this whole big deal about what I know to be just a regular meal. I'm not explaining it well. It's...

My mind's racing. It's been racing for close to 20 minutes now. You know that feeling, that you're on the verge of an important discovery, or you're about to have some kind of life changing epiphany? That feeling of anticipation, on the verge of a Eureka moment... and yet, you know, you know, there's no meaning to be had, to be found, to be created... in mechado!

There are no epiphanies in brown rice! Heating up a meal made of left overs is NOT up there with undertaking your life's most important research study! It won't get you the ultimate brilliant idea for a script that will win the country's first Oscar for Best Original Screenplay!

Your body moves in the same slow, lethargic manner you usually have, but your mind--at least the part that does not contain, imprison, YOU--says and feels otherwise. You're all jumpy and nervous and excited inside a sluggishly moving body. You're waiting for that Zen moment--which you know will never happen because moments of Zen don't come to those who expect.

Expectation is the antithesis of Zen.

You know this, yet your mind is telling your body to behave otherwise, to act like you're on the verge of a profound realization. But your body just can't get with your mind's current programme.

You feel incongruent. Discordant. Unreal.

You just have to wait this out, this excruciating moment of feeling like something's going to happen while knowing, being entirely convinced, that something never will.

Mechado sucks.

Nakainom Ako Ng Melamine!!!

Thanks to last night's news, I found out that we've been consuming milk laced with melamine these past few months. See, we switched over from Milk Magic low fat milk to Jolly Cow Slender low fat milk because the latter was, ahem, cheaper. And since we mistakenly assumed that it is always a wise decision to go cheaper if you can, especially during these times, we started buying Jolly Cow low fat milk. It didn't taste any different and, prior to last night's announcement, we've consumed probably around 4 cartons of it over a period of several months. We used it mostly for oatmeal, of which mama ate the most. When news about melamine in milk went around, we stopped drinking it just to be on the safe side, but when BFAD announced that Jolly Cow regular milk was found negative of melamine, I guess we figured it's probably the same results for the low fat kind since these were the same brand, from the same company, anyway.

Lo and behold (is it a mark of melanine poisoning to be using old fashioned, hokey phrases such as "lo and behold"?), we tuned in to last night's news only to find a health official holding up a carton of the same brand of milk we'd been consuming, yes, Jolly Cow Slender, at a press conference, announcing that said brand has been found to contain melamine.

I think my jaw dropped a hundred storeys.

A quick internet search reveals the following effects of melamine poisoning (sourced from WHO): irritability, blood in urine, little or no urine, signs of kidney infection, and high blood pressure. I think I'm safe from every one of those save the first. I get easily irritated but I think that's more of a personality quirk than an effect of a chemical in my bloodstream.

In any case, it seems pointless to agonize, as my sister says, about what are really small amounts of milk we ingested in the past. And as yet, we experience nothing of the supposed effects of melamine poisoning. Maybe the chemical has been washed out of our system already. But I'm not taking any chances. No milk for me anytime soon.

Thank God for non-dairy creamer.

Wait, non-dairy creamer doesn't have milk in it. Ergo, it can't possibly have melamine, right?

Is paranoia an effect of melamine poisoning?

"Methinks it is, lassie!" says the voice in my head.

ARGGHHH!!!