When words are hard to come by…

. . . post a picture instead.

Bad, Beng

I’ve been bad.

And I am reaping the consequences of my bad behavior. But I have willingly submitted myself to the penalty of my wrongdoing by coming up to my two officemates with my sacrificial tin can holding my most treasured treats.

“Sa inyo na lang ito. Ubusin nyo na.” (You can have this. Eat everything.) I say this to them while feeling my throat, trying  to determine if my tonsils are swollen already. (Upon closer inspection—thanks to a mirror—I confirm that the twins are.)

The recipients of my forced generosity laugh at me. Both know me too well. And even if I am acting as their boss for a time (in the absence of our department’s real top boss), that did not stop them from ribbing me: “Kung di pa sumakit yang lalamunan mo, di mo kami maiisip bigyan ano?” (If your throat didn’t hurt, you wouldn’t think of giving us some, right?)

How could they accuse me of such?  How could they? Don’t they know about the verse in the Bible that says we should not judge? (*wipe tear*) But I don’t blame them because I am . . .

Guilty as charged.

Two nights ago, I bought a bar of chocolate to add to my birthday gift to a friend. And while I was surrounded in SM by chocolates of every brand (our own lowly Chocnut was even represented there), I decided to buy for myself too:  A 200-gram tin can of Van Houten’s Assortment (VH was established in Switzerland in 1828 and was classified as the best Chocolate in the world). I tried to convince myself that I was buying it for the can. Wow, imagine the knickknacks that I can keep here. How useful!

And so I wasted no time in consuming its contents to use the can(!). Been gobbling chocolates for three days already. This afternoon, with the can’s contents down to half, I experience a slight discomfort in swallowing.

Deja-vu. This has happened before.  I ate too much chocolates, too fast, again.

What should I do? Give away the source of my pain (after it has become a source of my joy) and let myself heal. Done! Now I’m considering putting on a sackcloth, shaving my head, scraping a broken piece of pottery in my skin ala Job of the Old Testament while reciting this mantra three times a day, morning, noon and night:

“Don’t eat too much chocolates. Don’t eat too much chocolates. Don’t eat too much chocolates.”

Bad, Beng. Bad. Yet I don’t have to be defined by my weaknesses (for chocolates, in particular). Just wait and see. For a week, I won’t eat any chocolates. And my abstinence won’t have to make me feel weak. Someone infinitely greater than me can help me. Lord, save me from myself. I love You more than chocolates.

The woman with no left hand

She was standing two feet away from me. As the escalator was going up, I turned my head to the right and noticed. The lady, around 50-ish, does not have a left hand. All she had was a smooth stump that ended her wrist. I tried hard not to look. But my curiosity got the better of me. So I saw that on her handless forearm slung a plastic package, plus her handbag. She was laughing, with two of her companions providing the punchline to a joke.

We went our separate ways when we reached the second floor level. But my thoughts stayed with woman with no left hand. How did she lose it? When? When she was sixteen, or when she was thirty-two? Did she figure in an accident, or was it from an obscure flesh-eating disease?

If I had the nerve and no risk of being mistaken for a crazed woman, I’d stop her. And ask her who she is, where she’s from, what she does. And then, if I’d have earned her trust, I’d ask her if we can continue the conversation. And then one day, maybe she’d feel safe enough in my company to tell me the story behind her missing hand.

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There are as many stories waiting to be read as there are human beings on planet Earth. Because every person, without exception, is a story waiting to be told. Indulge me for a moment and imagine people walking around as if they were books.  Wouldn’t that be exciting? What books would catch your fancy and what books will get enveloped in dust? Can you forgo sleep just to read through, nay, spend time with, one book that you just cannot put down?

For five minutes tonight, I wanted to read only one book: hers. And discover the story of the woman with no left hand. For all I know, hers might be the story of a mother, a wife, and a daughter whose body might be broken but whose soul is whole.

Crazy cooking

The moment I alighted from the bus and saw how the cars seem to be parked where they were instead of moving, I knew. Stay. In SM. Do…whatever.

Good thing that in my bag is my wifi-enabled netbook. My inner geekhood whispered to me, “Use it. Surf the net while having dinner. ” (Shopping, I realized, do not appeal to me when I’m in a hotspot.)

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I did something crazy this lunchtime. My officemate Ian couldn’t believe that I will actually do what I did. Thirty minutes before lunchtime, I announced  that I was planning to cook my  food. Saute corned beef in garlic and onion in the oven toaster. Zap scrambled eggs in the microwave.  He was laughing, shaking his head and probably thinking like I was nuts. “This, I gotta see,” he said. (Oo, yun talaga ang sinabi niya. Inglesero yun eh.)

He wasn’t alone in his estimation of my craziness. Our British consultant Ate Lindy saw me in the pantry, in the middle of my cooking. She asked me something like, “You really think it’s easier to do that than ask Bing to buy your ulam?”  (Oo, yun din talaga sinabi niya. Siya naman, marunong magtagalog. British yun ha?!) Well, of course, I knew asking someone to buy me food from the corner canteen is so much easier. But then, where is the challenge in that? And besides, cooking makes me happy. Yes, even if my “kitchen” is just a small, cramped pantry and all I have for ingredients are two eggs, a tiny can of corned beef, a bottle of oil, and a bulb of onion and a head of garlic. Plus salt. Iodized salt to make me smarter (!). [PS: I think the last ingredient didn't work.]

My culinary exercise this lunchtime proved to me how stubborn I can sometimes get. That when I decide to do something, I will do it no matter what it takes. Even if it seems foolish or impossible or hard to do by others’ standard. But hey, don’t you think it was a good challenge? For who doesn’t love to bite on a challenge every now and then? And oh, did I enjoy spoonfuls of this challenge. With rice.

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The Pizza Hut crew is now pulling down the restaurant’s shutters. My cue to start packing my trusty netbook and be on my way home. By now, the traffic situation should have improved. I thank God for small joys such as this: An unplanned time to be by myself and do some thinking. Yes, even if my thinking is directed at something so inconsequential as my crazy, culinary stint.