Tentacles and my body don't like each other

Several years ago, I discovered that eating calamari gave me gut-wrenching stomach pains. Seriously bad, you wish you could tear out your stomach kind of pain. So, I've stayed away from calamari since then.

Enter yesterday's lunch at work. One of my friends volunteered to get kelaguen at the fisherman's co-op for lunch. We were all about that! So tired of eating at the establishments around school and forget the overpriced cafeteria! Fish kelaguen and octopus kelaguen straight from the co-op. Some of you might be thinking, "EW!" I know my friend Jill just about puked when I emailed her this morning. And, her response was more, "EEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWW."

Any Chamorro or Guamanian worth his or her salt with feast on kelaguen anything (making it is a different story). Kelaguen is a dish more commonly made with barbecued chicken, grated coconut, onions, hot pepper and lemon. I like mine without hot pepper and not a lot of coconut because I hate the taste of coconut and only tolerate it in kelaguen because the lemon kills the taste. You can make kelaguen out of anything, really--fish, beef, chicken, deer, shrimp...my mouth waters at the thought. Oh, the octopus kelaguen tasted so good!! I was fine yesterday, last night...until somewhere in the middle of the night...... OUCH. Stomach pain. I guess when my body was digesting the stuff, it didn't like the octopus. I spent most of the day with a tummy ache and a head ache. The list of things my body is sensitive to keeps growing...why couldn't my body not like cookies or candy instead?!?!