MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Break, break, break! Too much already! Did we take one step forward, only to take two steps back? After an unending series of monotonously named lockdowns, it feels like we’re back where we started on March 15, 2020. True, more vaccines but also more deadly variants. Our doctors and nurses, working 16 hours a day at a ratio of one nurse for every 12 patients, overworked and underpaid or not at all, and with more of them quitting, their colleagues will be forced to pick up the slack. Not the way to treat our heroes. My friend was all ready to tie the knot when the last ECQ forced him and his bride to postpone the wedding. It was their third postponement, but one greeting from a wellwisher was more than positive, “How come you’re looking younger?” The bridegroom-to-be’s explanation: “I don’t watch the news, it’s all bad anyway.” No need for everyone to postpone a wedding just to look younger, but we can delay or postpone the bad news coming out of the screen. What good news is there? Well, the Ghost Month will end on Sept. 6. If government heeds the call of private business to “spare” the last quarter – that is, no “heightened” restrictions on economic activity – millions of workers and entrepreneurs will have something to look forward to, something as wonderful as Christmas. Without leaving the house, enjoy lower temperatures (and cheaper electricity bills); catch Dr. Samuel Alibrando, naturalist, and his 90-second gems on the sophistication behind nature’s fantastic but functional design structures (DZFE mornings between 10:15 and 10:30); clear the clutter to let the house breathe. Best of all, join in the spirit of September-to-remember by ordering moon cakes. They have a charm all their own, just look at the art that goes with the tart. They come in pretty boxes, like the red-and gold ones of Hilton Manila, with die-cut, lace-like moon portals. By themselves the ingredients are a feast of red bean paste, lotus seeds, salted egg (representing the “moon”), mixed nuts. Sept. 21, a full-moon night, is the festival of the harvest moon. A pity that locked-down families  won’t be playing the August Moon dice game, where the supreme prize is a hopia as big as the moon.